Wanna Live in Costa Rica for a Month?

Would you like to travel and live in Costa Rica for a month? How about if I told you that you can get accommodation and transportation paid for, as well as day tours and other extras? What do 1000€ in cash for expenses sound like? Interested? Read along…

Experts in Central and South America, adventure  travel company Viventura is currently holding a contest called “Blog Your Way to Paradise” by which you can win a one month trip to Costa Rica and at least 1000€ in cash for expenses.  The contest is open to anyone with a blog either in English or Spanish, and to enter all you have to do is report about the campaign in your blog and convince the team why YOU should be the person chosen to travel with them, just like I’m doing right now. Yup, I’m also entering the contest, even though I have been in Costa Rica before, but it has been quite some time since I was last there and I’d love to go back and check on the Ticos.

Why Should I Be the Winner?

Dear Viventura friends, don’t look further. The following seven reasons will be compelling enough.

• Yes, I have been to Costa Rica before, but last time I was there was 9 years ago, and from what I’ve been told things have changed a lot, the most common complaint being that it’s very expensive now. Frankly I think people exaggerate, so I have to see it this is true and report accordingly.
• I’m passionate about nature, travel, sports and the outdoors. This blog is good proof of it, and where else can I do all this at the same time but in Costa Rica? Pura Vida!
• I surf. And I know that there’s good surf in Costa Rica ( surfed a bit when I was there).
• I had always thought that Ticos are the nicest people in the world, until I went to Taiwan and thought Taiwanese are the winners. It’s an important title, so I should go back to check on this too.
• I have experience working with travel companies and tourism bureaus, and understand what organizations in the travel business want and how to reach an audience that can relate to them. Creating good synergy is very important when brands want to reach new customers.
• My blog has a strong audience. With almost half a million readers per year who are interested in adventure travel and photography my site is a great platform from which to expose Costa Rica to the world.
• MaiTravelSite is also very active in Social Media, including Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, with thousands of followers for each site. Besides writing article and taking pictures I film short videos in HD to show where I travel and to promote businesses in the travel industry. By the way, would there be internet?
• I understand the importance of SEO, and often my articles with links to collaborating businesses rank in the first SERPs of important keywords, creating a flow of traffic to them, and thus possibly new clients.
• I would take this opportunity to research and write a guide for Costa Rica to include in my travel guides page, which are available for free in my site. Guides for Mexico and Colombia are available as of now, plus a free ebook with all my long term travel secrets. Soon to be published will be a guide for Ecuador, another for Australia and should I win this contest Costa Rica would be next. It’s a way of helping other travelers like us learn more about their destination at zero cost, and giving something back to all the readers.

So, what’s next? If you have a blog and want to participate in this contest you can learn about the contest rules here.  Otherwise if you don’t have a blog and are reading this via RSS, email or just happened to land here but would like me to win(cause you do don’t you?) I promise I’ll send you a postcard from there if  you leave a comment below and I am the winner 🙂

Update 25/10/2012: I did not win 🙁