Why Costa Rica Became a Celebrity Favorite Without Even Trying
Certain destinations earn their reputation through glossy campaigns and heavily engineered PR. Costa Rica earned its the other way around. The A-listers arrived for their low-key vacations, the private villas filled up, and word got out incredibly fast. No announcement needed, and no multi-million dollar tourism campaign required either.
Because when it comes to top-end luxury vacations, Costa Rica sells itself.
A COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T PERFORM FOR THE CAMERA
Costa Rica has never tagged itself as a celebrity playground. What it always offered turned out to be far more enticing: space, discretion, and extraordinary natural beauty. Along our stretch of Pacific coastline is where you can watch humpback whales breach from a clifftop terrace, wake up to howler monkeys, or surf a break that sees fewer people in a week than most Californian beaches see before breakfast. People who choose Costa Rica aren’t searching for attention or glossy extras, they just want the kind of privacy and discretion only a luxury Costa Rica mansion offers, spectacular surroundings, and a laid-back lifestyle that recharges their batteries.
We see the wonderful effects this has on our guests. We’ve had people who come for the surf and end up buying property, and ones who come for a wedding return every year for family vacations. Costa Rica’s lifestyle and nature are incredibly refreshing.
About a quarter of the country’s land mass is protected reserve, and it holds nearly 6% of the world’s biodiversity. This amazing land we call home is all about nature and far less about built-up megacities. For people who are recognized everywhere they go, that kind of anonymity is priceless.
Costa Rica also sits within one of the world’s five Blue Zones, areas identified by longevity researchers for their unusually long-lived populations and distinctly healthy ways of living. That detail speaks volumes about the pace and quality of life that draws people who are trying to feel well, not just look well. Life functions differently here, and visitors feel it within a day or two. That’s what keeps high-profile guests coming back and, often, coming back to buy.
THE NAMES THAT KEEP APPEARING
The affection celebrities have for Costa Rica is well-known. Gisele Bündchen owns a property in Santa Teresa on the Nicoya Peninsula, a home she kept after her divorce and has described as her hideaway from the unrelenting pace of her former life. She surfs, does yoga on the beach, and spends whole days with her children doing nothing particularly notable, which we suspect might be the best part for her.
Gal Gadot brought her family to Nosara to celebrate NYE in 2024, and around the same time, Shawn Mendes was snapped on Guiones Beach.
Also that month, Morgan Freeman spent several days in Guanacaste, dining at local restaurants and moving through the province with the ease of someone who had been there before. The region has also seen Justin and Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner gather for a wedding celebration in Tamarindo, an event that generated social media coverage largely because of how relaxed everyone appeared.
The Hollywood Reporter has documented visits from Reese Witherspoon, Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon, and Shakira, among others. Just your run-of-the-mill famous people choosing a destination because it delivers something their everyday lives seldom do.
And as of THIS week, you can add Jeff Bezos to the list, too. He and his wife Lauren Sánchez flew into Liberia’s Daniel Oduber Airport on March 27, with his $500 million superyacht Koru already anchored in the Gulf of Papagayo, accompanied, naturally, by its 75-metre support yacht. When your spare boat costs $75 million, you’ve probably earned the right to call Costa Rica your holiday destination of choice.
We love seeing celebrities in Costa Rica enjoying themselves because we know how difficult it must be to find a little slice of paradise where they’re just left alone.
WHAT ELSE DO CELEBRITIES IN COSTA RICA SEEK?
There’s a pattern in where celebrities choose to stay, and it’s not the lobby bars of famous resorts or the places with the most Instagram-ready pools. All opt for private estates, usually in gated properties; the kind of luxury Costa Rica mansions where the only guests are the people they chose to bring.
That choice is very specific, because ‘privacy’ is something you can get by locking yourself up in a glitzy resort room. But celebrities in Costa Rica want more freedom than that; they come here because they seek a space where they don’t have to double-think everything they do. To have breakfast in a swimsuit, to change plans at noon, to stay up late, or sleep in without a checkout clock running. Access to that kind of freedom is rare for people whose professional lives are almost entirely public-facing. That’s something that a shared hotel environment, however beautifully designed, just cannot deliver.
WHY THE ESTATE MATTERS AS MUCH AS THE DESTINATION
Costa Rica might well be a spectacular backdrop, but what dictates the experience is the property you choose to stay. The difference between a good trip and one people talk about for years often comes down to the Costa Rica mansion itself, its layout, its staff, and how well it hosts a group of people together over several days.
At The Point Luxury Villa in Tamarindo, we’ve seen how good a trip can be when all the stars align exactly right. Guests arrive as a group of individuals and leave as something closer to a tribe. The concierge and butler team manages everything in the background, from your arrival and tailored meals to excursions, and the hundred small details that would otherwise take up mental space.
We’ve hosted groups that arrived as a loose collection of people who hadn’t really spent quality time together, and we’ve seen how they left having made a strong connection. That happens because a week in one private space, with no schedule pulling people in different directions, creates something a single evening or a formal gathering never quite manages.
We had the pleasure of hosting Bachelor alum Cassie Randolph and musician Brighton Reinhardt for their wedding in December 2025, with 70 guests gathered under string lights on the villa grounds. The couple had stayed with us at The Point Luxury Villa a few years earlier on a family vacation and, when it came time to choose a wedding venue, they came straight back. That kind of return says more about a place than any review.
THE STANDARD THAT CELEBRITY TRAVEL SETS
There’s a reason the celebrity travel whisper keeps returning to Costa Rica, and it isn’t simply that it’s beautiful. Plenty of places are beautiful. What Costa Rica offers, and what Guanacaste in particular delivers, is a combination of natural environment, authentic local culture, and a level of hospitality you can’t get in a city hotel or a manufactured resort.
The world’s rich and famous could travel anywhere, but they choose here.
Thinking about bringing your own special group to Costa Rica? Contact our concierge team, and we’ll take it from there.
