Area Guide · Guanacaste
Las Catalinas.
A car-free, walkable beach town — Costa Rica’s most deliberate piece of design.
Area Guide · Guanacaste
A car-free, walkable beach town — Costa Rica’s most deliberate piece of design.
The Character
Las Catalinas is unlike anything else on the coast: a fully car-free, pedestrian beach town built on New Urbanist principles, where stone walkways and shaded plazas replace roads and parking lots.
Founded in 2006 on 1,200 acres of Pacific coastline, it pairs two swimmable beaches — Playa Danta and Dantita — with one of Costa Rica’s best trail systems: some 42 kilometers of hiking and mountain-biking through tropical dry forest.
It’s been called the Amalfi Coast of Costa Rica, and it trades like it — a scarce, design-led address with a real community rather than a scatter of villas.
Life Here
Car-free plazas, boutiques and cafés you reach entirely on foot.
~42 km of world-class trails, plus surfing, snorkeling and paddleboarding off Playa Danta.
About an hour from Liberia (LIR), at the north end of the Gold Coast.
Walkable, social and intentional — Europe meets the tropics.
The Opportunity
We don’t publish listings — but we do track where the real opportunities are. Here’s why Las Catalinas is on our list.
There’s no second Las Catalinas — a master-planned, car-free town is almost impossible to replicate.
A limited footprint and phased build-out keep supply tight as the town matures.
Walkability and amenities make it one of the most rentable luxury addresses on the coast.
Best for: design-minded buyers who want a walkable community and strong rental appeal.
We Have Opportunities Here
Tell us what you’re after and we’ll share what we’re seeing in Las Catalinas — including opportunities that never reach a public listing.
Common Questions
It's a fully car-free, walkable beach town built on New Urbanist principles — founded in 2006 on 1,200 acres, with plazas, two swimmable beaches and about 42 km of private hiking and mountain-biking trails. There is nothing else like it on the coast.
Its scarcity is the case: a master-planned car-free town can't easily be replicated, the footprint is deliberately limited, and walkability plus amenities make it one of the most rentable luxury addresses in Guanacaste.
Yes. Foreigners hold the same fee-simple ownership rights as Costa Rican citizens on titled land in Las Catalinas. The exception is the first 200 meters from the high-tide line (the Maritime Zone), where most land is concession-based with extra rules — your attorney verifies title before you commit.
Yes — a growing number of residents live there year-round. Restaurants, a gym, shops and community events operate inside the town, with Flamingo and Potrero minutes away for everything else.
About an hour from Liberia International (LIR), at the north end of the Gold Coast.
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