Recently, I had the opportunity to take my first ever inaugural flight. Condor inaugurated twice-weekly service nonstop from Frankfurt to San Diego and they were kind enough to allow me to tag along. This was a special trip for me, as I rarely get the opportunity to fly internationally in anything but economy class, as more […]
Recently, I received a press release email from my local airport, San Diego International. The title read: ’œEdelweiss to begin nonstop seasonal service between Zurich and San Diego.’ You’ve got to love it when your local airport adds new service, but this time was a little different than usual. Normally, KSAN ’œnew service’ press releases […]
It is easy to find travel sites touting Costa Rica as the new Hawaii for tropical vacation destinations. I had intended to test this theory for some time, and see some sloths and monkeys in the process. Having found a discount fare for my girlfriend and me from Tijuana to San Jos via Guadalajara, my AvGeek/travel skills were put to use to figure out how to get from the Costa Rican capital of San Jos to our intended destination, the Pacific coast town of Quepos.
Ten seconds of Googling later, it was readily apparent that roads, road travel, car rentals, and long distance bus service in the country were less than ideal. Not expecting to find many other options, as Costa Rica is a very small country (roughly 80% the size of West Virginia), I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, but two, choices for domestic air travel in the region. SANSA Airlines (Servicios Areos Nacionales S.A.) operates a fleet of eight Cessna 208B Grand Caravans from its hub at Juan Santamaràa International Airport (SJO/MROC). As nice as a ride in a C208 sounds, I decided to go with SANSA”s main competitor, Nature Air.
I chose Nature Air for a few reasons, the most important being that they fly the De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300, as well as a few Cessna 208Bs – but more on their fleet later. Specifically, they operate the ”VistaLiner” model, with oversized windows. As if that weren”t enough to choose them, they have some of the most amazing aircraft liveries you”ll ever see!