The story
In 1992 Ursula and Ruedi Schmid, who had run a hotel in a Swiss resort town for a decade, moved with their two children to a piece of untouched coastal forest at the far end of Tamarindo bay — then a sleepy fishing village. Three years of largely manual construction later, Capitán Suizo opened in 1995, named for the tiny island of El Capitán just offshore and for the owners' nationality. The philosophy was set from the start: keep the native trees, keep the wildlife, hire locally.
Thirty years on, the town has become one of the most built-up beaches in Costa Rica and the hotel has not moved. It still sits under Guanacaste trees where howler monkeys pass at dusk, still puts iguanas and raccoons on its paths, and still runs on what its guest-relations manager Tom Jurt calls "stability and authenticity." Condé Nast readers voted it the best hotel in Central America and the Caribbean in 2018. Chef Jujo Molina rebuilt the restaurant menu around organic, seasonal, Costa Rican ingredients; all rooms have handmade Costa Rican furniture, historic photographs, king beds and tailored mosquito nets.