Blue Zone surf and yoga — the Nicoya Peninsula town that found the secret to living past 90
Nosara is a cluster of three communities on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula — the quiet village of Nosara itself, the beach town of Guiones, and the fishing village of Pelada — collectively known as one of the world's great yoga and surf destinations. The Nicoya Peninsula is one of the world's five 'Blue Zones' (regions where people statistically live longer than anywhere else), a designation that has shaped Nosara's identity as a wellness destination. Playa Guiones is a 6km arc of hard-packed sand with consistent beach break suitable for all levels of surfer.
Nosara was a cattle ranching and fishing community until the late 1960s, when a group of American retirees established the Nosara Civic Association — buying land and establishing a covenant to keep Nosara's beaches and coastal jungle free of hotel development and the roads unpaved. This founding ethos became the basis of the yoga-and-surf identity that emerged from the 1990s onward.