Costa Rica has an interesting police division called the Tourist Police. They are specifically trained to help tourists, speak multiple languages (at least a little bit) and they are concentrated in Costa Rica's tourist destinations, but are moved about frequently to avoid potential corruption or habituation. Being the number one tourist destination in Guanacaste (northwestern province of Costa Rica)* Tamarindo is fortunate enough to have a handful of these tourist police present. They are easy to spot- usually on bicycles, wearing yellow shirts.

*Tamarindo is occasionally called the number 1 tourist destination in Costa Rica, but that is hard to quantify. The "in Guanacaste" part is easy.

Anyway, I'm a big fan. They seem to have made a noticeable difference in our crime rate and I often see them stopping to ask distressed-looking tourists if "everything is ok?". Nice.

They sent out a flyer recently with some travel safety tips. These are pretty basic and apply to many areas, but it never hurts to remind people.

Labels: news