Welcome To OutStanding
About Our Customer
We know travel can be an inspiring experience, and we also know a lot of work goes into making a successful journey vs. one remembered for the wrong reasons.
Our customers are looking for the ultimate experience, a little adventure, and some mega relaxation. You don’t want the added stress of planning out your entire vacation. Hours agonizing over picking the best place to stay, sights to see and restaurants to try does not sound like your idea of fun. Our customers can trust us to tailor make the best itinerary possible for them. We find out exactly what your interests are in Costa Rica and then we work hard to make your dreams a reality.
Our customized packages include the essential experiences while leaving room for you to pick from the best options we set forth to you. We know our passengers have an adventurous flare and want to lay their head to rest somewhere comfortable and unique at the end of an exciting day. You want to feel inspired by your surroundings. You want to be in places that motivate you to live your best life and keep having thrilling experiences.
Our customers are sisters, best friends, lovers, honeymooners, families, friends, and groups of like minded people looking for a well thought out experience of a lifetime.
About Us
Thanks for taking the interest to get to know us, the people behind the travel company.
We are a husband and wife team working together to create truly outstanding experiences in Costa Rica. Together we have over 20 years experience in tourism throughout Costa Rica, so it’s not surprising that we stumbled across each other only a couple of times before we decided to pair up in life and business.
Meet Allie
Although I don’
t sound like it anymore, I am Canadian. My friends and family (and even passengers I just met) tell me I speak with a Latin American accent. I’m not surprised, I’m actually incredibly proud. I first came to Central America in 2011 to work as a Tour Leader for an adventure travel company that had me running groups of spirited travelers from Mexico City to Panama City. I lead more than 1000 passengers over a 5 year period. It was the adventure of a lifetime, and I am so glad I got to live it (I’m also glad I get to come home to my husband and my dog most days now). That experience taught me invaluable lessons about travelling and the traveller. I had to learn to predict the needs of my passengers ahead of time and how to solve anything that came at us in a moments notice because I knew every moment on vacation was precious.
I will never forget the first time I arrived to Costa Rica in 2012 after having hit every other country on the way down from Mexico, I was in love, and I hadn’t even met Leo yet. The landscape was certainly breathtaking. There was no lack of variety of beaches, forests and mountains, but what I really loved was the people, known to be some of the happiest in the world. The carefree, relaxed attitude of Costa Ricans captured me and I knew I wanted to settle down here someday with a happy Costa Rican man, perhaps start a business of our own together and create our own dream life. I remember actually saying something like that outloud, but at the time I had a lot more exploring and learning to do, and then like my own self-fulfilling prophecy, I eventually met the happy Costa Rican fellow and we did just that.
Meet Leo
I grew up in Monteverde, in the cloud-forest of Costa Rica. As I was growing up in this small mountain town, tourism was just slowly growing in Costa Rica. International schools became popular and English became important. One of my first jobs was in one of the fancy hotels as a receptionist. I started to meet people from around the world everyday. My second, third and fourth jobs were all directly in the tourism and hospitality sector. I was a bartender, waiter, receptionist, manager and finally a tour guide, which I have loved the most.
My jobs took me to all parts of Costa Rica and I was continually amazed by the beauty of my own country. I once almost saw a Jaguar, which is not something many people can say. The jaguar had just passed by my lodge as I had arrived in Corcovado. It must have smelt the lunch cooking up in the restaurant because the cook was white as a ghost as she explained having actually seen the jaguar lurking by only minutes before.
After having so many incredibly rich experiences of my own in Costa Rica and getting to interact with visitors who have come to explore Costa Rica from all over the world, and getting to have an impact their experiences, I knew I had to share a bigger part of my country and myself with those coming to explore Costa Rica.
How did Leo and Allie meet?
Leo and I first met when I was tour leading. He was the receptionist at a hotel in Monteverde where I used to stay with my groups. We never became anything more than acquaintances at the time, but we both clearly remembered each other when we remet years later at a mutual friend’s barbeque.
I was back in Costa Rica, this time as a blogger representing one of my best gals from Hopscotchtheglobe on a press trip themed weddings and honeymoons no less. I came down a few days early to catch up with old friends and that’s how I ended up at this bbq with Leo.
We struck up infatuated conversation about our hopes and goals and quickly found out we both wanted to create something unique, and something of our own. We agree this is partly what pushed us into love with each other.
Unfortunately, after the press trip, I was due back in Canada, so Leo and I spent the next 4 months getting to know each other better over skype and whatsapp before we decided to be together under the same roof in March 2015.
We started working together to create OutStanding and guided our first private trip together in September 2016. Since then we have successfully created and executed many honeymoons, family vacations, romantic escapes and friendly getaways under our own brand and are excited to see our small business grow while getting to do what we love. We also made our partnership in matrimony official in March 2017 in a small ceremony near where we live in Puntarenas, Costa Rica.
