🌅 Do you want to relax between the stress of Thanksgiving and the rush of Christmas with a rejuvenating week on a tropical beach?

🌅 Want to watch baby sea turtles taking their first steps towards the ocean?

🌅 Do you want to learn more about tropical biodiversity while also improving your art skills?

🌅 Do you want to escape winter for a week and wake up to the sound of the ocean and tropical birds every morning?

🌅 Do you want to not only unlock your creativity but also contribute to citizen science and conservation?

Everything about this trip is designed to create an immersive nature experience that allows you to relax, appreciate, learn, and get in quality nature journaling time.

Imagine your feet in the warm tropical sand, a trusty piña colada by your side, your sketchbook and watercolors in hand, and the molten sun setting over the Pacific Ocean in an explosion of colors. Does this sound like your cup of tea? 

Now’s your chance to join the team for the Nature Journal Beach Vacation.

If you are the kind of person that needs alone time don’t worry. Every day is designed to have personal time to work on your direct connection with nature, develop your creative work, or just relax by the seaside.

Not enough journaling time? Check out our BUTTERFLY BLITZ trip happening in Monteverde right before!

MARLEY PEIFER

Marley is a nature journaler and educator. He longs for a reintegration of art with science and words with images, a synthesis that he develops in his journals. Nature Journaling became a fundamental practice for Marley when he discovered how it could synthesize his interests and  accelerate his learning. As an educator, Marley is constantly sharing, inspiring, and provoking learning in nature and on paper.

Experience: Over 10 years teaching, nature journal expeditions on 3 continents, more than 200 free educational videos online. Fluent in Spanish, well-traveled.

Collaboration:  Do you want to enhance the level of creativity, visual problem-solving, and observation skills at your school or organization? Do you want someone to train your educators in how to use nature journaling? Marley has trained teachers and helped launch nature journaling initiatives in California, the Amazon, Costa Rica and the Galapagos.

Approach: Do you want a fun, rich, holistic learning experience? Marley combines engaging whole-brain activities with a healthy dose of cross-cutting concepts and transferable skills, sprinkled with meta-cognitive exercises. Get a free taste in Marley's weekly

Nature Journal Show.

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NANCY MIORELLI / SCIBUGS

Nancy is a tour guide and experiential trip designer in Ecuador with 10 years of experience designing specialized science tours. Partnering up with Marley, Nancy is handling the logistics, so you can just show up to Costa Rica and enjoy your beach vacation! You'll probably be getting a bunch of emails from her along the way =)

PRE-REGISTRATION:   Join the waitlist to hold your spot by clicking the Book Now button! You'll get an official invite from me before booking goes live to the public. 

Booking officially opens publicly July 20, 2025.  

Registration Closes: August 31: 2025.

First come first serve!

Spots are limited to 12 participants! 

Trip Dates:

December 8-15, 2025  

Cost: 

2,100 USD per person All-inclusive tour package!

(Payment plan available)

$300 non refundable deposit is required to hold your space. 

To participate, you will be required to sign through We-Travel the Cancellation Policy, Code of Conduct, and Waiver. 

Is the beach not enough journaling time for you?

Do you want to visit the cloud forest and add a whole extra ecosystem to your trip?

Do you want to learn about bugs and have exclusive access to the butterfly gardens?

Add the Butterfly Blitz trip for a 4 day bug bonanza.

If you're coming from the Butterfly Blitz trip, you will have transport from Monteverde.  

✈️ Arrival Day. Fly into the Liberia Airport and get transported to nearby Hotel Villa Hermosa. Since people are arriving at different times including later in the evening we don’t have a set dinner plan.

🌅Optional gear review and itinerary review.

🌅Optional trip into Liberia to eat traditional food and do urban sketching (for early arrivals).

🌅Team building game.

🌅Time to settle in or relax.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

🏨 Relaxed morning. Breakfast at Hotel Villa Hermosa. 

🚌 Private bus to Hotel Playa Negra. 

Welcome to our home for the next six days!

🏨Settle into rooms

🌅Team building game

🎨 First class: Capturing the essence of tropical landscapes on your pages.  

🌅After lunch and siesta we will have an optional beach exploration walk. You can stay behind and relax in the hammocks by the pool. 

🌅Meet for cocktails and sunset painting before dinner.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

🌅Wake up to the sound of the ocean. 

🌅 Optional pre-breakfast nature journaling session with coffee in hand (Marley’s favorite!). 

🌅Group breakfast. 

🌿Today’s class: Botanical sketching and nature journaling plants. Rest of morning spent nature journaling the tropical beach plants. 

🌅We will do a citizen science component using iNaturalist and surveying the beach plants which are crucial for the health of beaches around the world. Choose your specimens for the afternoon. 

🌅Lunch and siesta. 

🎨🌿 Afternoon session: work on your own plant illustration from the comfort of the hotel. Meet for cocktails and sunset painting before dinner.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

 🌅Wake up to the sound of the ocean. 

 🌅Pre-breakfast session. Group breakfast. 

 🏝️Today’s class: Landscape painting level two. Marley will help you make your landscapes even better with lots of one-on-one instruction. The rest of the morning will be spent practicing painting watercolor landscapes from the beach. We might hike up the beach a ways to look for more landscape options with white beaches contrasting against dramatic black volcanic rock stretching out into the waves and tropical green vegetation dangling off the seaside cliffs. 

 🌅Lunch and siesta. 

 🎨Afternoon session: choose your own adventure or relax. 

 🌅Meet for cocktails and sunset painting before dinner. 

 🌅Optional night time nature journaling TBD.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

 🌅Wake up to the sound of the ocean. 

🌅Pre-breakfast session. Group breakfast. 

🦀 Today’s class: Amphibious nature journaling in the tide pools at nearby Playa Blanca. Marley will instruct on different approaches to nature journaling the biodiversity and beauty of the intertidal zone. There will be various options depending on your ability. From snorkeling and waterproof paper, to sitting  “jacuzzi” style in the tidepools, to sketching collected specimens from the comfort of the hotel restaurant with a cappuccino at your side. Once again, we will go beyond nature journaling just for our own enjoyment. We will do a survey of the organisms we find and contribute to citizen science by uploading the survey to iNaturalist. 

🌅Lunch and siesta. 

🎨Afternoon session: choose your own adventure or relax. 

🌅Meet for cocktails and sunset painting before dinner. 

🌅Optional night time nature journaling TBD.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

 🌅 Wake up to the sound of the ocean. 

 🌅Pre-breakfast session. 

 🌅Group breakfast. 

 🐢Today’s class: All about sea turtles! We will visit a sea turtle conservation project and learn about how they have helped thousands of turtles. If we are lucky we could see a hatching day or adult turtles laying at night. 

🌅We will have dinner at a restaurant near the beach. 

🌅Night time hike on the beach looking for sea turtles coming in to lay???

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances. 

🌅 Wake up to the sound of the ocean. We might be recovering from a late night looking for nesting turtles. 

🌅 Group breakfast.

🌴 Today’s class: Botanical sketching and illustration level two! Are you ready to go more in-depth with a polished plant illustration? Now is your chance. Marley will provide one-on-one instruction and we will have all morning to work on our specimen. 

🌅Lunch and siesta. 

🎨Afternoon session: Marley will provide tips for wrapping up your pages, adding maps, more detailed illustrations, and even some scrap-booking techniques. The idea is to get the most out of your journal pages from the trip.

🦀 If you are feeling adventurous Marley might lead a few people to nature journal crabs in the nearby mangrove.

🌅Meet for cocktails and sunset painting before dinner. 

🌅This is our last dinner together at Playa Negra so we will de something special to honor the time we have spent together. 

✈️ Departure Day. This is your last day waking up in your cozy beach-side cabin. 

🌅Say goodbye to Playa Negra’s beautiful waters.

✈️Those who are flying out today will be taken to the airport by our driver at the time that works for most people. If your flight is much earlier or much later you can decide to take your own transportation directly to the airport.

 Please note that the itinerary may be subject to change due to availability, weather, safety concerns, or other unforeseen circumstances.