The Howler Turns 30: Three Decades of Telling the Costa Rica Story

The Howler Turns 30: Three Decades of Telling the Costa Rica Story

There are certain publications that become more than just magazines or websites. Over time, they become part of the fabric of the place they cover, a record of the people, businesses, changes and stories that help define a community. In Guanacaste, The Howler is one of those publications.

We have had the pleasure of being part of that story ourselves. In early 2021, Tres Amigos Realty Group and Tank Tops Flip Flops began a marketing partnership with The Howler as it was making the transition from its traditional print magazine to a digital, online-only publication. It was an interesting moment for a publication that had spent nearly 25 years putting ink on paper, but it also turned out to be the beginning of an entirely new chapter.

Tank Tops Flip Flops Newsletter edition no. 254

Now, as The Howler celebrates its 30th anniversary, we thought it was worth taking a look back at just how far this particular piece of Guanacaste history has come.

It Started in a Very Different Guanacaste

The Howler began in 1996, when David Mills created the publication in Tamarindo to serve Costa Rica’s Gold Coast. At the time, it was the first English-language publication in the Guanacaste area, providing a voice for the growing community of international residents, travelers and businesses discovering this remarkably undeveloped stretch of Pacific coastline.

It is difficult for anyone arriving in Guanacaste today to imagine just how different things were back then. Tamarindo did not have paved roads, public phones or a bank branch. Playas del Coco was somewhat more established, with a bank branch and a handful of public phones, but even here the region was still a long way from the sophisticated tourism and real estate destination it would eventually become.

There were fewer roads, fewer businesses, fewer tourists and considerably fewer people contemplating whether they should buy a piece of Costa Rica and make it home. What there was, however, was a growing community of people who saw something special in Guanacaste and wanted to be part of it.

The Howler gave that community a voice.

What began as a modest two-page flyer eventually grew into a full magazine covering the people, businesses, events and developments shaping the region. The name itself came from one of Guanacaste’s most recognizable residents—the howler monkey—whose remarkably powerful call seemed like an appropriate symbol for a publication determined to make the story of Costa Rica heard.

Growing Alongside Guanacaste

The history of The Howler is inseparable from the transformation of Guanacaste itself.

By 1999, the publication had grown from its early eight-page editions into a 28-page magazine with advertising and distribution throughout Guanacaste. By 2001, it had reached 36 pages, complete with full-color covers and increasingly extensive color content.

During those years, the region was changing rapidly. Tourism was expanding, surf communities were becoming established, restaurants and businesses were opening, and the first major waves of international investment and real estate development were beginning to reshape the coast.

The Howler documented all of it.

It covered the beach towns and the people who lived in them. It introduced readers to local businesses and personalities, followed the growth of tourism and real estate, highlighted wildlife and conservation, and captured the unmistakable Pura Vida character that attracted so many people to Guanacaste in the first place.

For the international community, The Howler became a way to understand not just where they had moved, but the community they were becoming part of.

That distinction matters.

The story was never simply about expats living in Costa Rica. It was about a mixed local and international community developing together, learning from one another and creating something that was distinctly Guanacaste.

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From Something You Could Hold to Something You Could Find Anywhere

For many years, The Howler was a physical part of daily life in Guanacaste. Copies were distributed through restaurants, hotels, businesses, tour operators, real estate offices and other gathering places throughout the region.

At one point, approximately 2,500 copies were being printed each month, reaching thousands of readers.

But the world around the magazine was changing.

The internet was transforming how people discovered information. Social media was changing how communities communicated. Search engines were changing how people found stories. And eventually, smartphones made virtually everything accessible from almost anywhere.

In 2016, John Quam acquired The Howler and continued the legacy established by David Mills while helping guide the publication toward its next stage of development.

Then came 2020, when the pandemic accelerated the transition to digital media that was already underway. The Howler launched its digital magazine platform, opening the door to a readership that was no longer limited by the number of printed copies that could be distributed around Costa Rica.

The question was no longer simply how many people in Costa Rica could pick up the magazine.

It became a much bigger question: how many people around the world wanted to know more about Costa Rica?

The answer, as it turns out, is quite a few.

The Story Became Much Bigger

Today, The Howler has evolved into a digital media platform covering a remarkably broad range of Costa Rican life and culture. Travel and adventure, real estate, business, Pura Vida, wildlife, arts and culture, food and dining, fashion, surf, legal and residency information, community stories and the Costa Rican lifestyle all have a place within its pages—or, more accurately these days, its digital platform.

There is another significant difference between the old magazine and today’s digital publication.

A printed magazine had a limited lifespan. Once the next month’s issue arrived, the previous one gradually disappeared from circulation.

A digital story can continue to be discovered long after it was published.

Someone researching Costa Rica from Canada can find an article about life in Guanacaste. A future resident in the United States can discover information about residency or communities. A traveler planning a first visit can find stories about beaches, wildlife and adventures. Someone halfway around the world can learn about Costa Rican culture, food or real estate without ever having seen a physical copy of the magazine.

The Howler’s digital platform now publishes content in 11 languages, further expanding the reach of those stories beyond the English-speaking audience that originally formed its readership.

What started as a local publication for the Gold Coast has become a way of sharing Costa Rica with an international audience.

Thirty Years of Change

Perhaps the most impressive part of The Howler’s history is not simply that it has survived for 30 years. It is that it has continually adapted to an environment that has changed almost as dramatically as Guanacaste itself.

The publication has evolved from a two-page flyer to a substantial print magazine and ultimately into a digital media platform. Photography and design have advanced, the range of subjects has expanded, articles can now be discovered through search engines and social media, and multimedia and multilingual content have opened the door to audiences far beyond Costa Rica.

Throughout all of those changes, however, the underlying mission has remained remarkably consistent: tell the story of Costa Rica through the people, places and experiences that make the country unique.

That means telling the story through its beaches and mountains, wildlife and conservation, restaurants and businesses, culture and communities. It means telling the stories of the people who live here, the people who visit and the people who are considering making Costa Rica part of their own lives.

In many ways, that is exactly what The Howler has been doing since 1996.

A Record of Where We Came From

For those of us who have been around Guanacaste for a while, there is another reason the 30-year milestone feels significant.

The Howler has documented a version of Guanacaste that no longer exists.

It captured the region when many of today’s communities were still small beach towns, when development was measured in a very different way and when the idea of Guanacaste becoming an international destination was still in its early stages.

It also documented the changes as they happened.

The growth of tourism. The emergence of real estate. The arrival of new businesses. The increasing international community. The continuing importance of local culture and traditions. The growing awareness of conservation. The evolution of towns such as Tamarindo, Flamingo, Playas del Coco and the communities in between.

In that sense, The Howler has become something of a historical record—not necessarily because it set out to document history, but because it was there while history was happening.

From the Gold Coast to the World

Thirty years ago, The Howler was a small local publication serving a relatively small community in a very different Guanacaste.

Today, it reaches a worldwide audience with more than 1.6 million article reads each month.

That is quite a journey.

At Tank Tops Flip Flops, we are particularly happy that The Howler made that journey successfully and that we have had the opportunity to be part of its more recent transition. Local publications face enormous challenges in today’s media environment, and many have disappeared along the way. The fact that The Howler has not only survived but continued to grow is something worth celebrating.

Guanacaste has changed enormously since 1996, but many of the reasons people came here in the first place remain remarkably familiar. The beaches are still spectacular. The wildlife is still everywhere. The sunsets still stop people in their tracks. And there is still that same Pura Vida spirit that makes people arrive as visitors and, before they know it, start wondering how they might stay.

The Howler has been telling that story for three decades.

From a two-page flyer in Tamarindo to a digital publication reaching readers around the world, it has adapted to changing technology, changing communities and a changing Costa Rica while remaining connected to the place that started it all.

So, from all of us at Tank Tops Flip Flops and Tres Amigos Realty Group, congratulations to The Howler on 30 years.

Thanks for documenting the journey, for giving Guanacaste a voice, and for helping share the story of this remarkable corner of Costa Rica with the rest of the world.

Here’s to the next chapter—and whatever Guanacaste decides to become along the way.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Howler.

Thanks for the partnership, guys.

COME ON DOWN BABY!

Michael Simons