Who we are

In the field since 2009.

Founder-led, with a handful of trusted guides and seventeen years of routes learned on foot — and a quiet rule that we never sell a journey we haven't first run ourselves.

Origin

A different kind of operator.

We started My Adventure Costa Rica because we believed something rare in this country could be done well: combining the seriousness of true endurance travel with the quietness of true luxury. Most operators choose one register. We refused.

The brief we set ourselves was simple. No groups larger than eight. No outsourced guiding. No itinerary we hadn't field-tested ourselves. Every lodge on the route is one we've slept in. Every kilometre of trail is one we've personally run, hiked, or ridden. Every meal has an origin we can name.

That standard sets the size of the company. It will never scale into a generalist tour operator. We don't want it to. The aim is the opposite: to become the name a small number of discerning travellers think of when they imagine the most demanding way through Costa Rica.

— Esteban Umaña Pérez, Founder

The team in the field

On every trail. Personally.

Founder & CEO

Esteban Umaña Pérez

He didn't start a company to lead trips. He started one because the trips he wanted to take — multi-day, multi-discipline, threaded through a region rather than parked at a hotel — kept not existing. The blueprint came from adventure racing: a team of four crossing a place on foot, on bike, on water, by map and compass. The hosted version is what this company became.

The disciplines came decades before the brand: on a mountain bike since 1994, running trails since 2008, in the water since school and under it — scuba certified — at fifteen. Professionally, he has worked Costa Rica's outdoor sport circuit since 2009 supporting races of every kind, became a guide in 2014, and from 2017 spent years as a full-time travel concierge designing bespoke journeys — selling his own judgment long before it had a name on the door.

He still competes himself — XTERRA triathlon, mountain bike stage races, trail ultras to 100 km, multi-day trail-running stage races, road marathons, cyclocross — which is the simplest explanation for why every kilometre on an itinerary has already been tested.

Detail-oriented to the point of perfectionism — the reason every transfer has a contingency and every kilometre of trail has been tested in person.

Specialisations: trail running expeditions, multi-sport itineraries, custom journeys for endurance athletes and serious travellers.

Programs · Collaborator

Mario Sánchez Rodríguez

Sculptor by profession; event operator by season. Has staffed IRONMAN transition zones for several years and worked race operations across Costa Rica. A friend of Esteban for more than two decades.

The kind of person who carries an artist's eye for proportion into a logistics tent — careful, present, and unhurried in the moments that matter.

Carried by our guides & operators

The certifications a risk officer reads for.

Esteban guides as a Wilderness First Responder, with years of cross-discipline field experience — whitewater rafting, dive leadership, lifeguarding, swiftwater and technical rope rescue. He does not run every technical segment himself; he assembles the right people for each. Whitewater, diving, and rope work are operated by licensed local outfitters who carry the current certifications their discipline requires.

Wilderness First Responder
CPR / AED / Basic Life Support
Swiftwater Rescue Technician
Leave No Trace
IRF Raft Guide (Levels 2–4, Trip Leader)
PADI Divemaster
PADI Instructor
NAUI Instructor
Rescue Diver

Carried as a registered Costa Rican tour operator (S.R.L.), with civil-liability cover in force and our subcontracted operators carrying their own. We are also available to provide referrals to past guests, school programs, and corporate clients under non-disclosure.

A note on the country

Why here.

Costa Rica fits less than one tenth of one percent of the world's land area and holds nearly five percent of its biodiversity. That ratio is the answer to most questions about why an expedition operator would choose to specialise in just this country.

It also explains the texture. The trails change ecosystem every two hours of walking — cloud forest at dawn, dry tropical at lunch, coastal singletrack by dusk. The rivers change discipline within a single day. The mountains rise from the Caribbean to over three thousand seven hundred metres and drop back to the Pacific in less than two hundred kilometres horizontally. You can run a marathon across three life zones before lunch and finish at sea level by the time the sun goes down.

And the country itself is the right size for the brand. Small enough that we can guarantee operational excellence on every kilometre. Large enough that we will never run out of itineraries to design. Stable enough that risk planning is calibrated, not improvised. Beautiful enough that we still get goose bumps on the first morning of every expedition, twelve years in.