|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
ABOUT TICO GUIDE TRAVEL
Tico Guide Travel specializes in planning and facilitating unique, personally-tailored eco-adventure and leisure trips to Costa Rica, for individuals and families, couples, honeymooners, and groups of 3 - 25 pax. TGT also works with group leaders (yoga teachers, professors and educators, fitness and sports trainers, family leaders) to plan and facilitate custom-tailored Eco-Adventure Sports and Activities trips, Yoga & Healing Retreats, R&R and Family trips, Conservation & Ecology trips, and Arts & Culture trips. 
Tico Guide Travel is owned and operated by Harlow "Salvador " Newton, a
bilingual Costa Rica travel specialist who has spent most of his life living
and traveling in Latin America. Salvador's personal knowledge and insight
of Costa Rica provides his clients with suggested routes, destinations,
lodging recommendations, travel tips, and personal contacts, based on their
travel lifestyle and types of activities they're looking to experience.
Based in the Bay Area, Salvador provides his clients with unique, memorable
experiences when visiting Costa Rica.
Harlow 'Salvador' Newton Owner of Tico Guide Travel Salvador's Story: I was born August 3rd, 1971 on a US military base in Landstuhl, Germany. My father was born in San Jose, Costa Rica to a Spanish/Guatemalan mother and a North American father and my mother was born in New York City to an Italian mother and a North American father. After serving his tour of duty as an officer in the United States Army in the early 70s (in the photo below I'm wearing one of my father's old Army shirts), my father returned to El Salvador to work for his father's company, which my grandfather had started in the early 1940's. I was raised in El Salvador from the age of 3 to 14, learning the language and Latin American lifestyle, and most importantly, falling in love with the people, customs and latin culture.  Salvador standing on Buenaventura Mountain, Costa Rica, October of 2005 At the age of 15, I moved to the United States to live with my mother and attended high school. Shortly after graduating from high school, I sold most of my belongings and bought a one-way ticket to the island of Guam, one of the Micronesia islands in the Pacific Ocean. My passion for travel and exploration had led me to Guam, using the island as a travel base to destinations such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and some of the neighboring Micronesian islands. A year and half later, I set my sights on San Francisco, a place I knew I could attend college, while at the same time knowing that if I wasn't traveling the world, the world would come to me. I attended San Francisco State University studying a range of subjects including Hospitality, Psychology, and Public Relations.  Tikal, Guatemala on Temple IV in July of 1996 In the fall of 1996, after a two-month "soul searching" trip from Mexico to Costa Rica, I return to San Francisco with the opportunity of starting up a company with a group of friends I had met in Guam and San Francisco. To this day, the company that we founded, SF Station.com, is San Francisco's leading online city guide. Although I am still actively involved with SF Station, my passion and love for travel and sharing travel information has lead me to pursue one of my personal dreams and start "Tico Guide Travel", a travel services company specializing in Costa Rica eco-adventure and leisure travel. 
Having visited Costa Rica on many research trips, my extensive personal knowledge of Costa Rica allows me to provide my clients with suggested routes, destinations, lodging recommendations, and personal contacts, based on their travel lifestyle, purpose, and activities they are looking to experience.
In addition to working with Costa Rica's travel industry, I founded Costa Rica Conservation Trust (CRCT), a non-profit conservation-based organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity, advocating sustainable development, and promoting ecological, cultural and educational programs that advance respectful relationships with the Earth. To date, I spend 11 months out of the year in San Francisco, overseeing operations at SFStation.com, planning client trips to Costa Rica, and raising awareness and funds for biodiversity protection with Costa Rica Conservation Trust. One month out of my year I spend traveling to Costa Rica and pick a new place to visit in the world each year. My long-term goal is to live and work in San Francisco for 6 months out of the year, lead tours and host guests at my lodge in Costa Rica (Buenaventura Eco-Adventure Rainforest Lodge & Retreat Center) for 5 months out of the year, and take a 1 month-long international trip once a year each time to a new destination. About my Family living in Costa Rica: 
On my fathers side of my family, our family has been living and doing business in Costa Rica for three generations. My grandfather Harlow Franklin Newton Sr. first arrived in Costa Rica in the early 1940s, an entrepreneur and businessman who introduced and imported some of the very first commercial tractors and heavy equipment machinery to Costa Rica. Having partnered with Caterpillar and other tractor companies, my grandfather opened and operated tractor dealerships in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras, with the names Costa Rica Machinery, Salvador Machinery, and Honduras Machinery.
To date, my father is retired and lives in Costa Rica, while my sister Tamara and brother Alex have permanently moved to Costa Rica. After being born and raised in El Salvador and spending their teen years living in Southern California, Hawaii and Arizona, Alex moved to Costa Rica in 1992, while Tamara moved in 1996. My brother Alex, a long time resident of Puerto Jimenez in the Osa Peninsula, is locally known as the "local artist & tour guide". Alex creates and sells rainforest and natural seed jewelry, toys and art souvenirs through his company Tropical Arts & Nature's Tiny Toys, and provides tours into remote places in the jungles of the Corcovado National Park and Osa Peninsula through his company Culture Tours. My sister Tamara decided at the age of 19 that she was going to raise her son Judah in a peaceful place and moved to Costa Rica when Judah was 6-months old. Now Tamara is raising her three beautiful children, Judah, Marialba and Salvador in her "dream home" she recently built. Her home, Finca Tres Semillas, also a family-style lodge for guests and travelers, is located in the remote country-side valley of River Division near the town of El Brujo and on the southern edge of the Los Santos Forest Reserve.  Salvador's brother and sisters living in Costa Rica (Kimberly, Alex, Tamara, and Salvador) Photo taken March 2004 <<< back to Home |
|
About TGT | Services | Destinations | Travel Packages |
Photo Gallery About Costa Rica | Contact TGT | Links & Resources | Home Tico Guide Travel Costa Rica Travel Specialists © 1998 - 2007 Tico Guide Travel, All Rights Reserved. |
