A year and a half ago, Kristen Brown took a leap of faith, quit her cushy job at a big bank in New York City, and booked a ticket to Tamarindo, Costa Rica. The Pura Vida-ise is the second-largest beach town in Costa Rica, an unrushed surf mecca where Brown works on her backside bottom turn in the water and does social media for Mr. Endless Summer himself, surfboard shaper Robert August. When she’s not “Twitter-floppy-blogging” for August (as he calls it), she also designs and sells a line of 100-percent recycled postcards and helps spread the word about no-slip bikini line Mi Ola.
On her downtime? She’s getting a crash course on the best places to surf, eat, and play in Costa Rica. Here, her inside scoop on making the most of your Costa Rican surf adventure—yep, even on those rare flat days … Pictures and more