Earlier this year, I spent a few quiet days on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast — a work trip, technically, but one that has stayed with me since long after I unpacked. I didn’t get to explore much beyond where I was staying. No cloud forest hikes, no volcano soaks, no long drives through Guanacaste. What I got was something smaller, and in its own way more telling: the kind of stillness that’s hard to manufacture, and a warmth from the people around me that felt less like hospitality-as-service and more like hospitality-as-culture.

That’s the thread that stuck with me when it came time to choose melanin muse’s first Journey.

We didn’t pick Costa Rica because it’s trendy, though it certainly still is. We picked it because it made sense as a starting point — especially for those in our community who are newer to traveling internationally and want their first trip abroad to feel like an invitation, not a test.

A few reasons why:

It’s an easy place to feel steady. Costa Rica has a long track record of political stability, no standing army, and one of the more developed tourism infrastructures in the region. English is widely spoken in the areas visitors actually spend time in. None of that guarantees a perfect trip, but it does mean fewer of the small frictions that make a first international trip feel overwhelming.

It’s close, but it doesn’t feel like home. A short flight from most U.S. cities puts you somewhere that still feels genuinely elsewhere — different rhythm, different language, different landscape — without the jet lag or logistics of a longer haul.

It rewards slowing down. Costa Rica’s whole cultural export is “pura vida” — pure life, sure, but really it’s a permission slip to stop optimizing and just be present. That’s a good muscle to exercise on any trip, and an even better one to practice in a group.

And that last part is really the point. Traveling somewhere new for the first time is much easier when you’re not the one building the itinerary from scratch, translating menus, or wondering whether you picked the right neighborhood. A group Journey means someone else has already made those decisions with care, so you can focus your energy on what actually matters — the conversations, the scenery, and the version of yourself that shows up when you’re somewhere unfamiliar and still feel completely at ease.

That’s what we’re building this October: a few days grounded in Costa Rica‘s stillness, shared with our people who understand exactly why it matters.

If you’ve been circling the idea of your first (or next) trip abroad, waiting for the right moment or the right group to do it with — this might be it.

Want a closer look at what’s ahead? We put together a video breaking down what we’ve been building at melanin muse, a first look at what’s in store for Costa Rica, and all of our upcoming Journeys.