Sir Francis Drake is said to have sailed into Drake Bay in 1579, and the place has long borne his name. The famous English explorer would have found a sheltered, tranquil bay with a wealth of exploration potential.

Drake Bay is one of the remotest and most beautiful places in all of Costa Rica. Driving there requires crossing unbridged rivers, so most people either take a boat down a river from Sierpe or fly into the small airstrip. Either way, the sumptuous hotels scattered along the coast to the south and west all provide pickup by boat.

Drake’s most popular tour is a day trip by boat to Corcovado, Costa Rica’s most biodiverse national park, where it’s common to see tapirs, peccaries, coatis, monkeys, and all kinds of birds and reptiles. Also popular is a boat tour to Isla del Caño (15 miles away), which offers Costa Rica’s best scuba diving and snorkeling outside of Isla del Coco (300 miles away).

The hub of Drake Bay is a little town called Agujitas, which has restaurants, convenience stores, dive shops, little hotels and not much else.

Drake is not a conventional retirement destination, but it can be ideal for anyone dreaming of running an ecolodge in the wild, wild southwest.