page_title: Camino de Costa Rica
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Camino de Costa Rica / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Hikers on the Camino de Costa Rica across coffee plantations
context_page_description: The Camino de Costa Rica is a 280 km long hiking trail across Costa Rica. It runs from the Atlantic Ocean, the southern most part of the Tortuguero Canals, up the mountain and through indigenous territory near the Barbilla National Park and through valleys and mountain ranges of the central region of the country, just south of the Turrialba and Irazu Volcanos and through the Los Santos coffee region down to the Pacific coast in Quepos.
context_section_description: By 2018, the rural population had declined from 40% inhabitants (2000) to 27% inhabitants, poverty at 25% was significantly higher than among the urban population, and income was more than 40% lower. These sobering facts as well as other factors such as level of education, unemployment and underemployment in rural areas gave rise to the NGO, the Asociación Mar a Mar in year 2016.  The aim of the Camino de Costa Rica is to establish a world class long distance trail and through its success in bringing hikers from all over the world, to improve the economic situation in the rural areas of Costa Rica.
  65% of foreign tourists in Costa Rica are interested in ecotourism, which focuses on the elements of sustainable tourism - with the aim of promoting the exchange of services, the creation of jobs, the fight against poverty and socio-economic growth and at the same time reduce the social, cultural and environmental negative effects of tourism.
caption: Hike across coffee plantations
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