4 Days at a Family-Friendly Resort in Nicaragua
Created with New BalanceVisiting a faraway country, kids in tow, doesn’t scare me. Family bonding! Adventure! Howler monkeys as far as the eye can see! The knowledge that it takes a full day of travel to get us there, however? Terror. It’s tricky enough loading a family of four onto one aircraft. Factor in two flights, two large airports (Los Angeles to Houston; Houston to Managua, Nicaragua), two slogs through international security, and a 90-minute car ride to Rancho Santana, our final destination, and the result better be greater than the sum of its parts.
With the risk of over-indexing on mathematics metaphors—and giving away the ending—our family had twice the fun of any vacation we’ve ever been on. And the adventure of getting there turned out to be more preview than hassle.
DAY 1: Monkeys and Dune-Surfing
Rancho Santa is massive. Like, five-beaches and 2,700-acres of tropical forest massive. With multi-bedroom residences, free-standing estates, and a twelve-room boutique hotel to choose from, we went for option one in the interest of everyone having their own bedrooms. So massive is the operation that the property employs over 90 percent of the surrounding town, which only adds to to home-away-from-home vibe.
The walk to breakfast at La Finca Y El Mar for waffles and yogurt parfaits brought with it exotic bird sightings, a sibling tiff regarding which pool to plunge into first, and approximately 137 stops to smell the flowers. Pulling the parent card, we bypassed the pools in favor of Playa Santana—a relatively chill precursor to our first family activity: sand surfing.
At Rancho Santana, you are likely to have a surprise adventure on your way to a planned one: In this case, we saw multiple Howler and Spider Monkeys on the 20-minute drive to the sand dunes. With help from our guide, we hiked a small cliff, boogie boards in hand, and took turns “surfing” down the sandy incline.
Dinner at La Boquita—the pretty open-air spot facing Playa Rosada—means everyone went to bed with tummies full of pizza and the freshest sushi.
DAY 2: Farm, Fish, and Family Meal
Breakfast (all meals, actually) was the most “farm to table” we’ve ever consumed, being that all the food at Rancho Santana comes directly from their sprawling farm, only a few hundred yards away from the table it’s eaten on. Touring said farm isn’t mandated, but it should be. In addition to all manner of produce, all animals are ethically raised and produce the farm’s organic eggs, meat, and dairy. They also contribute to the compost and fuel used to maintain the rest of the farming operation.
Following a fishing trip for one kid and a romp on beach number three for the other, we took advantage of the on-site market, La Tienda. Much of the ingredients used in Rancho Santana’s restaurants are also available here; we scooped up as much as we could carry for a good-but-not-as-good-as-Rancho dinner.
DAY 3: Spa and Something Just for Kids
After breakfast, it was time to split up: grownups hit the spa while the kids made good use of the Kids Club. To categorize The Spa in El Bosque (translation: The Spa in the Forest) as “outdoors” wouldn’t be entirely accurate. But to call it “indoors” isn’t quite right either. Sleek, rustic, and overwhelmingly lush, the entire thing is built right into the dense thicket. Treatment-wise, things were kept to the basics, which was nice because deciding between dozens of massage options was too much for my vacation-drunk mind.
Meanwhile, over at the Kids Club: every toy, art-and-craft, and video game is accounted for. But the babysitters are great at dreaming up from-scratch activities like collecting shells, building sand castles, and feeding the farm animals.
DAY 4
Our last day at Rancho Santana brought with it two realizations. First: This is the kind of place that lends itself exceptionally well to longer stays. In addition to the breadth and scope of things to occupy a family of four, it, simply put, feels like home. Something we won’t forget when booking a return trip.
Second: surfing. As in, we all need to pick it up. An entire travel book’s worth of guided tours and experiences is on offer here—horseback riding journeys for all skill levels, sea turtle hatching (season-depending), birdwatching, acro yoga, and so much more—so study up ahead of time. But it’s the surfing that keeps travelers from all over the world coming back for more—and from what we hear, some never to leave. The newly launched Surf House makes learning the sport from scratch or honing existing skills incredibly convenient with daily lessons, transport from break to break, all the gear—even a professional surf photography session to capture the memories.