In short: A corporate offsite in a private villa in Costa Rica works when the goal is for the team to live together for a few days, not to sit through sessions. At Odisea Retreats, two adjoining beachfront villas in Playa Junquillal add up to 10 bedrooms with private bathrooms, two pools, a private chef and an on-site concierge, an hour and a quarter from Liberia airport. Built for teams of 10 to 20.
Most of us have been to the other offsite. A windowless hotel meeting room, the air conditioning on full, a coffee break with the same cookies at ten and at three. At six everyone goes up to their rooms, the director ends up at the lobby bar with strangers, and the conversation that mattered, the one that was going to fix what email cannot fix, never happens. The team flies home with a new slide deck and the same dynamics as before.
Why a private estate instead of a hotel for an offsite?
For three things a hotel cannot give you even when it tries. The first is real privacy: in a private estate there are no other guests, no lobby, no group from another company in the next room. What is said at the table stays at the table.
The second is continuous conversation. In a hotel the team gathers for sessions and scatters for the rest of the day. In a villa they share breakfast, a long lunch, the pool, the sunset and dinner at the same table. Important decisions rarely come out of the nine o'clock session; they come out of the second night, when nobody is performing anymore.
The third is the place itself. Playa Junquillal is one of the least developed beaches in Guanacaste. No strip, no nightlife, nowhere to slip away to. For an offsite that is not a limitation, it is the condition: the team stays together because the place suggests it.
And the honest part: a private estate is not a convention center. There is no ballroom for 200 people, no room service at three in the morning, no events team waiting behind a door. It is for teams of 10 to 20 who want to work close, eat well and sleep with the ocean in the background.
What is it like to work in a villa designed by an architect?
Both Odisea villas were built by Patrick, an architect, and Valérie, an artist, and you can tell in how the spaces get used. Villa Diosa del Mar has an open-air lounge under vaulted ceilings, shaded and breezy, where a whole plenary fits without anyone feeling they are in a meeting. When the heat builds or you need to work with screens, the air-conditioned indoor dining room becomes the workroom.
Villa Hermes is a different animal: double-height living space, a curved wooden vaulted ceiling, and every bedroom facing the sea. It is the villa for small sessions and one-on-one conversations on the terrace. There is a yoga space on request, and teams that start the day with a practice usually do it there, before breakfast.
Both villas have high-speed wifi, air conditioning in every bedroom and a full kitchen. Any additional equipment the team needs is arranged in advance with the concierge.
How do you split a team across two villas?
This is the question organizers ask most, and our answer surprises them: do not split by hierarchy. Putting leadership in one villa and everyone else in the other reproduces exactly the distance the offsite was meant to close.
What works better is splitting by rhythm. The early risers, the yoga people, the ones who want quiet to prepare their part sleep at Hermes. The ones who stay late by the fire pit, at Diosa. Every bedroom in both villas has a private bathroom and air conditioning, so nobody shares a bathroom with a colleague, which is the first complaint of any badly planned retreat.
During the day the two houses work as one place: plenary in Diosa's open-air lounge, working groups spread across terraces, pools and the air-conditioned dining room. The same concierge, Luca, looks after both, and the same chef cooks for everyone.
A three-day agenda that actually produces decisions
We have watched it work many times. It is not the only one, but it is a good place to start.
- Day 1. Private transfer from Liberia (LIR), an hour and a quarter. Mid-afternoon arrival, rooms, pool. No agenda. Sunset on the terrace and the chef's dinner at the long table. The real work starts here, even if nobody calls it that.
- Day 2. Morning session, eight to noon, in the open-air lounge. Long lunch. A genuinely free afternoon: surfing at Avellanas or Playa Negra, massages at the villa, kayaking, or nothing at all. A short session at five, before sunset, to close what was left open. Dinner and the fire pit.
- Day 3. Unhurried breakfast, closing session with commitments written down, and departure. If the calendar allows it, one more night completely changes what the team takes home.
The detail that matters: the chef cooks when the agenda says, not the other way around. If the session runs long, lunch waits. That does not exist in a hotel.
What does an offsite organizer need that a family does not?
A single point of contact. Whoever organizes an offsite does not want to coordinate transfers, chef, surf instructor and massage therapist separately. At Odisea everything runs through the on-site concierge: the team list, dietary restrictions, session times, group transfers in and out, optional afternoon activities. Read more about how the private chef experience and the transfer from Liberia work.
They also need calm to work in. Junquillal is 30 to 45 minutes from Tamarindo, close enough for a closing dinner in town if the team wants one, and far enough that the noise never reaches the worktable.
When does it make sense, and when does it not?
It makes sense if you are between 10 and 20 people, staying two or more nights, and the goal is cohesion, strategy or a hard decision that needs shared time. It does not make sense if the team outgrows 10 bedrooms, if the agenda is a conference with outside vendors and giant screens, or if what the group wants at night is Tamarindo. In those cases we say so plainly.
If the group is smaller, one villa is enough. We wrote about that in when to book both villas and when to book one, and about how to host a wellness retreat, which shares much of the logistics.
Where to host it
- Rent both villas together as Odisea Retreats, 10 beachfront bedrooms →
- Villa Hermes — architectural villa, every bedroom facing the sea →
- Villa Diosa del Mar — beachfront art retreat →
- Send your team list and dates to the concierge →
Frequently asked questions
How many people can Odisea host for a corporate offsite?
The two villas together have 10 bedrooms, all with private bathrooms and air conditioning. It works well for teams of 10 to 20 people, depending on how many share a room. Send the list to the concierge before booking and they will confirm the split between Villa Diosa del Mar and Villa Hermes.
Is the wifi good enough to work?
Yes. Both villas have high-speed wifi and air conditioning in every bedroom. For sessions with screens, the indoor dining room at Villa Diosa del Mar is air-conditioned. If the team needs specific equipment, arrange it with the concierge before arrival.
How do we get there from the airport?
Liberia international airport (LIR) is an hour and a quarter to an hour and twenty minutes by car. The concierge arranges private transfers for the whole group, in and out, on a single schedule you set. In the rainy season a 4x4 is recommended if anyone rents a car.
When is the best time for an offsite in Guanacaste?
The dry season, December to April, brings steady sun. The green season, May to November, is quieter, greener and usually has more weekday availability, with rain mostly in the afternoon. We cover it in detail in our guide to the best time to visit Guanacaste.
Can we book just one villa for a small team?
Yes. Villa Diosa del Mar and Villa Hermes can be booked separately, each with five bedrooms, a pool and beach access. For teams of up to ten, one villa is usually enough; the concierge will help you decide based on the list and the agenda.
