Privacy

We use Google Analytics to understand how the guide is used: which pages are visited, the site you came from, your general location (country or city level), and your device and browser type. We also record a few interactions, such as tapping a tour card, following a link to Viator, or tapping a button to contact Gaudy, along with the page and the button’s position.

Google Analytics sets its own cookies (named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID) to tell visits apart. We never send your name, email address, phone number or the contents of any message to Google Analytics. Google keeps this data for the retention period set in our Analytics account.

To opt out, you can block cookies for this site in your browser or install Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on. Learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

The WhatsApp, iMessage, text, email and call buttons open your own app with a message already written. Nothing is sent until you send it. The conversation is directly between you and Gaudy, our local private driver, shopper and tour guide, and it doesn’t pass through this website. The privacy terms of the app you use apply, for example WhatsApp’s privacy policy. On our side, we only record that a contact button was tapped, not who you are or what you wrote.

If you email hello@playaflamingo.com, we use your address and message only to reply and to fix whatever you told us about.

Tour, sailing and fishing links go to Viator and include our partner ID and a campaign label, so Viator can credit this guide if you book. Booking and payment happen on Viator under its own privacy policy. We receive commission reports from Viator, never your payment details.

Shuttle links go to BookShuttles.com and CostaRicaShuttles.com, which are run by the same team as this site and have their own privacy terms.

Maps on the home, restaurant and marina pages are provided by Google Maps, which receives technical information such as your IP address when a map loads, under the Google Privacy Policy.

The site is hosted by Vercel, which, like any web host, processes request data such as IP address and browser type to deliver pages and keep them secure.

To see what visitors publicly share about Playa Flamingo, our @playaflamingo Instagram account uses Meta’s official Instagram API to look up recent publicposts tagged with destination hashtags such as #playaflamingo, #flamingobeach and #flamingocostarica. Meta returns only public posts from the last 24 hours, and it does not give us the poster’s username.

A person on our team reviews each post by opening its Instagram link. The tool never likes, comments on, follows or messages anyone, and never posts. We don’t download or re-host anyone’s photos or videos, and we don’t analyse faces or estimate anyone’s age, gender or other characteristics.

To avoid reviewing the same post twice, we keep only the post’s link and ID, when it was posted, which hashtag found it, when we first saw it and whether we’ve reviewed it. Captions are shown on screen but not stored. These records are deleted automatically after 90 days, and you can ask us to delete them sooner (see data deletion).

Only our own team signs in to this tool, with Facebook Login. Visitors to PlayaFlamingo.com never sign in with Facebook or Instagram here, so we receive no data from your Facebook or Instagram account.

See how to ask us to delete information, including records from our Instagram hashtag research.

Ask us anything about this page at hello@playaflamingo.com. See also how this guide is funded.