If you are thinking about a Spanish immersion trip, the homestay is probably the part you feel least sure about. Classes are easy to picture. Living in a stranger’s house, in a language you are still learning, is not. Here is what it is really like to live with a host family on our program in La Fortuna de Bagaces, a small town in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
Why the house matters more than the classroom
You have twenty hours of class a week. You also have roughly a hundred other waking hours, and in a host family home all of them happen in Spanish: breakfast before class, lunch back at the house, dinner in the evening, the neighbour who stops by, the television at night, the goodnight at the end of it.
Nobody is teaching in those hours, and that is exactly why they work. A classroom asks you to perform Spanish. A house just needs you to use it.
Every one of our students stays in a real family home. Not a residence, not a guesthouse, but a house where people were living before you arrived and will be living after you leave.
What you get
- Your own bedroom for the whole stay.
- A bathroom that is often private and sometimes shared with the family. We tell you which before you come.
- Three meals a day, every day, weekends included.
- The kitchen and the rest of the house, open to you like anyone else who lives there. If you want coffee at four in the afternoon, you make coffee.
- Use of the laundry room. Washing is not a service the family is asked to provide, though plenty of them end up helping anyway.
- A short walk to class, and a bicycle if you would like to get around town on your own.
Seven nights with your family are part of every program week. Usually there is one student per family, so every conversation at that table is yours. Couples, friends and families travelling together can stay in the same home.
How we choose the families
Not every house in town can do this, and we do not pretend otherwise. We keep a small number of selected homes:
- We already know them. These are neighbours we have known personally for years, long before the program started.
- We see the house first. We visit before a family joins and look at the room you would actually sleep in.
- They have done this before. Most of our homes have hosted many students and know what a nervous beginner looks like on day one.
- You are matched, not assigned. We ask about your interests and habits before you come and choose the house with that in mind.
Meals at the family table
Breakfast is early, around seven, before class. Lunch is in the middle of the day, between class and the afternoon activity. Dinner is around seven in the evening, and it is the long one.
Dinner is where much of the real learning happens. Somebody asks how your day was. You try to explain what happened with the horse that afternoon. It comes out wrong, everyone laughs, you try again, and this time it comes out right. That happens every night.
None of it is a rule, though. Most students eat with the family, but you are free to eat earlier, later or on your own when you want a quiet night. It is a home, not a timetable.
If you have dietary needs, tell us early. Avoiding dairy, eggs, gluten, meat, poultry, nuts or shellfish is usually easy. If you have a severe allergy, please tell us before you book, because a family kitchen cannot guarantee a completely allergen-free space.
Will I understand anything?
Almost nobody in these houses speaks English, so there is no switching to it when you get tired. We will be honest: around the second day, that feels hard. By the second week, it is the reason the whole thing works.
You do not need any Spanish to start. Plenty of our students arrive with none at all, and our host families are used to beginners. They know what a nervous first day looks like, and they are patient while you find the words.
Your first evening
When you arrive, you go straight to your host family’s house. Someone from the program introduces you, shows you your room and walks you round the village so you know where the classroom and the print shop are. Arriving late at night is fine and happens often: your family will be expecting you, whatever the hour. Class starts the next business day.
A few tips for a good stay
- Tell us about yourself before you come. What you eat, whether you like quiet, whether you have done this before. It helps us choose the right house.
- Eat at the table when you can. It is the best Spanish practice of the day, and it costs nothing extra.
- Let the family know your weekend plans. Weekends are free. Some students travel, some stay at home with the family. Either way, say so, so nobody worries.
- Treat the house as your home. Help yourself in the kitchen, sit on the porch, join in. That is what the family expects.
Why students come back
Students return to La Fortuna de Bagaces, and not only to see us. They come back to see the family they stayed with. That is the part we are proudest of, and no language school can organise it. It happens because, for a few weeks, somebody sat at a table with you every evening and was patient while you found the words.
You can read more on our Living with a family page, see how the rest of the day fits around it in A day in our program, hour by hour, or find quick answers in our FAQ.
Curious which family we would have in mind for you? Tell us your dates, how many weeks and your level, and we will send you a written plan and price the same day.
