Perillo Tours Nine Days in Costa Rica is designed to give as full an experience as possible of the highly diverse country in a little more than a week. It’s positioned as a deluxe tour product in a niche between the mass-market products of Trafalgar and Globus, and the higher-end products of Tauck, in a niche comparable to Insight Vacations.

Tour Operator: Perillo Tours succeeded in making its brand almost synonymous with travel to Italy. Mario Perillo became well known as “Mr. Italy” in the 1970s through his TV commercials. But the company has also operated tours in other destinations, including Hawaii, where the company has been operating tours for more than 25 years. The company has also offered tours over the years to Israel, Ireland, Spain, Australia and the Caribbean. The company is also offering new programs to Greece.

With its Learning Journeys program, the company is offering a much broader spectrum of destinations, including the United Arab Republics, Spain, France, Greece, Central Europe, Israel, Costa Rica, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Perillo Tours was founded as Perillo and Sons, a travel agency, by Joseph Perillo in 1945 in a storefront under the Third Avenue El train in the Bronx. The company was founded with $300 capital. Joseph’s son Mario was in the army at the time. When he returned he earned a law degree at New York University and then went to work for his father. He eventually took over management of the business. Steve Perillo, the third-generation Perillo, was trained as a musician, earning a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in composition. He composed music and made CDs, several of which are available for purchase from Amazon. Steve became president of the company in 1997. Mario died in 2003.

Tour: Perillo selected Costa Rica for a winter destination to complement its operations to Italy, which have their peak season in summer. In its first year, last year, it sold out rapidly, surprising Steve Perillo.

PHOTO: The trip headquarters at Villa Blanca in the cloudforest.

“It’s turned out to be a big hit,” said Perillo. “I wasn’t expecting it. We sold out our inventory in two months. We were surprised. It’s an exciting destination for people and it’s a great value.”

The tour also helped to broaden the company’s customer base. “Costa Rica is bringing us a different demographic,” says Carol Dimopoulos, president of Learning Journeys Powered by Perillo. “We have some repeat clients booking it, but we also have some new clients who are booking with us for the first time because of Costa Rica. So it’s a great brand transition.”

According to the company’s promotional material, “There are only a few places on earth where in just one week you can experience the variety of landscapes, natural habitats and wildlife as you can in Costa Rica. Best of all, it’s just a few hours away from most U.S. cities.”

In addition to its standard brochure program, Perillo also offers Costa Rica as one of its series of Learning Journeys. Learning Journeys differ from the regular programs in terms of the style of tour. As a Learning Journey, the program is custom and can be designed around the desires of the clients. On its Learning Journeys trips, Perillo partners with the Smithsonian Institution to create educational programs.

“Learning Journeys take people with specific interests, such as yoga or cooking, and show them that in the destination,” says Dimopoulos. “On Perillo’s Learning Journeys vacations, you acquire or improve upon a skill. The destinations are chosen specifically to make practicing that skill more accessible, and more fun. Typical skills offered are photography, watercolor painting, bird watching, language study, architecture, cooking, golf, meditation and yoga. Community service and sustainability are at the core of the Learning Journeys mission. In addition to hands-on interactive classes, we work in the local communities, helping to improve lives and our planet.”

Destinations: The trip begins with a flight to Costa Rica’s capital city of San Jose and a meeting at the Hilton Doubletree Cariari, which is in the greater San Jose area near the airport. The group returns to the property on the last night in preparation for flying out the next day.

The program is designed to offer the basic must-see highlights of the country, but to do it with less driving time, and to house clients in boutique hotels that other tour operators do not use. To see Costa Rica’s cloud forest, Perillo goes to San Ramon instead of Monteverde, the choice of some other operators. “It’s the same cloud forest experience,” says Dimopoulos, “but it’s only an hour’s drive out of San Jose.”

PHOTO: The Parador Hotel is as near to the beach as Costa Rican law permits.

Activities: Activities included a visit to the National Museum in San Jose; an eco tour at Angeles Private Cloud Forest, zip-lining near Arenal Volcano; a dip in the hot springs near Arenal; a cooking lesson at a private farm in the Manuel Antonio area; a visit to a coffee farm; a nature walk in Manuel Antonio National Park with a swim in the Pacific Ocean; and horseback riding and swimming in mountain streams in Santa Juana.

Accommodations: Besides the Hilton Cariari, the trip headquarters at Villa Blanca in the cloud forest at San Ramon and at the Parador Hotel near the gate to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific coast. The hotel stays are three nights, so there is time to get comfortable and to minimize packing and moving.

The hotels are comfortable, high quality. (Internet, on this trip, was sometimes available, sometimes not.) The environments of the hotels are their strongest attributes. Villa Blanca consisted of separate cottages in the misty cloud forest environment. Rooms are equipped with dehumidifiers because of the intense moisture. The central lodge and the individual cottages are all superbly designed and elegant, while rustic and naturalistic at the same time.

The Parador Hotel is as near to the beach as Costa Rican law permits. All beaches are public, and commercial enterprises must be built beyond a strip of public land that runs along the beach. The Parador offers access to the beach through a path through the wooded area next to the beach. The hotel also has a pool on property.

Service throughout is friendly and accommodating based on the warmth and natural kindness of the Costa Rican people.

Dining: Cuisine is increasingly important to American travelers, so Perillo accommodates this interest. The trip offers many opportunities to sample local food as well as take a cooking class.

Guides: The tour director, Héctor Castillo Alonso, is a Costa Rican with 15 years experience as a guide. He is passionate about Costa Rica, friendly and good with people, and solid and reliable when it comes time to deal with a problem.

The local guides are specially selected by Alonso and Perillo and are friendly, highly competent, and knowledgeable about their areas.

Transportation: Transportation is mostly in motorcoaches or vans. The trip is especially designed to minimize driving time. It includes three-night stays in two hotels and two separate nights in the entry hotel. The longest driving time is about two-and-a-half hours.

Know Before You Go: Perillo’s Costa Rica is a good way to take in the country’s most essential features in a little over a week, and do it in the comfort of a premium-class tour product that is still priced moderately. The company includes all meals, and by doing so it runs the risk of showing a higher price than those of some competitors. But that way the cost of meals is up front and included in the commissionable cost of the trip.

Traveler Type: The tour targets active, nature-oriented travelers, including Baby Boomers and younger demographics. Learning Journeys target travelers who want to immerse themselves in a destination and derive a learning experience from it.

Costa Rica is known as a model of good environmental stewardship, and its tourism industry is a leader in sustainable tourism. The tour appeals, therefore, to travelers who care about environmental protection and responsible tourism.

Learning Journeys are ideal for groups with an affinity or common interest. The themes narrow the participants to people with a common interest, adding an assurance of traveling with like-minded people.

Rates: The land price for the tour varies from $1,570 to $2,590 per person, double occupancy.

Contact information: For information on Perillo Tours, see www.perillotours.com. For more on “Nine Days in Costa Rica,” see http://www.perillotours.com/costa-rica/9-days-costa-rica.