Before Costa Rica fades too far into the past, I wanted to capture my thoughts on our time there. It was overwhelmingly positive but I came away with things that I both loved and hated about it. There were also other things that I don’t judge as positive or negative, but instead just observe that they exist.

Things I Loved

Nature and Beautiful Landscape

Everyone probably knows this, but Costa Rica is beautiful. The variety of plants and animals makes you feel like you’re in a story book. In our La Fortuna house we were at the edge of the rain forest, and the nighttime sounds were almost supernatural. Enjoying the natural surroundings is one of the primary things that would draw me back to this country.

Lack Of Rules / Relaxed Vibe

Speaking strictly from what I was able to observe, there are fewer rules in Costa Rica. It surprised me, but I found this refreshing. In the US I have a general feeling that it’s easy to be found in violation of some law on the books. Possibly even old long forgotten laws. This is not the case in Costa Rica where traffic laws and other laws are more limited. Examples are lack of traffic lights and moving violations, jay walking is fine, public drinking is fine, no problem with walking in the middle of a highway selling waffles, etc.

Simple Efficient Life

In our La Fortuna house, we had a nice simple house that while nicer than some of the local neighbor houses, was in the ballpark of sameness. We only had a handful of kitchen utensils and a couple basic pots and pans. JC managed to cook nearly all of our meals at home with those limited utensils. She commented on the simplicity of the other houses she was able to peek into as well, and we figure that everything they own they use. There’s something about having limited possessions that is also mentally decluttering.

Cost

While the cost of Costa Rica is not the crazy bargain it was decades ago, it is still very affordable compared to the US. Groceries run about the same as we pay in the US, but a little less. It would probably be about $750/month for our family of four if we lived there permanently vs $900 in the US. Lodging is far cheaper in Costa Rica. We rented our La Fortuna house for less than $1200/month, and we were living in luxury in Jaco for $1800.

Coffee

Even the grocery store bought cheap ground coffee through a drip machine was some of the better coffee I’ve had. A+ in this category.

Things I Hated

Walkability

The walkability in Costa Rica is bad. In Fortuna I thought that was just going to be a Fortuna thing, but in the bigger town of Jaco the walkability was even worse in some ways. What makes it bad is that there are virtually no sidewalks anywhere, even in places where your only option to exit on foot is to enter the roadway. In Jaco we were really caught off guard by this the first time we walked out of the complex. We hesitated, not knowing what to do because it’s not just a road, it’s a fast road. We learned that you just have to walk on the road, and it doesn’t matter if you go with or against the flow of traffic (no rules). The cars know to watch for you so it’s probably not as dangerous as it seems.

Rain Forest Bugs

While I can get used to encountering some nasty bugs, I’ll never get to the point where I want to have them in my house. The Fortuna house was on a hair-trigger for bug infestations. Drop a crumb somewhere, ants everywhere. Electricity goes out, roaches storm the house to check out the new dark warm place. If I ever lived in Costa Rica full time I would have to find a place like our condo in Jaco. In our four weeks there we saw maybe one small spider in that condo. Full credit for that goes to the dedicated grounds staff who were constantly cleaning, probably creating a barrier that none of these creatures want to cross. Also Carl the iguana and his buddies I’m sure ate a lot of bugs.

Infrastructure

The roads have a lot of room for improvement. They are rough, winding, and too narrow in places. My expectations are probably too high coming from the US where we will carve straight through a mountain to avoid a winding road. They really work around the landscape here which is probably cheaper to build, but makes for some nauseating rides.

The electric infrastructure is shoddy as well. On top of the general electrical infrastructure, their electrical building standards are pretty loose too. Our Fortuna house was on the border of dangerous. We were shocked by just about everything electrical including the cooktop, dryer, microwave, and our devices that we plugged in. Power outages are also a regular thing.

Food

If you are going to Costa Rica for the food you are making a mistake. This stands to reason as I have never found myself around Colorado saying “I need me some Costa Rican food tonight”. I wouldn’t have known how to define Costa Rican food before we went there.

The local restaurants are called “Sodas” and I think they tend to charm short-term visitors. This would have happened to us too had we left after eating the first couple of Sodas. Beyond that new experience though, you start to pick up on some not so under the covers things. The staff were often rude and had gross hygienic practices. The food was also not very tasty, making for a bad value for the money even given the low cost.

It really goes beyond the Sodas though. For a country that prides itself on making chocolate, they have mediocre chocolate. They have disappointing candy in general. We bought pounds of the stuff just wanting to find something normal tasting, but never succeeded. We could have paid a 10x markup for candy from the US but we weren’t that desperate.

Having said that, if you cook at home and adapt a bit to their main products, you can have some really great cooked at home meals. Our go-to meals were rice/bean tacos and chicken enchiladas. The avocados, pineapple and mangos were really good.

Other Observations

The Locals

The locals are people, just like people anywhere with the full range of personalities. We encountered locals that were friendly, jerks, helpful, anti-social, altruistic, pushy and any other personality trait you can imagine.

Living amongst the locals turned out to be uncomfortable for reasons I didn’t expect. In Fortuna in particular, we were living in an area where many of the locals were workers in the tourist industry. I don’t think I would do that again. Not because we didn’t enjoy being there, but because it felt invasive to inject ourselves into their home lives. They are dealing with tourists all day, and then with us living in their neighborhood, they are coming home to live by tourists.

Man Over Machine

Manual labor is alive and well in Costa Rica. It’s probably a product of cheap labor making it impossible to cost-justify machine automation. In Fortuna our neighbors used machetes for many different purposes like trimming trees and bushes, or clearing space for cattle. No machines required. In Jaco, high-rise buildings were being built by armies of workers doing manual tasks such as painting the entire outside of the building using regular paint rollers.

Language

I naively thought that in a few months I could become proficient in Spanish at a basic level. It turns out learning a language is hard, and different aspects of the language are harder than others. For example, if you give me some text in Spanish I can probably read it and tell you what it says. That has been the easiest part to pick up. If you ask me to say something in Spanish and give me a lot of time to think and recall words, I can give you a mostly correct statement. The part that has been the most elusive is hearing and mentally processing spoken Spanish. When anyone speaks Spanish to me it’s still a torrent of sounds. I’m not sure when that improves.

In Costa Rica, the residents really don’t speak much if any English. Before we arrived there I thought English would be super common based on what I had heard from others. It’s really not though. In any given situation you will probably be able to find someone who does speak English, but that’s not helpful in a practical way. If the checker at the grocery store is asking you what method of payment you plan to use so she could switch you to a better line (this happened), it’s not ideal to ask her to wait and start asking around the store if anyone is bilingual and can translate. It’s not even ideal to take the time to get out the google translate app.

You can definitely get by on English alone in most places, but it’s going to be uncomfortable for you and for the Costa Ricans you are talking to.

My Feelings In A Nutshell

Costa Rica is a country worthy of consideration for vacations, long term stays, and even permanent residency. The country is a common destination for American retirees who are looking to extend the impact of their money through geographic arbitrage. For anyone thinking of doing that I would endorse that plan with two thumbs up. The place and the people are great, but the difficulty is in the details. If you want a fulfilling experience you really had better learn Spanish at a high level, and change your expectations around other things like food and infrastructure.