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Hello to all of you. My fiance, 8 yr old daughter and I are planning a trip to CR for a month to do the ground work of finding the right location for our family to permanently move. We have read all sorts of articles, forums and there is a ton of good and bad but we are at a point where a change is needed, so we are moving. We looked into Belize, Mexico and now we are looking at Costa Rica. We need advice. Suggestions of Provinces, communities and homes that are for rent. We will be making our visit mid June thru mid July. We have been reading some really scary things and because we are travelling with our daughter we would like to enlist some assistance from expats who are willing to help us. Thank you in advance.
Welcome.
I think your first step, will be to look at the residency requirements of each country you are interested in, if you haven’t already done so.Thank you. We have researched all of the residency requirements. We are focusing on CR now. Because it is much larger, with so many more cities and areas than Belize, it’s really overwhelming. Also hard to tell where the best areas are for us to stay during our visit next month because everything is so widespread and everyone seems to tell you what you want to hear, rather than the truth.
Costa Rica has eleven different climatic zones and hundreds or thousands of cities, towns, barrios, etc each of which has its own unique characteristics. Until you think through what some of the critical issues are that will determine where you will live, no one can give you any meaningful advice.
How do you expect to educate your child? Public school or private?
What sort of climate do you aspire to? Hot and humid? Cool and damp? Sunny or overcast much of the year. Beach? Mountains? Central Valley?
Are you looking for an urban environment, a small town, or a rural setting?
How important are amenities such as shopping, medical care, transportation, etc to you?
How will you support yourselves? (You understand, I hope, that it is illegal for non-residents and temporary residents — [i]pensionados[/i] and [i]rentistas[/i] — to work. And Costa Rican wages are ridiculously low compared to whatever you’re used to. And can you even qualify for legal residency?)
To be of any help at all, you need to give us some hints . . .
[quote=”DavidCMurray”]Costa Rica has eleven different climatic zones and hundreds or thousands of cities, towns, barrios, etc each of which has its own unique characteristics. Until you think through what some of the critical issues are that will determine where you will live, no one can give you any meaningful advice.
How do you expect to educate your child? Public school or private?
What sort of climate do you aspire to? Hot and humid? Cool and damp? Sunny or overcast much of the year. Beach? Mountains? Central Valley?
Are you looking for an urban environment, a small town, or a rural setting?
How important are amenities such as shopping, medical care, transportation, etc to you?
How will you support yourselves? (You understand, I hope, that it is illegal for non-residents and temporary residents — [i]pensionados[/i] and [i]rentistas[/i] — to work. And Costa Rican wages are ridiculously low compared to whatever you’re used to. And can you even qualify for legal residency?)
To be of any help at all, you need to give us some hints . . .[/quote]
Mr. David, I’ve been reading your posts and actually made a list of items from which you “wish you would have brought with you”, very helpful.
As for the answers to your questions: A small town seems to be a good compromise; rural areas do not have the infastructure within a reasonable distance that we would prefer; however, the large cities seem to have more crime. We would prefer to be within 100km of the ocean (beach). We would enlist our daughter in a private institution for education and We qualify as a rentistas.There are many great places to choice from, We too are from NC, Chapel Hill area. The central valley has a great temperature/climate. We are in Atenas, it has a nice small town and is located right near the new highway enabling you to get to the beach quicker (less then an hour to Jaco), while only being less then 25 minutes to the international airport, Hospitals (CIMA) etc. We also really liked San Ramon. It is a little further north then Atenas and at a higher elevation meaning its cooler. It has a much bigger town then Atenas but still small. There is a University and Hospital there. It may take a little longer to get to the beach and perhaps 40 minutes to the airport.
When we bought our house in Feb. we did consider these two areas. Why we picked Atenas; The location was a little better as far as getting to places but most importantly we thought based on the location etc. it was a better investment and easier to sell, if we wanted too. I’m sure Atenas Real Estate is more expensive then San Ramon but it’s probably more sellable too because of that location. Perhaps if I was moving with children and was thinking more long term and really was not going to move around too much, I would go with San Ramon for its cooler weather, more ameneties in town and its closeness to the rain forests.
Anyway this is just my 2 cents, I’m sure you could get a dozen other views here. There are so many nice areas here that it is very hard to zero in on one area. Before we bought, we came down several times but the truth is unless you spend months here and move around alot it’s very difficult to settle on a single place. The approach we took was, we picked a place we really liked that we knew had a good resale value, that way if we find a “dream area” we could always sell it and settle down there.
Hope this helps!
….as far as safety goes, well your probably right that bigger cities have more crime issues (San Jose). It appears that all towns have some level of petty crime, I’m not sure there is any place in CR that you can leave stuff in your car and leave your windows down. With that being said, I think (this is from my very short time in the area) that Atenas and San Ramon are probably safe from hard core crime.
I can not see any mention of how old your daughter is…
Please note that as far as your daughter is concerned, you will not be able to find a quality “private institution for education” just anywhere in Costa Rica…
The education of your daughter is obviously important, so maybe you should decide which “international schools” fall within your criteria and, where they are located before even beginning to look at homes.
Scott
Thank you for your replies; as I stated in my original post we are making a trip for a month to visit and see how we feel about different areas, check out the schools and begin to get a feel for where or if Costa Rica is our choice. We do not plan on buying real estate for at least a year, we would rather rent until we are better acclimated with the country and then buy something. So again, if anyone knows of a nice, safe home in a great community that is for rent or willing to rent we would love to hear more about it. Thank you all again.
Ms. O, your 8 year old daughter’s education may be one of the highest priorities. Assuming you are visiting on summer break, you will have time to visit and ask questions about suitable schools. Many expats choose to home school, however, that’s not for everyone. What are the most important aspects for a long term move for you at this time?
There are a lot of really good options for schools. I think once you find your school then neighborhoods will come into focus.
Education for my daughter would be my biggest factor in choosing where I would live initially, which means the central valley proper. Search private schools in San Jose and you will see the list. Personally, as far as the valley, we definitely prefer the south side (Escazu, Santa Ana, Colon), but it is also generally the most expensive. Atenas has proximity to the airport, but the new highway has inflated prices and there is not a private school that I am aware of. Some of the beach communities have small private schools that were often started by expats, but do not have the accolades or programs of the valley schools. As far as all the services; nice malls, restaurants, markets, banks, lawyers, grocery stores and medical faclities, the valley by far has the most choices. My 2 cents (11 colones) worth anyway.
Atenas has a very nice bilingual school. The teachers and director are very nice and the children seem quite happy.
Please feel free to post website links to any schools that you recommend.
We have a listing of Central Valley schools at:
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