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Hello,
When is the best time of the year to visit C.R? Also I would like to stay for about a month in order to travel around the country to determine how much I like it there and where I may possibly consider retiring to in the next couple years. So where would be a good town to start off in? I’m not sure if I should just do the hotel thing or rent an apartment/condo for a month long stay and travel around the country from there. thanks..January through December is lovely here…
If you want to LIVE here, you might want to spend a month here during the rainy season and a month here during the normal season.
Your choice in a “good town” depends on what you consider essential in your life. Peanut butter, high-speed internet and MacDonalds are not available throughout the country and English is spoken less, the further away from San Jose you go …
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comI can tell where to start your adventure. In fact, Dominical beach is a beautiful place to visit. Did you know that Domical is famous around the world due to the perfect consistence of the waves. Of coarse, you wuold like that if you like surf, but you can also find adventure and fun, visiting a place dedicated to the conservation of the wild life of the area. besides, you can enjoy canopy and zipline tours there, it´s a really nice place to visit. There in Dominical you`ll find everything you need, hotels, services and any type of commodity required to have a nice vacation. try the following websites for more information:
http://www.dominical.biz
http://www.southerncostarica.biz
http://www.haciendabaru.comvisit us. you`ll enjoy a lot
Costa Rica has so many beautiful areas, suggest that you make a list of things that are important to you, do you want to be close to cultural activities, top class restuarants, American style shopping, highspeed internet etc. If that is the case San Jose, Escazu, Santa Ana, etc. are your choice. Do you want to be near the ocean and still have much of what is mentioned above, then probably the central to northern Pacific would be a good place to look. The area around San Ramon is beautiful,as is anywhere between San Ramon and La Fortuna including Zarceros & Ciudad Quesadas – then there is Arenal & the area around the lake and the volcano. Once out of San Ramon going north you get into a much more rural lifestyle. I suggest that you rent a car and drive wherever the spirit takes you picking up B&B’s or hotels when you are ready to stop. Have a great trip.
Have you been to CR before? If so, where did you go?
I just returned to NY from a 2 week trip to determine the suitability of CR for living and my ability to live there. I spent the first couple days in San Jose, then took George Lundquist’s tour for prospective retirees, then, for a week, rented a house in Grecia, also a rental car.
FYI, I learned San Jose ain’t it for me. Scary at night, crowded by day. The tour helped by showing me various locations in CR, that I probably would otherwise never have seen, as possibilities. Although it concentrated on locations in the Central Valley. North to San Ramon, south to Cartago and the Orosi Valley. We did not cover either coast. Basically, George felt that it was too hot there for living without major AC and that was a major expense. He also said he knew many people who had first settled there, then sold and moved to the mountains, but none who’d done it the other way around. For me, the least interesting part of the tour was that it seemed to introduce us to many developers and builders and people who had become them. IE, have a bunch of lots for sale… bought property, subdivided, built a house, sold it, now building a second one, etc. As I don’t think I’m going to be building a house, that part didn’t interest me much. I did learn that I was a victim of culture shock, that all those stores and houses, lined up side by side along the road, with corrugated tin roofs and iron bar protection meant “bad neighborhood” to me, the American. In CR, it’s just the way it is. By the end of the 2 weeks, I think I was starting to get used to that, but I’m still not sure it’s the way I want to live. Maybe I’m just too much of a New Yorker. TBD
I did determine that 2 weeks is not enough time to know what’s what, and I am now planning a 3 month trip, while keeping my NY digs.
I would like to believe that I’m not one of those gringos who needs to be surrounded by others and that I would be most happy living out in the boonies, roughing it, but this trip did teach me some things about myself. Although I don’t think I’d want to be living in a gated community, I think I’d like to live out-of-town, but be near some sort familiar surroundings with some amenities (like a supermarket, albeit a Tico one) available. I think all this would have been much easier when I was in my 20’s.
I liked Grecia a lot. It’s about an hour from San Jose, not a really large town, and, was chosen as the “cleanest city in CR.”
Therefore, I am planning to rent a house there. I am taking my 4WD Jeep with me, and I plan to “live” there for 3 months and hopefully learn if I am Costa Rican material.
As for the “best time to visit”, we went during the rainy season to see just how rainy it is. FYI, at least in Grecia, the week we were there, it started raining in the afternoon about 2 or 3 and often continued into the night. Sometimes raining very hard for a long time. The temp rarely got above the low 70’s. Low 60’s at night.
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Most of what you saw and experienced makes sense to me and sounds like the kind of touring I intend to do. I’m retired Air Force and soon to be retired FAA. I’ve traveled in many foreign lands when I was in the Air Force. Thirteen years total which included Thailand, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Korea, Belgium, Germany and England, and I loved every place for what it had to offer. I’m not worried about adapting to the culture at all because I’ve experience and enjoyed so many in the past. Thanks for your trip report and experience.
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