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johnnyh –
On the Caribbean Coast you are MUCH more likely to get shot by drug dealers than you are to suffer any damage from the Arenal volcano, even if you are in La Fortuna, we are 40 or so miles from the volcano! Read La Nacion, it is rough over there.
We looked at Atenas, it is nice but this area has something very special about it.
You are asking people to give answers to a question almost impossible to answer. You will not make an intelligent decision based upon a 10 day trip.
1) What you think you want and really want are probably quite different..but you have to live it to know. Rent at least 3 to 6 months in an area before you buy. It will take you that long to get the lay of the land and a feel for the area. (By the way, we did not follow this advice and bought, built and moved in, fortunately it has worked out extremely well, but it doesn’t mean it always will.)
2) Think about what it is you want – you mention cultural/academic activities, do you speak fluent Spanish? You are not going to find these in English.
3) An hour to the beach includes a great deal of the country so shouldn’t be too big a problem.
I hate cities, smog and conjestion, we settled on the hills above Lake Arenal. It is a 2.5-3 hour journey into San Jose, we normally do a days trip but for some activity you wanted to attend you could do an overnight, hit a good restaurant, ballet/opera/play/concert etc and return the next day after doing some “gringo” shopping on the way home.
Liberia is a 1.5 hr drive (cut a 1/2 hour off that if you are closer to Tilaran), Playa del Coco and related beaches another 15 mins. more.
Our cultural life and activities center around our friends, we are a diverse and interesting community and around the table conversations can be everything from deeply philisophical to delightfully funny tales of adventures past and present.
I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be, but I am sure that many people feel the same about where they live in Costa Rica, so there is no right answer to your question…..just starting points for your own adventure.
Another good reason to buy a car here instead of importing one you already have – getting a standard run of the mill car in CR saves tons of headaches and problems and extra costs of spares. Love my HiLux pickup, even dealership repair costs are reasonable
Davidd, I assure you Scott is a really nice guy, think you need an immersion program in british humor, it often comes off as pomposity…..I know, I married one, it has only taken 48 years of living with him to begin to understand!
Certainly suggest you be less generious with your “knuckle sandwiches”.
Depends so much on what you are wanting – my choice – neither!
In my estimation both are overpriced and too big city, love living two or 3 hours away in rural Lake Arenal area. Who leaves the hectic US lifestyle for the same in Costa Rica. Don’t get me wrong, love visiting for a days shopping but getting “home” to the Lake at the end of the day is always a delight!Thanks for your comments Victoria, we are doing what we can!
I KNOW there have to be artists out there who are looking for exposure for what they do – for as little as $10 they have a ready made audience —- wherelse can you be sure of 2 to 300 people seeing your work in a single day? and your $10.00 goes to support local good works!Hey – welcome to Rush and anyone else that really wants to leave the crazyness that is th US these days. I love that we can mix with a number of different idologies and can ignore those that are too radical for us……. We left not because of politics but because politics were affecting our livelihood, perhaps we can get Rush seeing the true value of “Pura Vida”. A really tranquilo Rush would definately put Costa Rica on the map!
You would be compeating for a job in a very well trained job pool, you are not going to get a waver on the residency requirements based on your having special skills that Costa Ricans don’t have.
Don’t want to discourage you but Costa Rica does not make it easy and you should know that before you come.
When we moved down 4 years ago we went through exactly what you are going through now. After spending hours and hours checking out everything we possibly could, i.e. driving down(which we seriously considered but were concerned about Mexico and all border crossings), boats, planes etc. We finally decided the only thing that we could do was fly our two labs down on our commercial flight. To avoid the danger of losing the dogs at a transfer point and to cut their flight time down we drove from So. California to Houston and put them on the Continental flight there. We flew from Houston to Liberia and except for a request for $40 for paperwork “fees” to release the dogs we had no problems. Good luck!
Dr. Cordero at Prisma Dental is fantastic, he redid some very expensive work done in the US by one of the most highly recommended dentists in Southern California! I am extremely satisfied.
Couldn’t agree more with Maravilla, Javier and his sister Mayane are efficient and every thing is done right the first time, we had our cedulas before we made the final move. friends we know have had to restart the whole process after waiting 3 years and paying out over $3000 (and that doesn’t take into account the cost of having to leave the country every 90 days.)
Junior mentioned in a previous post is also excellent.
Alyss has great household products and furniture at good prices plus lots of decoration extras that help to make a house a “home”. If you are looking for lighting, Construplaza is good and for good quality furniture you might want to check out the new Ashley outlet on the highway out of Escazu towards Calderas. If time allows Mundo Pequeno can be a great source for inexpensive “stuff”. (MP is just outside Escazu at the same exit as Construplaza – until you know it, just a little tricky to find the entrance).
Can’t remember which store but saw them in the big mall in Escazu, think it was in one of the health food stores.
Porter weed (cola del gato) takes very,very easily from cuttings. Find a plant, stick the cuttings and then watch out, they will take over.
