Q COSTA RICA – Due to certain recent news in the United States (the election of Donald Trump), a large numbers of Americans have expressed interest in the idea of migration. Canada? Mexico? Costa Rica? Where could they go? How would they live?
The Expat Insider survey by Inter Nations – in its third consecutive year – is in-depth analysis of everyday expat life in more than 60 countries across the globe. More than 14,000 respondents representing 174 nationalities and 191 countries or territories took part and had their say on moving, living, and working abroad.
The winner of the Best & Worst Places for Expats in 2016 is newcomer Taiwan, followed by an aspiring Malta, Ecuador Mexico, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Australia, Austria, Luxemburg and Czech Republic, rounding out the top 10.
Kuwait, Greece, and Nigeria remain at the bottom of the pack.
The questions ranged in scope like Quality of Life, Ease of Settling In, Working Abroad, Family Life, Personal Finance, Cost of living, Work-life Balance, among other categories that help identify the good from the bad.
Our obvious focus is on Costa Rica, the land of Pura Vida, home of Salsa Lizano and the happiest people on the planet.
Costa Rica ranked high in the Quality of Life and Work-life Balance categories of the Expat Insider survey. The Pura Vida lifestyle is a big draw for many outsiders, but that doesn’t necessarily make it an easy place to live. Most of the work resides in the Central Valley’s Greater Metropolitan Area of San Jose (GAM). For beach lovers, the closest beaches, Playa Jaco and Puntarenas are an hour away, Manuel Antonio 90 minutes to two hours, and the Guanacaste beaches 3 hours or more. On the Caribbean side, Puerto Viejo de Limon can take up to 4 hours to reach.
But there is more to Costa Rica than just beaches: the rain forest, mountains, small towns, volcanoes and everything in between.
Costa Rica has two seasons, wet and dry. More politically the seasons are called “green” season that usually last six months, from May to November (though the rains have continued into December this year) and the “summer” from December to May, for most of the country, on the Caribbean side there is some variance in the months of the seasons.
Here is what InterNations has to say about Costa Rica. and how you can connect with like-minded Canadian, American, German, Brits, French (among others) in expatriates in Costa Rica.
