There are downsides of Costa Rica expat living. I mean, it’s not all a bed of roses.
Here are just a few inconveniences you will experience on a regular basis in your new home…
Frequent power outages – due to storms, rationing, or perhaps just because the system had a hiccup.
Rain, Rain, and more Rain – Rain will become part of your life in Costa Rica. In fact, if it weren’t for rain, there’d be no Costa Rica, or at least not the lush green one that drew you to consider the Costa Rica expat life.
Bad Roads – I watched a 1947 documentary on Costa Rica the other day. It claimed that Costa Rica has some of the best roads in the world. Really? Not the ones I drive on. Costa Rica’s roads are notoriously bad. Like bad enough to loosen your tooth filings, or induce labor. But that’s just part of the adventure.
The Language Barrier – If you don’t arrive moderately fluent, and most don’t, you’ll soon discover that routine things like going to the bank become exercises in humility, patience and empathy for those poor non-English-speaking Mexicans in the U.S. that Donald Trump wants to deport.
Intermittent Internet – If you’re like me and do about 95% of your work online, well, having a secure internet connection becomes a very necessary convenience. That’s hard to find in Costa Rica. In fact, it’s downright impossible to find in most places in Costa Rica, especially those remote jungly and beachy places where expats love to congregate.
Bugs – I get a kick out of gringos who complain about insects. What do you expect, moron, you made a decision to live in one of the most tropical and bio-diverse locations on earth and you didn’t think that there might be bugs? By the way bio-diversity doesn’t just signify a plethora of those fuzzy and colorful creatures we like to snap photos of…it also means insects…and Costa Rica has about a gazillion different species of them!
The Slow Pace of Life – wait a minute, isn’t that supposed to be a positive thing? Well sure, but for most gringos who’re used to that fast track, rat-race sort of lifestyle, adjusting to the slowness of Costa Rica is quite a challenge. In fact, it can be quite a stressful challenge as all that gringo impatience is slowly squeezed out of your system.
Waiting in Line – the ticos have perfected the art of waiting in line, perhaps because they get so much practice doing it. Bank lines are a notorious example. I’ve little seen people pass out in a Costa Rica bank line. The line waiting skills of gringos are not quite so developed, but for the expat, you’ll learn them, soon enough.
Easy Access to Stuff – as gringos, we’re used to being able to find pretty much anything we want fairly quickly. That ain’t happening in most places in Costa Rica. If you live in an urban area like San Jose, perhaps it becomes an easier task, but still just not the same.
Easy Access to Cheap Stuff – and even if you do live in a big city like San Jose and can easily find most anything, you’ll still find that it costs a hell of a lot more than back in the U.S.
The Metric System – for those of us who’ve spent most of our life in the U.S., the metric system is, well, just plain weird. Who cares if the rest of the world uses it, we gringos are different, and we don’t. Of course, Costa Rica is on the metric system and they don’t give a hoot how different you are…adapt or suffer the consequences.
Now, none of the above downsides of Costa Rica expat living are insurmountable and neither should the fact that you will experience all of them dissuade you from moving forward with your expat plans. But it pays to know what you’re getting into.
One of the ways you can plan for them is to think about which ones are most important for you to avoid and try to choose a living arrangement where those particular downsides of Costa Rica expat living are less likely to be routinely experienced at excruciating levels of patience testing.
For instance, if having good reliable high speed internet and access to shopping on a level that you’re used to having back in the states is important to you, then you probably don’t want to opt for a life in some remote jungle, as alluring and adventurous as that might sound.
Costa Rica has a lot of options, from the remote life in some bio-diverse location to highly cosmopolitan city living in a place where new state-of-the-art malls seem to pop out of the ground like the ever-present lush vegetation. In my book, The Definitive Guide to Costa Rica Expat Living, I explore these options in more detail. The intent of that book is to help you choose among them.
What’s most important, however, is your attitude. It’s up to you to deal with the downsides of Costa Rica expat living in positive ways. Believe me, it’ll be easy to develop a bad attitude about these downsides, or about Costa Rica in general. Many come here and make that mistake.
Don’t be one of them.
Hey, my new book The Definitive Guide to Costa Rica Expat Living is live on Amazon. If you’re thinking about making an escape from the rat-race, whether for political or mental and physical health reasons, or all of the above, The Definitive Guide to Costa Rica Expat Living was written just for you!
No surprise for me, I live in Spain