8 Reasons Why Americans LEAVE Costa Rica [Why I Left]

Why I Left the US (new video): https://youtu.be/HJ4oh7IAaeE

Rule of thumb: If you're moving to another country because the cost of living there is much lower than in your home country, remember...you need to live like a local when you move there, not like you lived in the place you moved from.

I moved to Costa Rica in 2009 and will never leave. Not even for a holiday. I don't get robbed, but I don't really have anything to steal. I live in a simple cabin with only 3 walls. I do have 3 big dogs and my 1 acre lot is fenced. I grow around 40 different fruits and veggies and have 40+ chickens for eggs and meat. I like the simple farm life. My transport is a mare and once a week I take a taxi to town for shopping. This is a great country for those who like the simple life.

This was very level-headed. I'm Costa Rican and lived in Canada for 7 years, going on for 4 in Germany. The cultural dip part is so spot on. Adjusting to other cultures is tough.

I had big plans on living in Santa Teresa (buying a house) after visiting many times for the prior 4/5 years. a friend recommended doing a long term rental first so I moved there for a year....unfortunately it didn't work out. But anyone coming across this...id recommend doing a long term rental first and deal with the prices, infrastructure instability, jungle living, etc... most may have visited in the summer months but its a whole different story making it through rainy season. muddy roads, floods, etc...

I m from Canada and decided to move to Costa Rica when I was 21....it s been 23 years already and I m not going back to Canada. This is not a perfect country, but it has something special and unique that is difficult to describe. When I go visit Canada I feel like a stranger. Best tip I can share: Blend, blend blend with people and the culture, learn spanish. I was not retiring, but starting my work life. I built my life from the ground up there like any other tico. Find a job, buy a car, then a house, then have a kid. My face looks Canadian but from deep inside I feel I m a tico. I dont regret having moved here a single day since then.

People just need to realize that a vacation is very different than living somewhere!

I like this woman. She has one of the least annoying deliveries. I like that she doesn't bludgeon you to death with cliche's and an overuse of ' amazing ' ' super ' and phenomenal '

You gotta immerse yourself into the culture you move to. When we moved to New Guinea, we adapted to cannibalism. Amazing the flavors they create, especially paired with fava beans and red wine. Bon Appétit!

I am costarican, born and raised, work in property management and tourism in general; and i've seen all sorts of tourists and foreigners coming to CR looking to retire. What you say in your video is true but also, in my personal experience, some persons come to this country with unreal expectations and not willing to learn how we live and our customs. About people getting scammed and ripped of, i can say that a lot of times, this is done by other foreigners, not costa ricans (which some do screw tourists or investors). But i think the biggest problem and that's why some cannot get past that curve, is that they are unwilling to 1- learn spanish, 2- learn our way of living, 3- realize that this is not their country and things are done differently and we think in a different way, 4- we do not have to put up with bad attitudes just because you carry a passport and dollars. And yes, it is an imperfect country, just as any other, but there's a reason why they moved here, enjoy it and learn to chill a little. :)

"No matter where you run, you can never run away from yourself. "

This is a GREAT video. At age 76, newly retired, I had been looking into moving to CR for this past year. The more I looked, the less I wanted to move to Costa Rica. Vacationing there even seemed dodgy. Your take convinced me that travel...to any or many countries in the world, makes a lot more sense. And this video has freed me to plan trips around the states and Canada as my first step. Thanks!

My cousins lived there for 10 years. Their property got squatted on while they were actively developing it. One day they were working on it with backhoes and clearing it out. The next day, 20 guys with machine guns from the local drug lord were there. A few weeks later, they went to court and the local drug lord had paid off the judge and the property was awarded to them under squatter's rights laws. Their entire retirement nest egg along with kids college funds. Gone. They still have 2 properties and one was rented to a guy who stiffed them on rent for a few months and they just sold up and left. They were able to recover around 600 grand split between 4 people from their remaining properties. On their way out, someone poisoned their dog, who died of kidney failure a few months later in Canada. Very sad. He was literally falling apart as the pads fell off his feet and eventually they had to just take him in for the big sleep.

What I’ve noticed traveling the world (I’ve been to 52 countries) is that what you “need” is cheaper outside the U.S., what you “want” is more expensive than the U.S.

USA citizens wanting the simple and less expensive life of native Costa Ricans in Costa Rica, yet wanting to live a USA lifestyle with all its accouterments but without paying USA prices for it.

Im from Costa Rica and we moved to the Texas last year. Is waaaay cheaper living here and better quality of life. Unless you are retired or have money, not the place to live. Vacations are awesome tho, the country is so so beautiful!!! But yeah, sadly, very expensive and not very safe . But I also noticed that most of North Americans don’t even try to learn Spanish, they expect everyone to speak English, and most people do, education is good, but if you move to another country YOU are the one who needs to learn the language.

I found your video to ring true for almost any third-world country. For instance, I live on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, and have done so for the past thirteen years. Over that time, I cannot tell you the number of expats I have seen move here "permanently" and then leave just a few years later. In fact, Philippine Immigration says that the average that expats (not including tourists) stay in the Philippines is less than three years. So many people move here believing all the stories they hear about low cost of living and wonderful tropical climate, only to find out that many things are more expensive than in their home countries, and that the tropical climate also includes high temperatures and high humidity as well as typhoons. When people move to a third-world country, they need to know that the country they are moving to is probably third-world for good reasons. Things like lack of infrastructure and corruption are leading reasons for this, and they must be dealt with, if you are going to live there. In most of these countries, you can insulate yourself from most crime, but you can't insulate yourself from everyday life. Therefore, you need to be very sure that you can deal with the reality of everyday life BEFORE you commit to living there permanently. Otherwise, you will be disappointed, you won't stay nearly as long as you had planned, and you will likely leave poorer than you arrived. Various countries have different advantages and disadvantages, but no third-world country is like what you are used to back in your home country. For instance, about 90% of Filipinos speak English (since it is one of two official languages), and that is an advantage to English speakers, but that doesn't mean that you will never feel isolated because people are speaking languages or dialects around you that you don't understand. In the Philippines, there are 70 different languages spoken, so that happens often. If you aren't expecting that, it could be quite a shock. In addition, many countries make it very difficult or impossible to ever gain citizenship. The Philippine government is continually fighting fixers, but they never seem to realize that there wouldn't be fixers if all of their processes weren't broken. It can take a month here to do what I could have done in an hour back in my home country. I don't look for that to change in my lifetime. My advice to anybody thinking about living in a third-world country is to put your belongings in long-term storage back home and then move for six months to a year. Live there as if you will be there permanently, but don't buy anything that can't be sold quickly if you change your mind later. Stay long enough to find out what you like or don't like about the place. Know that anything that frustrates you will only frustrate you more later on unless you can learn to accept it. THEN (and only then), decide whether you want to stay or go. Moving back will still cause turmoil, but it will be a lot less if you haven't already made serious commitments. Buying property is like hanging an anchor around your neck, and will make leaving a lot more painful.

When I was young, I travelled to Europe and ultimately settled in The Netherlands where a friend helped me to get a job. My intention was never to stay, but I ended up staying for 5 1/2 years anyway. Circumstances brought me back to the U.S. for another 12 years and then I got the opportunity to return to Holland where I ultimately met an old Greek boyfriend from 25 years prior and we moved to Greece for 11 years until his death. I returned to The Netherlands for work and then retired at 60. My intention was to move back to the U.S., but by that time America had changed so much from when I had left it (plus I had adapted too well to the Dutch 'democratic socialist' system) that living in the States would have been far too costly for me. This makes me very sad because nothing would have pleased me more than to have died in my own country. I'm nearly 73 years old now and have come to the realisation that no matter where I have lived, I adapted perfectly fine .. whether inside the United States or outside of it. I didn't necessarily prepare for a life in a foreign country, but when I got there, I chose to live like the natives do, learn their language and their customs and never to compare them to America's way of life. We shall see where it all ends one day. Thanks for your insightful video.🌹

It does not matter where you live in the world the most important thing is learning to live with yourself

This is a very good summary, honest and straight forward with facts.