A couple can live with $50 or less a day, rent a nice small two-bedroom house or apartment with carport or garage and still have a maid to take care of the household duties during five days of the week. That's, of course, if the money is managed properly. Many retirees are doing it all along. Certainly they don't live in the more
expensive residential areas nor on a millionaire's scale, but they can still enjoy a comfortable and happy lifestyle even if they pay no more than $300 to $400 for monthly rent.
I've talked with many American and other foreign retirees now living in Costa Rica and asked them why they chose this country. Why didn't they go to Mexico, Belize, Portugal, Spain, Hawaii, some Caribbean island, or any other country generally chosen by some retirees? What pushed or drew them to come to Costa Rica? I was curious to know why this special interest in such a small country which seldom appears in the international news. The retirees I talked with told me why in a very straightforward manner without trying to be nice to me because of my being a native Costa Rican.
Retirees Studied Other Countries First, Then Chose Costa Rica
Tom Rorstad and his wife Solveig, who lived in Seattle, chose Costa Rica because they considered their hometown, though physically beautiful and temperate, to be too grey and rainy. Besides, the popularity of Seattle had resulted in massive traffic jams and a relatively high cost of living. To pick Costa Rica they had narrowed down their choice to American Samoa, Mexico, Australia, Belize and Costa Rica and finally had chosen the latter. But before making a final decision, they had read about Costa Rica in magazines, books, but
most importantly, on the Internet. According to them, the variety and depth of information available on-line was and is staggering. On-line forums provide an amazing amount of data and opinions on the country.
Some of the conversations I had with several other retirees will be mentioned later. And I'll tell of expatriates, who in their new haven, not satisfied of merely sitting around and doing nothing, opted to establish their own business enterprises to keep busy, feel creative and make a profit in this peaceful, tropical paradise.
Although most of the retirees seem to like many things about Costa Rica, some recognize the negative aspects. According to one expatriate, some of the bad aspects include "littering, petty theft, corruption and TicoTime, but all cultures either have these traits or have worked through them. They are not really that overwhelming. It is popular to deride corruption in Central and South America but, the United States has a very robust variety of corruption. It is simply slightly different".
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