We moved to Costa Rica in September 2020 – looking back now it was mid-end of the crazy Covid times and when I look back at the journey we took from Bangalore to England – England to Frankfurt – Frankfurt to San Jose – I am so surprised and thankful we made the jump when we did! Most expats we have met here, have decided to move for the better weather, cheaper lifestyle and generally living the more nomadic life and so we are definitely more out of the ordinary than most as we moved here because of my husband’s job.

When we found out about the potential opportunity, we were excited to move so far across the world (approximately 8000 miles from our last placement – Bangalore, India), excited for the good weather and all the travel opportunities for this side of the world.

When we arrived in September to San Jose, it was a shock to the system – you can get everything from America – seeing familiar sites of Walmart, chain restaurants (Denny’s, Olive Garden, P.F. Chang’s), normal traffic and the cleanliness of the surrounding areas even in the big city was a grateful sight to us after 4 years in India.

We drove the next day to our first home in Reserva Conchal located minutes from Playa Conchal in the Guanacaste region. On the long journey, we realized that the city life of San Jose was going to be a bit different from our new life on the coast. Arriving in Reserva Conchal, with views of the golf course, we suddenly felt a much more chilled out vibe on life compared to the city.

Since arriving and now being officially here for over 9 months, I would give expats thinking of coming to live here the following advice:

*Weirdly more people seem to speak English here then they do in San Jose, the capital city, however it is extremely advisable to try and learn the local lingo – it is definitely appreciated and a good idea to know even the gist of a conversation. I did over 4 months of lessons with Spanish by Belen – she offers both lessons online and in person in small groups and allows you to learn at your pace but also challenges you at the same time.

* Life is definitely a bit more chilled out and more ‘Pura Vida’ compared to the city, timelines are vague, deadlines are more like hints unless you are specific but weirdly sales transactions are absolute and final.

* Originally I found that people were not as friendly as I originally thought they would be – there are a lot of cliques within schools and communities from families who have lived here their whole lives, to perpetual tourists, to people coming for a 6 month stint  – after living the expat life in other cities, I was used to a situation where people would welcome you and introduce you to all they knew. However in this situation and with the covid fear still strong, people were not as welcoming. Personally, now that I am 9 months in, I make sure to say hi and introduce myself to as many people as possible and if anyone joins a new group and I feel they are my kind of people then I make sure to say hey!

* There is a lot of scaremongering in the Facebook groups, occasionally people talk about violent situations, robberies etc – as long as you keep your wits about you and be as vigilant as you would be in your home countries, you will be absolutely fine. People can be judgmental in these groups, again a little strange coming from expat worlds where you are expected to make mistakes and not know all when you are coming somewhere new so just have that thick skin around you, and if you make that connection with someone, lean on them!

There are plenty of other things when it comes to day-to-day life that I can suggest to someone new so I will write that in a new article but from the experience I have had, (and yours could and may well be different) I just hope that if this is of some help to a newbie coming to live here, then my job is done ?