Pura Vida...it's Costa Rica's slogan, as well as being a way of life. The direct translation is "pure life" but it's so much more than that. It's living the good life...cherishing simple pleasures...spending time with loved ones...and enjoying a slow, relaxed pace of life.
New Jersey retirees David and Cathy Weed say they have found the perfect combination of slower paced, tropical life and convenience in Playa Langosta, the close neighbor of the popular beach town of Tamarindo on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.
Today was a typical day where we live, in San Ramon de Alajuela in Costa Rica’s western Central Valley. My husband, Paul, who is a morning person, woke to mostly clear skies at 5:30 a.m., fed our two cats, and ate breakfast.
There is a joke in Costa Rica that if you want something to grow, just stick it in the ground. When Jack and Janet Taylor moved their family of five from Lake Tahoe to Costa Rica’s Central Valley, they decided to put that saying to the test.
My friend Marie, from the Washington, DC area, recently emailed me: Could I offer her advice on having dental work done in Costa Rica? She’d already heard a lot about living in Costa Rica from me.
There’s a steady breeze blowing. The sand is black—it’s volcanic—flecked with small crystals that twinkle in the sunlight. The sand is quite hot too in the heat of the day…best to wear flip-flops.
Tourists and expats alike typically spend a lot of time researching Costa Rica’s weather patterns prior to arrival. While it’s a tropical paradise with no winter, or drastic temperature changes in general for that matter, the country does have two distinct seasons.
“I can’t believe it!” That’s what every one of our friends say when they see where my partner Michael and I live. Instead of the urban sprawl that had engulfed our lives in Dallas, we now live in something that seems more like Shangri-La than the real world.
Nothing beats the diagnosis of an incurable disease for putting the spurs to a plan. When my wife Christine and I left the neurologist’s office in Charleston after being told she had Parkinson’s disease, our trip home to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina began in tears and anger, but then turned to some serious strategic planning…
My lifestyle has changed significantly since moving to Central America three years ago. One reason my wife Jen and I moved here was because the American Dream was killing us. We both had successful careers and no children; this meant we had a lot of disposable income. We had the large house (occupied only by two people and a dog), two cars, and all the possessions we could want. We had all the things that define “making it” in the U.S.