Costa Rica Insider Articles Archives

When you dream of a vacation (or living) in the tropics, often the first thing you imagine is the coastline. Long sandy stretches of palms swaying in the sea breezes. The waves gently lapping the shore

The first person to drive me around Quepos, Costa Rica when I moved here two years ago was Chip Braman. A silver-haired, tan-skinned, distinguished gentleman who looks much younger than his 72 years, Chip moved to the Quepos and Manuel Antonio area on the central Pacific coast 18 years ago from Connecticut.

Few things are more personal than what we eat every day. “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” asked writer Lin Yutang. So, what’s cooking in Costa Rica? Let me, a health-conscious cheapskate with gourmet tendencies, be your guide.

Sometimes life takes you in a direction that you could never have anticipated. This proved to be true for Cathy Carrolan Mata, when she decided to uproot and move to Costa Rica in 2003.

In the near decade since Madeline traded her home city of Portland, Oregon, for the sunnier shores of Costa Rica, she’s used yoga to sustain herself physically, emotionally, and financially.

When Jeanne Cordes discovered Costa Rica, she was living on the Isle of Palms, South Carolina with a successful real estate business. As a single parent raising two teenage boys, the family took adventure vacations at Christmas break and trips that fed their love of surfing, windsurfing, scuba diving, sport fishing, tennis, golf, and horseback riding on the beach.

While working at a small architecture firm in the U.S., Trevor Berkowitz had no idea that one day the job would bring him to Costa Rica. But when a job opportunity to design a housing community arose there, he jumped at the opportunity.

Six years ago I took a vacation with a close friend. She needed to go see her father who had retired in Costa Rica. She asked me to go along. I had been widowed a couple of years prior to this invite and I jumped at the chance to do something fun and exciting.

When Sheelagh Richards’ husband, John, took an early retirement in 2004, she decided to do the same. Spending her career in health and social care, she was ready for something new. “I was working crazy hours,” she says. “After 36 years non-stop, I also decided to retire early. With no children or parents to care for, we were free agents.”

While Costa Rica’s beaches certainly are spectacular, I’ll take my mountain town of Atenas any day over the beach as my home in Costa Rica. In fact, my husband, Rolando, and I had been living and working on the central Pacific coast for four years before we moved to Atenas.