34 years of living the pura vida lifestyle in Costa Rica

live-in-costa-rica

By Christopher Howard
December 4th, 2013

When I was a college undergraduate I was awarded a scholarship to study in Mexico for a year. As a result I became enamored with the Hispanic culture and decided that I eventually wanted to live somewhere south of the border. It was not until 1980 that I was finally able to realize my dream by moving to Costa Rica. All of my family and friends thought I was nuts. Me tacharon de loco as we say I Spanish. It proved to be the best decision I ever made.

In those days Costa Rica was very different than it is today. There was no cable TV, little traffic, fewer people, far less development and no onslaught of Baby Boomers. Living in Costa Rica was by no means for the fait of heart. During those early days there was a very interesting cast of colorful characters which included soldiers of fortune from the Iran Contra mess, fugitives a la Robert Vesco, conmen, and a group of expat pioneers the likes of Jimmy Adams, Dr. David Williams, Archie Fields, John Hall, and Jessie Matias, to name a few. Almost all of these adventurous souls who blazed the trail for the present day expats are now long gone but not forgotten by those of us who were fortunate to have lived here in the early years.

There was only a handful of foreign retirees in the 1980s. Most lived here as pensionados. They took advantage of the original program established in 1964 that eliminated certain taxes on imported items. Pensionados could import a new car every five years duty-free, provided it was worth less than $16,000. It was not uncommon to see cars with license plates that started with PEN in red letters that identified the owners as pensionados. Some of the other privileges extended to retirees at the time were: the right to import one of each of the major appliances such as refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, televisions, washers and driers, as well as many personal household goods free of taxes. Unfortunately, in March 1992, a change in the pensionado law eliminated many tax privileges that retirees had enjoyed since the program was conceived. But this change did not stem the tide of retirees and others from moving here because all that the country had to offer.

After I relocated here I was involved in a number of different business ventures including being the co-owner of one of Costa Rica’s only language institutes at the time. My life took another turn in 1988 when I wrote and published the first edition of my guidebook, The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica, a one hundred page pamphlet that eventually evolved into the current 675-page seventeenth edition (over 200,000 copies have been sold over the last 25 years). A few years later I wrote what turned out to be another popular guidebook, Christopher Howard’s Official Guide to Costa Rica Spanish.

In the year 1997 I started Costa Rica’s first relocation/retirement tour. When I began this venture my tours were more like traditional tours in that they included visits to the Irazú Volcano and Orosí Valley, the Calypso Catamaran cruise, and Café Britt’s finca in Santa Lucía de Heredia . I even hosted my own seminar which featured local expats as speakers. Due to my client’s suggestions my itinerary eventually changed to include more activities targeted towards the specific needs of retirees and less touristy things. I now include the two-day ARCR seminar where I am one of the speakers, both a beach tour and an extensive Central Valley tour, special tours of Guanacaste and San Ramón, a couple of add-on tour options for those who want to explore in depth, the opportunity to meet and interact with people who have moved here, a slew of useful contacts that I have made in the time that I have lived here and much more. I constantly strive to fine-tune my tours in an effort to improve them so that my clients see and learn as much as possible during the time they are with me.

I have had may interesting experiences on my tours. One time I tried to take a group of people in three different 4-wheel drive vehicles to see a panoramic view from atop a mountain just to the south of Dominical Beach. We made the trek during raining season and there was a lot of mud along the three–miles of unpaved road. To cut to the chase, all three cars got stuck in the mud so we had to hike back to the bus that was parked on the costanera or main costal highway. Needless to say, my clients were not happy campers. However, I was quick to uplift their spirits by taking them to a local watering hole and buying several rounds of drinks for everyone. Then we went to see a spectacular sunset and have dinner on a restaurant/houseboat near the mouth of the Terraba River. Everyone ended up laughing about the events of the day. One of my guests asked me in jest if I had programmed everything to add a little more adventure to the tour to which I responded, “Yes, of course. You never know what to expect on one of my tours.”

Another time a rock punctured our bus’s radiator near the Arenal Volcano. We could have not picked a better day and place to have a breakdown because we had a picture-perfect view of the conical shaped volcano which is rare since it is often shrouded by clouds. My clients had a field day taking photos of this natural wonder while the bus was getting repaired.

Probably the most memorable experience was when a crew from the NBC Today Show came to Costa Rica to film my tour. They spent two days on the bus with us filming and interviewing everyone. A video of the program can be see on my websitewww.liveincostarica.com.