The Dark Side of Costa Rica - Why Expats Leave

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    If you move to Costa Rica or really any country and you're having a challenging experience, look at it through both of these lenses, between, am I in the dip? Is this temporary and I'm gonna get out of it, or is this just not for me? And I want to exit this scenario and try a new place. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.  

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:39    Hi everyone. Kristin from Traveling with Kristin here. And welcome to episode 104 of Badass Digital Nomads podcast. And today is a never before heard audio of my most viral video ever, which is The Dark side of Costa Rica: 8 Reasons Why Americans Leave Costa Rica After Moving There. And so this is a video that I published two weeks ago, and it has become my most viral video ever with more than 915,000 views as of the time of recording this introduction. And possibly by the time this podcast is published, that video could have more than a million views. So that is mind-boggling. But because of the popularity of that video, I thought it would be really important to publish a podcast version of that video. And actually this podcast was recorded before that video. But, um, funny story of how this all came to be. Actually, I don't know if it's that funny, I just tweeted the other day that no funny story ever starts with funny story.  

Kristin:    00:01:54    Anyway, the video that's on YouTube is actually the second take because the first time I tried to film it, I decided I wanted to go out in my neighborhood in Coconut Grove Miami and find a really cool backdrop to film that video because it's very tropical around here with lots of really beautiful trees and vegetation. And that co-- that video was about Costa Rica, which is a very tropical place. So I go out trying to find a good space to film, and it was like Murphy's Law where every single tiny dead end street that I turned down that's usually really quiet, had some sort of noise, either a dump truck or a moving van or electricity repairmen or construction workers, or it was like a comedy of errors. I went around for two hours trying to find a place to film that video, and I ended up full circle back where I started at my house.  

Kristin:    00:02:56    But, uh, I was frustrated for having biked all around and I was like sweating. And anyway, at that point I was no longer feeling motivated to record the video, but I did it anyway and, uh, got it done. This was a Friday, so I filmed it in the park across the street from my house. And then when I went to go edit it the next day, I noticed that the entire video, like 80% of the video was out of focus <laugh>. So it was because I was shooting in a new location and my camera focused on a palm tree that was behind me and not on me. And so the video that's on YouTube is actually the second take, and I filmed it also very frustrated the next day because I had to redo the whole thing after spending the whole previous day trying to film it.  

Kristin:    00:03:49    So, kind of funny, but just a good lesson. I like to share these things with you so that you know that you know, things go wrong a lot behind the scenes, and I know that you've all been there. Maybe it was a work project or a school project where your computer crashed or something happened and you lost all your work and you had to do it again. That's exactly what happened with that Costa Rica video. But maybe having to film it again contributed to it being a better video and maybe contributed to its popularity and going viral because, you know, maybe the watch time was longer or maybe it was just better done because I had to do it again. And so if something like that happens to you, then remember this story and try, try again, and you might actually get a better outcome. But I still wanted to publish the audio from that video because even though the video was out of focus, the audio was quite good.  

Kristin:    00:04:50    I recorded with this Zoom H2n recorder that you can get in my Amazon store, and I found out about this recorder through Palle Bo, The Radio Vagabond. So he was a radio host, turned digital nomad and podcaster. And so I'll link to his episode in the show notes, but he showed me this, um, H2n recorder that you can bring out on the field with you. So journalists use it, videographers use it. And so I'll link to that in the show notes as well. But I didn't wanna waste that audio because I, I thought it was still very valuable. And so I have edited that audio for this podcast. So you're going to get actually more information on this topic compared to the video that I published on YouTube. So if you've watched that video, you'll learn something new in this podcast.  

Kristin:    00:05:47    And if you like this podcast, then definitely check out that video because I think it went viral for a reason. Clearly it resonated with a lot of you. So also link up to that in the show notes. And one of the reasons that people reported leaving Costa Rica was the healthcare system. And coincidentally, this week I had a phone call with Safety Wing, which has a new program called Remote Health, which is a healthcare policy for remote workers and digital nomads. So it's not just a travel medical insurance policy, but they actually have a new healthcare policy that can cover you even for a few months in the US so it can cover you abroad and in the US. And this is something that people have been asking about in the comments of my videos and also in my Facebook group. So depending on how many months you're going to be there and your age and all that stuff, you can have different rates.  

Kristin:    00:06:43    But if you use my affiliate link in the show notes, you can get a 5% discount on your policy and support the podcast at the same time. So again, this is for international health insurance, not just travel insurance. Another update is that now on badassdigitalnomads.com, you can search the website for anything you're interested in. So you can already search by topic and tags, but now at the top right, there's a little magnifying glass that you can click on and search for anything you want. And if there is an episode about that topic that you search for, it will come up. So that's pretty cool. So you can type in any keywords that you want, definitely check that out. And also, I have a new button for buy me a coffee. So if you click on the donate button, you can support my caffeine addiction and coffee habit by buying me a coffee.  

Kristin:    00:07:39    And I've actually coincidentally been drinking coffee since the first time I lived in Costa Rica because they have amazing coffee there. And I was learning Spanish at the time, so I needed a lot of coffee for focus to sit in my Spanish classes all day long. And so it's kind of meta that I have the buy me a coffee link, and I drink coffee because I lived in Costa Rica and this podcast is about Costa Rica. So whoa. Anyway, thank you to Jocelyn and MJ who have bought me a few coffees to date, and I really appreciate it. And while we are thanking supporters, thank you to my newest supporters on Patreon, I just reached a milestone of 30 patrons, so that is very exciting. That's the most I've ever had, and I have a goal of growing a community of 100 patrons by the end of the year.  

Kristin:    00:08:33    So if you would like to join us, you can do so over at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin. And shout out to my newest patrons this month, Keith, Alejandra, Kelly, Henry, Annie, Ray, Gary, Gary R, Ron, Shawn and Yozhik and Bronwyn. So thank you all to my newest patrons and also my OGs like Teklordz and Walt, some of whom have been around since the beginning of 2019. So thank you all for the support. I hope you enjoy this, uh, behind the scenes version of Why I left Costa Rica and the Dark side of Costa Rica. Check out the video when you get a minute, and you can also comment on the website too. So whatever you think about this topic, you can comment not just on my YouTube videos, but you can also comment on badassdigitalnomads.com. Okay, "disfrutar", as they would say in Costa Rica. Enjoy.  

Kristin:    00:09:43    Why do so many expats move down to Costa Rica than leave? In fact, in my experience, many people spend more years planning their moves to Costa Rica than they do actually living there. I'm Kristin and I've been helping people retire, invest and otherwise live abroad in Costa Rica since 2005, and it was actually the first foreign country that I ever lived in starting back in 2002. Now, there could be a lot of reasons that you're thinking about moving to Costa Rica. I mean, there's the laid back Pura Vida lifestyle. There's the really fresh, affordable food, there's the low cost of living that you've heard so much about the nice people, the perfect climate, the beautiful beaches. I mean, the list goes on. But there are also some downsides to living in Costa Rica, and there are things that foreigners clearly don't expect or they would be able to stay there long-term.  

Kristin:    00:10:37    So in this video, I'm gonna cover the main reasons that expats move to Costa Rica, then leave so that you can prepare for them yourself. And at the end of the video, I'm going to tell you why I decided to leave Costa Rica after living there for eight years. So how many expats live in Costa Rica anyway? Well, no one knows for sure exactly, because not all expats acquire temporary or permanent residency in the country or citizenship. So a lot of long-term expats are living in Costa Rica with just a stamp in their passport. So they're there on a tourist visa that they're extending or they're leaving the country and coming back in. But the US State Department estimates that there could be over 120,000 Americans living down in Costa Rica. And I would say that's probably the biggest expat population there, maybe followed by Canada, maybe a few countries in Europe, but primarily we're talking US citizens.  

Kristin:    00:11:36    And so the first thing that people said to me when I asked about this was the cost of living. So Americans move to Costa Rica thinking that they're going to be able to get a lower cost of living, and they don't realize how expensive living in Costa Rica can actually be. Now, don't get me wrong, you can live on a low amount of money in Costa Rica, but it's definitely gonna cost you more than places like Mexico, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia. Last time I checked, Costa Rica was the second most expensive country to live in, in all of Latin America after Chile. So if you think that you're going to come from middle America down to Costa Rica and save money, you actually could end up spending more money to maintain the same lifestyle. And so the reasons for this aren't multiple. There's high import taxes on goods, uh, that makes specialty foods quite expensive.  

Kristin:    00:12:30    Cars are really expensive, gas is expensive. And with all of the expats and foreigners moving to Costa Rica for all of the amazing things that the country had to offer that put upward pressure on prices. And so housing prices are more, construction prices per square meter have gone up a lot in recent years, and rent prices are higher because of increased demand over the past 10 to 20 years. So maybe 20 years ago, Costa Rica was significantly less expensive, but these days it's one of the most expensive countries in Latin America to live in. So if you shop at local markets and the local grocery store chains, and if you don't have a car and if you don't go out to eat very often, you can keep your cost of living down quite low and you can save money on things like healthcare and food and entertainment.  

Kristin:    00:13:23    But overall, Costa Rica tends to be a lot more expensive than people expect. And I think that has to do something with all of the information about Costa Rica that's online, some of it very outdated from when Costa Rica was super affordable. So keep that in mind if you're planning a move to Costa Rica. The next reason, and actually this is the biggest one, is misaligned expectations. And what happens here is that people build up Costa Rica to be the perfect place to move in their heads. And when they get there, it's hard for them to reconcile that it has its pros and cons just like anywhere else. And so people might have this image of Costa Rica that doesn't align with the reality that they experience once they get there. And so this is kind of a mix of a couple things. You've got the, uh, misaligned expectations, and then you have the inability to adjust once people move there.  

Kristin:    00:14:21    But another thing that happens is that people don't stay long enough to actually adjust. There is actually a curve of cultural adaptation. And what happens is that people get to Costa Rica, they get into the honeymoon period where everything is beautiful, and you're drinking juices on the beach and having your morning coffee and there's two cans in the trees and everything's great. And then boom, something happens or a series of things happen. And then you get into this dip, this like trough on the graph. And this is really similar actually to the dip that Seth Godin talks about in entrepreneurship or the dip that happens after you get a big boost of serotonin from setting a goal. And then a few days into it that motivation wears off. And so if you're learning a new skill or working towards a goal or building a business or even moving to another country, eventually you're gonna get into that dip.  

Kristin:    00:15:15    And if you give up too soon, you'll never get out of the dip <laugh>. So if you stay the course, eventually you will adapt, things will get easier. You, you will develop elasticity in your brain when it comes to that skill or business that you've been working on, and you will get out of the dip and into this, um, period of, of adaptation or mastery over that skill. And so what happens is that there's no exact timeline as to how long you're gonna be in that dip, um, or when you're gonna get out of it. And so sometimes it can be a brief period. Sometimes that dip can last for a few years and people just, they're done with it before they get out. So this dip that I'm talking about and this inability to reconcile your expectations with reality is actually the biggest reason why corporate executives fail when they're on international assignment and also because of difficulties with their spouse or partner or kids in adjusting to the culture.  

Kristin:    00:16:16    So this is not something that just happens if you're going to retire abroad or if you're going to work from your laptop abroad, but this is something that happens, um, when you get relocated by your company, even with having all of that financial, logistical and other support behind you. So if you want to overcome this, and if you want to commit to Costa Rica and commit to staying the course, that's what you have to do is just commit. It's like a marriage. I haven't been married, but <laugh>, this is what I, this is what I understand it to be, is that, uh, you commit to that person or that destination. And regardless of what happens, regardless of the highs and lows, you're gonna stick it through and that's gonna be your place. But there's also a fine line and life is short. And if you are having a negative experience and you don't wanna spend more time dealing with that, then maybe the right decision is to leave.  

Kristin:    00:17:09    And so just keep that in mind. If you move to Costa Rica or really any country and you're having a challenging experience, look at it through both of these lenses, between, am I in the dip? Is this temporary and I'm gonna get out of it, or is this just not for me and I want to exit this scenario and try a new destination or a new place? So on that note, something that some of the other, um, expats wrote to me on Facebook is that people realize that they can't escape themselves. So there is this fallacy that getting away from it all that traveling or living abroad or even becoming a digital nomad where you have complete ultimate freedom and you can live and work wherever you want any time of day, uh, this does not solve any internal problems and sometimes it can create more problems.  

Kristin:    00:18:01    And so wherever you are, there you are. So there was a lot of chatter about this concept with a lot of people upvoting it and liking it and reacting and commenting because I think a lot of people have felt like if we could just get away from where we are, then things will be better. But there, once you get to that destination, you realize that you're still with yourself. And so if you are looking to go to Costa Rica to escape from yourself, then you know you're gonna bring yourself with you. Another issue that came up that kind of surprised me was health issues. So a lot of people know Costa Rica for its medical tourism industry and for really it's world-class healthcare at a quite an affordable price, especially compared to the United States. And so I was surprised that so many people were commenting that the reason people move to Costa Rica and then leave is because of health issues.  

Kristin:    00:18:57    So I'm wondering if maybe the issues that they have are not covered by their insurance in Costa Rica or if it becomes a terminal illness and they just want to go back to their home country for long-term care. I don't really know what those exact reasons are, and it's gonna depend on each person, but it is possible to get local health insurance in Costa Rica. It is possible to pay into the, uh, public healthcare system if you are going for permanent residency. Um, and it's also possible to be covered for catastrophic things if you have a, uh, local or international travel medical policy. So each person is going to be different. But maybe these were, um, more people in like the retiree age group who were commenting, who were saying that health issues was one of the biggest reasons why the people that they know moved to Costa Rica and then left again.  

Kristin:    00:19:51    Another reason why a lot of people report leaving is because of their families. So this is also something that can happen at a later phase in life is that you work all of your life, you retire at 60, 62, 65, you move to another country, and then you realize that you miss your family or your kids had kids and now you have grandkids and you would rather spend time with them than spend time on the beach by yourself in Costa Rica or maybe with your new friends that you've met, but maybe you're missing your old friends. And so one of the biggest reasons that people have reported leaving Costa Rica is simply that by the time they move there, the most important thing for them is to spend more quality time with their family and especially their grandkids. So I know that I can definitely relate to that even in my thirties, having come back to the US right before the pandemic started and realizing how much extra quality time I had to spend with my family that, um, I wouldn't have had if I was living in Costa Rica during the pandemic.  

Kristin:    00:20:54    That really put things in perspective for me. And so I think I will be making a bigger effort to spend more time in the US moving forward, even if I'm living abroad. And the fifth main reason why Americans leave Costa Rica after they move there is because of the crime. So Costa Rica is actually ranked 32nd on the global peace index compared to the us which is down at 121st place. So Costa Rica still ranks as a very peaceful country. But that being said, the crime rate has gone up a bit in recent years. I mean, it's kind of fluctuated a little bit, but has been trending upward over the long term. And a lot of the crime that happens in Costa Rica doesn't get reported because these negative port reports can really tarnish the country's reputation as a tourism destination, but also as a foreign investment destination, retirement destination.  

Kristin:    00:21:52    And I'm not saying that there's any sort of coordinated effort to hide this from the media, but there were a lot of things that happened when I lived there that I never saw reported either in the English language, newspapers like the Tico Times or in La Nación, which is the, the largest newspaper in the country. So people might leave because something actually happens to them or something happens to their friends. And the most frequent types of crime that I've witnessed in Costa Rica are really basically petty theft. But I also did see a woman get mugged outside of my front door <laugh> of my apartment in San Jose. And I've had a lot of friends that have, um, suffered in violent crimes, home invasions. I used to drive around with a fake wallet in the console of my car because I personally knew multiple people who had been victims of carjackings.  

Kristin:    00:22:46    And these are all anecdotal, but I can't count as many people that I know in the US that have been confronted with these types of problems. So maybe it's because when you zoom into, um, a US expat community of a hundred thousand or so people, and the word travels fast through like the expat coconut wire around town and everybody knows each other or around the country rather, then maybe we're just more exposed to what is happening to other people. But yeah, there's just like a lot of kind of horror stories of things that happen to tourists and expats in Costa Rica, hotel and business owners getting murdered. And you know, it's not to say that that crime doesn't happen anywhere else, but I think a lot of people get spooked by that, or they end up in a place where they have bars on their windows or security guards or corrupt security guards that have been paid off by criminals to come in and rob their houses, or they leave the country for a few months for the rainy season and they come back and their house has been broken into.  

Kristin:    00:23:49    So that kind of stuff happens, uh, quite frequently. And once it happens to people, they, they can get fed up with it and, um, decide to leave. But sometimes, um, in these scenarios, it's not any one reason that makes people leave, but it can be a synergy, you might say, among a lot of really small things that happen, like small annoyances, whether it's like the internet guy didn't show up or you got ripped off on your construction materials by your builder or <laugh>, some people commented and the group like your lawyer stole your property. I mean, that could be an exaggeration, but it could have actually really happened. So it could be something big, it could be something, uh, dangerous to happen, but it could also be a lot of little things, which goes back to people not really being able to adjust, um, or really not having the patience to adjust to the differences in the culture compared to the country that they're from, especially if it's a western country or a developed country like the US.  

Kristin:    00:24:49    Another reason that a lot of people brought up were other expats. So the negativity among expats who might be jaded living in Costa Rica or the negativity that people experience in expat forums could contribute to the reason that they end up leaving the country. I found it sad that people would move to Costa Rica assuming that they are following their dream to live in this country, and that they would be so unhappy there or unhappy with themselves that they would then project that negativity onto other people like it. It's what you make of it. And if you move to that country and you have, um, a positive and flexible mindset, then you can make it work and just ignore the negative Nancys, um, that are, you know, trying to keep you out. And a lot of times, you know, those people that are so negative about living in Costa Rica, they're there, so they're obviously there for a reason.  

Kristin:    00:25:43    So they might be complaining about it, but don't let that affect your decision to move to Costa Rica because apparently these expats or their acquaintances and friends are aware that that is having a negative impact on other people moving down to Costa Rica. So just try to have your own experience, um, you know, take all of this information into consideration, but ultimately make your own decision. And then the seventh reason is actually kind of just a list of all of the smaller reasons that people mentioned. So these were things from having legal problems or getting ripped off to the heat, the bugs, the climate, the extreme weather between the rainy season and the dry season. People mentioned natural disasters, the threat of flooding, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, the language barrier, infrastructure was another thing that came up. So the power can go out a lot. The internet can go out, the water can go out, and sometimes it's accidental.  

Kristin:    00:26:43    Sometimes it's a scheduled outage, it is the jungle. I mean, there's a lot of areas that don't have paved roads and there's dust or there's mud or there's mudslides. And so there's things like that that end up like turning people off. But far and away the biggest thing that people mentioned was just the cultural differences and the lifestyle differences that people had a hard time adapting to. And so if you expect everything to be exactly the same, you are going to struggle. And then why did I leave? So as I mentioned, I first moved to Costa Rica in 2002 and I learned Spanish there. I lived with a local Costa Rican family and I had a really amazing experience. And then I kept going back to Costa Rica and then ultimately moved there and worked there for eight years. And so there came this time where of course, I too went through the curve of cultural adaptation.  

Kristin:    00:27:40    I too went through many, many frustrating experiences while living there. Uh, that might've been different than the experiences I would've had living in my home country of the US. But eventually it came to the point where I thought, okay, I've been here long enough. I either need to buy a house, uh, go for permanent residency or maybe leave and move on and have a different experience because I was still kind of living in that parallel universe where I just wanted either more adventure or more stability. I went to the beach one day down in Dominical and I ran into a lifeguard there who was a surfer and we hadn't seen each other in 10 years. And I realized that I had explored so much of the country so many times and I thought, you know, I love it here. It's beautiful and I have a lot of friends here.  

Kristin:    00:28:30    There's a lot of pros to living here, but also I've been here a really long time and I had to think like, is this the experience that I wanna have for the next 10 years? And so there were those two factors. Another factor was that technology had improved a lot and I had stopped working in real estate sales and started working in rentals and also working online. So most of my work was remote at that point. I had a relocation company where I was helping people move to all different countries, not just Costa Rica. I could do that from anywhere. And it was actually a benefit to my company if I based myself in all of the different countries that I was working in. So I didn't wanna give preference to living in Costa Rica when I was also helping people move to Panama and Canada and Malta and London and all over the world.  

Kristin:    00:29:18    And so I thought, well, I can work from anywhere now we have iPhones and laptops and uh, high-speed internet, so why don't I just become a digital nomad? Which I didn't really know what a digital nomad was at that time, but it just made sense to go remote and start traveling more. Um, building my business in new countries and being able to just work from my laptop from anywhere. And so, and then the other factor was also safety. I definitely felt like it was getting less safe and I had more friends that were very close to me that were having scary experiences, and I just wanted to remove myself from that aspect. So that wasn't the main reason that I moved. It was more what did I want for myself long term and the next 10 year phase of my life. But it was all of those things together that led me to decide to move.  

Kristin:    00:30:12    And so in January of 2013, I went fully remote and I just traveled around the world with a suitcase and a backpack and one way tickets everywhere. And I didn't know how long I would stay in each country that I went to, but I had a lot of fun and, um, got to experience a different lifestyle. So I went from the Costa Rican beach town surfer lifestyle to living in places like Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, London, and then into Southeast Asia. So I got to have a completely different experience and, and then I could decide if I wanted to ultimately move back to Costa Rica, which I might do again someday, uh, maybe in a later phase in life. But I feel like there's still more of the world that I wanna see. So I think that if you are aware of these common pitfalls of moving to Costa Rica, you can manage them better or avoid them. World Nomads, the insurance company says that Costa Rica is deceptively risky, so it can look like paradise, but when you really zoom in, there can be a lot more problems. So as long as you keep those in mind and you know, if you can handle some bumpy roads, maybe getting dengue once or twice waiting in line at the banks, or just, you know, slowing down and living a slower lifestyle, uh, then Costa Rica could still be the right place for you.  

Kristin:    00:31:37    Thank you everyone for listening. I hope you enjoyed this podcast as much as you liked the video. And again, if you are interested in getting more details about that Remote Health Insurance, so international health insurance, that can cover you at home and abroad, you can get 5% off your policy and support the podcast at the same time by using my link in the show notes. Thanks again and see you next week for episode 105 of Badass Digital Nomads.