10 questions
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask me, each answered in a paragraph at the top and properly underneath. No preamble, no hedging.
Climate
Is green season a bad time to visit Guanacaste? It is the best time to visit if you want to know whether you could live here. Everything is green, prices are lower, the beaches are quiet, and you see the region on a normal day rather than a peak season one. It usually rains in the afternoon, not all day. Read the full answer → Is Guanacaste too hot to live in? It is the hottest and driest province in Costa Rica, and March and April are genuinely hard, regularly in the mid nineties with a brown landscape. Most people acclimatise. This is still the single most common reason expats leave Guanacaste for the Central Valley, so visit in April before you commit. Read the full answer →
Daily life
Can you drink the tap water in Costa Rica? In most of the country, including the Central Valley and the main towns, yes. Costa Rica has some of the highest treated-water coverage in Latin America. On parts of the coast and in rural areas the supply is more variable and many residents filter. Ask locally for the specific town rather than assuming either way. Read the full answer → Do you need to speak Spanish to live in Costa Rica? In the bigger expat towns you can get by on English, and thousands of people do. You will pay more, understand less and make fewer local friends. Even a modest amount of Spanish changes daily life here more than almost anything else you can do, and it is the cheapest upgrade available to you. Read the full answer → Is Playas del Coco safe? It is a normal small town, which means ordinary precautions rather than fear. Petty theft from cars and unlocked houses is the common complaint. Violent crime against residents is rare. The genuine hazards here are the sea and the roads at night, not people. Read the full answer →
Getting around
Do you need a 4x4 in Costa Rica? Not for the main routes. The road from Liberia airport to Playas del Coco, Ocotal and Playa Hermosa is fully paved, and an ordinary car handles the coast road, Tamarindo and the towns. You want clearance for unpaved side roads, hillside driveways and river crossings, and you want it most in the green season. Read the full answer → Do you need a car in Playas del Coco? You can live without one inside town, and plenty of people do for their first year. The moment you want to shop somewhere bigger, visit another beach, or reach the airport at five in the morning without paying for a taxi, a car stops being optional. Read the full answer →
Question not here? It is probably in the expat FAQ or inside one of the guides. If it is not, ask me directly.
Got a question this doesn't answer?
Forty-five minutes on video. Your situation rather than the general case, straight answers, and a written recap afterwards.
Ask an Expat · $99