I have this conversation most weeks. The reasons people give are remarkably consistent, and some of them survive contact with reality better than others.
This is the positive case. The honest case against is a separate post, and you should read both.
1. Healthcare that does not depend on your employer
This is the big one, and it comes up first on more calls than anything else.
Residents enrol in the Caja, the public health system, paying a percentage of declared income. It covers essentially everything, with no exclusion for pre-existing conditions. Alongside it sits a private sector that is genuinely good and inexpensive by American standards, so most people use both: the Caja for anything major, cash for a private appointment when they do not want to wait.
For anyone retiring before Medicare, or self-employed and buying their own cover, this single item can change the arithmetic of the whole decision. There is more on how it works in retiring in Costa Rica.
Does it hold up? Yes. This is the reason people are most often more satisfied with than they expected.
2. You choose your climate
Costa Rica is small and contains several climates. Hot and dry with a real dry season in Guanacaste. Spring-like year round in the Central Valley, which sits around 3,000 feet and stays in the seventies. Wetter and greener in the south and on the Caribbean.
You are not picking a country, you are picking a region, and they are genuinely different. The regional comparison lays them out.
Does it hold up? Yes, if you choose honestly. People who pick the coast without visiting in April sometimes wish they had picked the valley.
3. The pace
Life here runs slower. People stop to talk. Lunch is not eaten at a desk. Nobody is impressed that you are busy.
Americans arrive frazzled and describe, usually around month six, a physical change in how they feel.
Does it hold up? For most people, spectacularly. For a minority it is the exact thing that makes them leave, which is the honest counterpoint.
4. It is politically stable, and has been for a long time
Costa Rica abolished its army in 1949 and has run a stable democracy since. It has a strong environmental record, functioning institutions, and a long tradition of neutrality.
For people who list “the news cycle” among their reasons for leaving, and a lot do, this is not a small thing.
Does it hold up? Yes, though be aware you are moving to a country with its own politics, not to a place without any.
5. The country is genuinely welcoming to foreign residents
The residency categories are achievable rather than punitive. Pensionado asks for 1,000 dollars a month in lifetime pension income and covers a whole household. There is no requirement to give up your US citizenship. The system is slow, but it is not hostile.
The categories are set out by the immigration authority, and I have broken them down in the residency post.
Does it hold up? Yes, with patience. Everyone underestimates how long it takes.
6. Cost, with caveats
Cheaper than the US: healthcare, property tax, fresh produce, eating at sodas, domestic help, dentistry, and the long list of things you stop needing.
More expensive: cars, electronics, imported groceries, alcohol, and electricity if you run air conditioning.
Most people spend less overall and spend it differently. What almost nobody achieves is the “live like royalty on a thousand a month” fantasy that gets sold online. I keep an honest breakdown based on this coast.
Does it hold up? Partly. It is cheaper, but rarely as much cheaper as people expect.
7. You can get home easily
Direct flights from a good spread of US cities into both San José and Liberia. From this end of Guanacaste you can be at Liberia airport in under half an hour and home in the States the same day.
For anyone with ageing parents or grandchildren, this matters more than any other practical factor. It is also a genuine argument for living near the airport.
Does it hold up? Yes, and people underrate it beforehand and appreciate it afterwards.
8. Nature that is genuinely extraordinary
Costa Rica holds an outsized share of the world’s biodiversity in a country the size of West Virginia. Monkeys in the trees near the house. Turtles nesting. Cloud forest, volcanoes, two coasts, and national parks you can reach in a morning.
Does it hold up? Yes. This is the reason people stop noticing and then rediscover every time a visitor comes.
9. There is already a community
You will not be the first. The Central Valley and the Guanacaste coast both have established year round foreign communities, which means the services exist, the information exists, and you can make friends.
The corollary: choose a town with year round residents rather than a seasonal one, or you will spend half the year alone. That is a large part of what the area guides are about.
Does it hold up? Yes, if you pick the right town.
10. Pura vida is real, and it is not what the t-shirts say
It is not a slogan about beaches. It is closer to a shrug: things will work out, this is fine, do not make it a crisis.
Americans find it maddening for about six months and then, if they are the kind of person who does well here, they find they have absorbed it.
Does it hold up? It is the thing that most changes people, and the thing that most divides who stays from who goes.
People's stated reason for moving is usually cost. Their real reason is usually healthcare or pace. And the thing that decides whether they stay is almost never either of those, it is whether they can be happy when things do not go to plan. Worth knowing which of those you are before you sell the house.
Now read the other side
Every item above has a cost attached, and I would rather you knew them now. Ten reasons to reconsider is the honest counterweight, and it is the post I would actually send to a friend first.
If you have read both and still want to do this, the step by step guide is where to go next.
