Hey everybody in this video we’re going to talk about the 100 most common questions i get about living in costa Rica as an expat and i’m just going to jump right into it uh my name is jonathan north and I’ve been here for quite some time now has been women in Latin America for a few years so I’m just going to go down question by question and there is a uh chapters below this video if you want to find any specific question just click the button and if you get anything out of this i just ask that you hit the like button hit the subscribe button if you want to see more travel and content all right let’s get to it question number one are meals expensive in costa Rica relative to the rest of Latin America food is quite expensive here it’s probably uh i don’t want to say double nearly double Mexico close to el Salvador definitely double Honduras close to Panama prices uh probably triple Columbia i would say the food here is about triple the price of Colombia.

and yeah so i would say relatively speaking yes the food’s a bit expensive why is food so expensive in costa rica and i would attribute that to it being a small country when a country is this small and the the land is pretty one-dimensional so most of the land is used for just a few crops and then the rest of all the of the different types of food are imports so a lot of the markets here are import markets like fresh market and the prices are are pretty much same price as the united states you’re not going to find any good deals at these commercial places maybe at some like local markets for fruit and stuff like that but there’s just so much imports you know those imports have taxes and also subject to international prices so that that really is why uh the food is expensive here how much is a can of coke in costa rica so if you’re talking like i think like one a 12 ounce can of coke is like just under 400 milliliters uh it’s probably 500 colonies which is like 80 cents so that’s a little cheaper but most coca-cola is made locally by the way from like sugar cane and and other stuff like there there are coca-cola plants scattered throughout central america so coca-cola is probably not the best like frame of reference of like how expensive stuff is uh how much money should i bring to costa rica for a week

so last week i took 150 bucks out of the atm and that lasts me about one week so my like walking around spending money for just me is 150 a week no i don’t do a ton like i’m not at live in a tourist life every single day so you know the the amount you spend is going to be uh commensurate to what you do you know if you’re going on tours if you’re going to the beach if you’re driving around taking tons of taxi is going to cost more money

so is the u.s dollar strong in costa rica well it’s it’s may 25th and the united states dollar just hit a 20-year high so it is relatively speaking it’s it’s cheaper in most countries for an american to travel at this time in may um but you know that’s just because you can look at the stock market we talk about that on this channel all the time the stock market is is kind of selling off right now which means they’re going people are going into cash which makes things cheaper abroad can i use my credit card in costa rica i try to i have a couple of travel credit cards so when you sign up for a credit card you got to make sure that there’s no foreign transaction fee and you can you can look it up on your credit card agreement so if you have no foreign transaction free fee it’s not going to cost you anything just like the exchange rate uh it’s not going to cost you anything to to use that card but if there is a if there is a foreign transaction fee you may see a separate charge on your credit card that says uh you know foreign transaction fee 25 cents uh i’ve not been to a store yet that doesn’t take you know like a brick and mortar store that doesn’t take credit cards so everybody takes a credit card here is it okay to wear shorts in costa rica i would say costa rica is the most short friendly uh latin american country i would say colombia no never never only at the beach maybe like sometimes when i go in the water i’m wearing pants in colombia no you’re wearing jeans here most of people are wearing jeans um but you can wear shorts there’s no problem with it just people don’t want to see your legs

can you drink the water in costa Rica yep i drink the water every day here um there might be just like a a touch of lead in it but you know you never know you know it’s like so there’s going to be two main concerns when drinking water number one is contamination from like paramecium amoebas or whatever single-celled organisms or bacterias um that that’s concern number one which i don’t think is too much of a concern in in the majority of parts here in costa Rica and concern number two is going to be how it’s transported to like what kind of infrastructure and pipes like even detroit’s got lead pipes so i don’t know if they test for that so i can’t say if it’s safe in that dimension but i’ve never felt sick from the water here can you use us dollars in costa Rica

i’ve gone to a few places and i pay with a bill and they get the calculator out and they just they want they’ll take dollars yeah it’s you know if you look at the charts the dollar is a better thing to put your money into it they don’t have like a new york stock exchange here in costa rica so if you’re saving a paper they want them dollars so you can use us dollars in some places is it rude to tip in costa rica i’ve never experienced any offense at tipping you know you have to look at your receipt before you pay and before you tip because it’ll save propina and there’ll be usually a 10 charge right in there depending on the place will my cell phone work in costa rica most like att and t-mobile cell phones i think work depending on the plan of course but most like post paid plans they’ll probably charge you extra like i know with atnt they’ll charge you like a per day fee so it’s like use your phone as normal but it’s 10 bucks a day so you just got to consult your specific service provider but my phone’s always worked here never had a problem how much does a beer cost in costa rica about 1200 colonies for a national beer which is imperial imperial is about 1200 colonies which turns out to be like a dollar eighty dollar 80 for a beer that’s pretty standard is costa rica cheaper than mexico yep or no no it’s not costa rica is not cheaper than mexico it’s almost double the price i would say across the board almost double the price and also like if you want to do an extended trip to mexico you just drive there

uh one question why is costa Rica so expensive just generally speaking

a couple of reasons i would say two main reasons in my experience reason number one is most things are imported because it’s a small country not a ton of domestic uh stuff here domestically made stuff here reason number two is most of the expats here and most of the tourists here are tourists from northern states who don’t like Florida that’s what i’ve noticed is there people from California in new york and new jersey who don’t want a vacation in Orlando so they say i’m gonna i’m gonna vacation or retire to costa Rica you know it’ll be different there and then they bring all all that stuff here that’s my experience and those are just wealthy countries wealthy states right so those rich states people from very wealthy states in the united states are vacationing here

how much is a big mac in costa Rica um i looked that’s up this morning it’s about 2500 colonies for a big mac which translates to four bucks for yeah four dollars four dollars for a big mac and that’s uh

that reference is usually from this old economist article called like the big mac purchasing power parody about how much a big mac costs in different countries i wonder who sponsored that story is costa Rica worth it yeah it is a beautiful country it’s a great place to hang out um great weather even here it’s the rainy season it’s still beautiful so lush and so green 100 great place to be

how much do you need to live comfortably in costa rica that’s a good question so my my apartment here is about 1200 a month but it’s it’s fully furnished and that’s with electricity and internet and it’s like in probably one of the nicest neighborhoods in the whole of maybe the whole country you know i would probably say that this little road here i’m in is the nicest road in the in most of the country one of the nicest you can go down you can see the weather’s so nice here is that you can get a place that’s kind of high up in the mountain and just leave your windows open then you have to worry about like a high electricity bill um you know if you want to eat basic you could eat for under 10 bucks a day you know so call that 350 plus entertainment another 350 and a cheap apartment i’m sure you could get for 500 a month here all in so you can live cheaply for about 1200 a month and then between 1200 and 2000 a month you can live pretty comfortably and 2000 to 500 a month then you can start thinking about like owning a car um eating out more often and going on like awesome trips throughout the country if you have 2500 a month like you can live good on 2500 a month here ignoring health care costs which some people can’t what are the dangers of costa rica in every country i’ve ever been to the number one danger is always the same it’s the roads the roads and the drivers will always be the number one concern i got hit by a car in el salvador a few months ago the drivers just aren’t paying attention um and it’s not really a criticism of the people it’s the infrastructure that’s really terrible like there might not be signs there might not be a light you might be at an intersection with no stop signs and no light and that’s just something you have to watch out for meanwhile you’re swerving potholes so um it’s not set up to be safe so as always the number one danger is driving and walking in any country you go to that’s like developing you know and then second biggest danger is just walking around at night in neighborhoods you don’t know um that’s going to even in neighborhoods you do know there there’s always a chance of uh of mugging you know and theft just part of part of latin america when should i avoid costa rica so the only time i’ve ever heard of people avoiding this place is uh is the rainy season and the rainy season in my opinion isn’t terrible so that’s like september and around now as well there’s usually two rainy seasons it rains almost every single day here for an hour or two but it’s been dry all day and the truth is you’re in central america it’s so hot here you welcome the rain is costa rica safer than mexico

depends where Mexico city is a fin is a awesome safe city Oaxaca beautifully safe zakatekas maybe not so safe you know so like Mexico city Oaxaca Mexico is probably safer okay Chiapas Mexico is probably a tiny bit safer Zacatecas Monterey uh you know even Cancun Cancun is sketchy um those places it depends where you can’t compare costa Rica with five million people to Mexico with over a hundred

but generally speaking mexico’s got tons of safe places but also generally speaking i feel safe here all the time 100 of the time walking around at night i feel safe unless i’m unless i’m walking along the side of the road is it a good idea to retire in costa Rica

you may have trouble finding certain healthcare services here but for the most part this is a very relaxing easy place to retire to

how hot does it get in costa Rica depends where um if you go lower in elevation towards the beach it’s going to be very warm up here in san Jose it’s it’s beautiful it’s like 68 last night and it’s right now it’s 70 degrees and it’s may 25th so and i bet you it’s gonna get up to like right around noon on a normal day it’s probably gonna get up to about 85 90 here in san Jose and then warmer as you get closer to the beach and then once you get real close to the beach you get beautiful breezes that make everything nice is it cheaper to go to Cancun or costa Rica the beach of Cancun is way more expensive than the beach of costa Rica now beast beach of costa Rica is not owned by mega um all-inclusive hotels the hotel zone in Cancun is expensive that’s like it’s going to be almost more expensive than Florida in some parts of Cancun

what are the disadvantages of living in costa Rica um

number one is is the infrastructure even though it’s probably some of the best infrastructure in Latin America hands down still not perfect um you know the relative cost of living compared to other Latin American countries the lack of imports which is true of almost all uh other countries you know we are very spoiled in the USA we have good imports and plentiful and cheap but here just a little bit more expensive

why are expats leaving costa Rica because expats complain a lot see expats became expats because they were just pissed off at everything so expats what they do is they find reasons to hate places and then leave nothing wrong with this place um totally tranquil place all the expats who left costa Rica also left the united states for probably the same reasons so that’s my two cents maybe it’s not all of them you know but every expat that i’ve met has just been a complainer in general you don’t try to associate with expats if you can

why you should not live in costa rica um i would probably say the main reason is if if money is a big concern if you want economic opportunity um relative to the united states you’re not going to find it here you know you’re going to find that big money in new york you know in new york city miami those sorts of places what is the average cost of a home in costa rica so depends where location location location in the city center you find half a million million dollar houses in the city 100 percent like land and homes expensive in the central part of san jose when you go into the rural area you can get land you can get land that produces and you can get land you know it produces crops and wind that has a nice house on it for fifty hundred thousand dollars you could probably find a nice condo in the city here for a hundred grand that’s um that’s right in there but it’s not going to be the same type of house in the usa and there are earthquakes all the time here i felt too earthquake since i’ve been here uh in the last few months and they were not like little earthquakes there there are tons of earthquakes here so you know that it’s shaking and rumbling how long can a u.s citizen live in costa rica um depends on your visa depends on your you know on how you enter if you enter as a tourist um you can stay here for 90 days if you enter and get a residency a resident card you can stay here forever or as long as that resident card is good for

how good is healthcare in costa Rica is pretty decent it’s pretty decent i mean there’s there’s people who have money here and then Mexico cities and easy the truth is even if you live in the USA you people still go to Mexico city to get some procedures done because it’s cheaper um Mexico city is only like 100 flight away and it’s good our mosquitoes a problem in costa Rica depends on the elevation at lower elevations lots of bugs higher elevations not so many

how many u.s citizens live in costa Rica i had to book this one up earlier so according to the state department 70 000 u.s citizens currently live in the united states of America or 70 000 u.s citizens currently live in costa Rica

why are there bars on windows in costa Rica probably a couple of reasons one just aesthetics and memes you know because it’s like a meme to have bars on your windows and then number two for security you know if you’re gonna leave a home unoccupied you know it’s better to just put bars on those windows

are costa Ricans friendly yeah i would say so no more less friendly than most of Latin America they’re very tourist-friendly more so than other countries this country is set up for tourism eco-tourism they’re very proud of that that’s very part of the culture very much part of the culture here how much can you rent a house for in costa Rica between 500 i mean my neighbor is renting his condo for 3 000 a month so literally between 500 and 3000 a month just depends on what you want you know you have to look at at what’s important to you um but you can you know i bet you could find a place for 400 a month but it’s not going to be that nice

what is it like to live in costa Rica as an American uh

i don’t know what’s happened but there’s not as much of an expat community here as i remember maybe it’s because they cleared out from coven um but you know for what i can remember there are fewer expats here there’s plenty of stuff to do it’s really going to deter be determined by what your hobbies are like for me i like riding my bike so as a as a cyclist there’s tons of stuff to do if you like hiking it’s awesome it’s great place where is the best place to live in costa Rica well i like the city so i live in san Jose and uh i find that to be the best mix of like affordability access you know taxis everywhere all the stuff that you want to buy you know dinners out whatever maybe tons of that around here what language do they speak in costa Rican in costa Rica they speak Spanish here

what is a good salary in costa Rica most the people i’ve met here the locals make between like at a normal office job are making between a thousand and eighteen hundred dollars per month um obviously if you specialize you’ll make more um they the the salaries don’t skyrocket for the same professions like they do in the USA like a doctor in the USA making 500 000 a year you know i know doctors are making like 40 50 000 a year so it’s all about supply and demand what is considered rich in costa Rica

that’s a tough question i mean i feel like most of people are considered rich depending on what kind of car they drive, but it’s just all about like if you own land if you own property because you know they’re not denominating their wealth in the local currency you know you can’t do that

is it cheaper to live in costa Rica or Panama i would say costa Rica because Panama uses the dollar so prices are gonna prices are gonna go up in Panama without like for no reason just because the dollar is everywhere you know more more dollars chasing the same good sort of thing what is the minimum wage in costa Rica costa Rica does not have a minimum wage according to my research i might be wrong but i looked on a bunch of websites no minimum wage here you know usually like in Colombia they use the minimum wage for a whole bunch of calculations um but no there’s no minimum wage here how much do you need to retire in costa Rica

um i’ve i bet you could retire with half a million here and live okay half a million bucks

how hard is it to move to costa Rica depends on how much stuff you have you just got a backpack and just get on a plane and go 100

another question is it okay to drink the tap water depends on your your your definition of okay but i drink it every day

how much does a waitress make in costa Rica that’s the idea of waitress isn’t what you might think of in the USA here it’s more of like just someone who brings food

so that’s something to consider we would say about seven bucks an hour sounds about right how much money do you need to live comfortably in costa Rica i’m 2500 a month and you’ll look good here

what’s the safest city in costa Rica oh I mean it’s a small country you know there’s not tons of big cities um

the beaches while they are safe you know the tourism attracts and I would say probably some parts of san Jose are good not all parts like you can’t really look at san Jose and say it’s all safe it’s too big but there are some parts of san Jose like where i am in Escazu it’s very very very safe

why is costa Rica so poor

i don’t know that’s a good question it’s a that’s a whole it’s a whole topic of discussion like why is any country poor you know most countries are usually poor for all the same reasons um

yeah i want to say it’s tough well let me think

probably because of um it’s just being hard to save you know every person intrinsically they want to save but if it’s hard to save then you kind of get punished for doing the right thing so the easier it is to save in a country the more long-term people can look the more long-term people can look the better decisions they’ll make that’s my general uh

assessment is it cheaper to live in Mexico or costa Rica it is cheaper by about half to live in Mexico is it safe to retire in costa Rica depending on the place yeah you know if you uh if you retire to like uh the downtown area maybe not okay here’s a silly question is costa Rica owned by the united states no costa Rica is not owned by the united states can i drive from texas to costa Rica yes totally 100 is just drive through Mexico down the pan American highway cross over to Guatemala Guatemala to Honduras Honduras Nicaragua Nicaragua costa Rica probably take you about depends on how much driving you did but I bet if you did eight hours a day of driving that’s probably sustainable eight hours a day you just did city the city eight hours a day i bet you could get here

in two and a half weeks texas texas to costa Rica eight hours a day two and a half weeks you’ll be here

what are the disadvantage of living in costa Rica just not being able to find different stuff the rainy season infrastructure what are some popular foods in costa Rica

popular breakfast is huevo pinto just eggs rice and beans you can get that at most stores for uh two dollars or two thousand colonies you know three dollars and fifty cents you can get a eggs rice and beans breakfast and then uh popular dinner a rose con when you get that again for like 3 000 pesos so just under 5 bucks you can get fajitas lots of Mexican food lots of chicken wings elites those are some of the popular foods here is costa Rica nicer than Mexico i feel like it is i feel like costa Rica is nicer you know it is more expensive but it is nicer is it safer depends on the location is costa Rica expensive generally speaking yes but i mean you know if you rate costa Rica compared to Mexico it’s like you can drink the water here so what’s the price of that

is costa Rica a part of the united states no it’s a sovereign country

what are the dangers in costa Rica again traffic cars pollution from the cars you know the diesel smoke

can i travel to costa Rica right now so it’s it’s may 25th and costa Rica is open for travel

what country owns costa Rica that’s not how that works I don’t know why there’s so many of these questions no no it’s a sovereign nation

is costa Rica a friendly country to tourists yes very friendly to tourists

do tourists get kidnapped in costa Rica tourists get kidnapped in all countries like it just happens in all countries tourists get kidnapped and it doesn’t seem to be a big issue here

is it worth is costa Rica worth visiting yep it’s it should be um if you’re a novice traveler it is a uh it’s a good place to start out it was the first country i traveled to alone costa Rica 2017. is costa Rica cheap it’s cheaper than the USA it’s it’s still about at this point you know costa Rica has one-third the price of the USA

is costa Rica considered a third world country

i don’t know why but it is you know probably because of development it is considered third world but the majority of this country looks pretty nice why are expats leaving costa Rica because expats are never happy

is English widely spoken in costa Rica no i’ve not met more than a handful of people that speak English fluently here

can a u.s citizen buy property in costa Rica yep everybody can buy property here um all foreigners are allowed to buy land here

can you use u.s money in costa Rica depends you know there’s no there’s no laws that force them to accept it but a lot of people accept it so it’s but it’s so easy just get cash out of the atm

what type of food does costa Rica eat lots of rice plantanos fruit tons of bananas everywhere beans chicken steaks pizzas you know chicken wings what religion is in costa Rica most of the religion here is catholic in el Salvador there were tons of there was catholic and Jewish those are the two main religions religions but here it’s mostly only catholic and and i’ve seen some testigos which is uh testigo is Spanish for witness so those are jehovah’s witnesses

what is the average price of a house in costa Rica um American style decent house i mean minimum acceptable probably about a hundred thousand bucks what are the disadvantages of living in costa Rica again not being able to get certain things infrastructure

how far is a flight to costa Rica uh just under three hours from Miami is the flight here you know if you are coming from Ohio four hours you know if you’re coming from you know northern California five but from Florida it’s three hours from Miami are snakes a problem in costa Rica i’ve not had a snake problem yet but I imagine some have there’s a lot of animals here

what should you not do in costa Rica

uh don’t pick fights with locals don’t get overly drunk don’t be a loud tourist

don’t expect it to be like the united states in any way it’s what you should not do

is costa Rica a u.s territory it is not

does costa Rica have an army no that army was disbanded in 1948. can i flush toilet paper in costa Rica i don’t know but i do i flush it i mean i don’t see like trash bins in in in public restrooms so i assume yeah you can flush toilet paper anywhere i flush toilet paper in Asia don’t never had a problem

don’t tell anybody though

where do most expats live in costa Rica i mean most live in san Jose because it’s the biggest city, but there are tons of expats that own beach property you know if people who really make money they go and buy a house by the beach and it’s not even that expensive

how much is it to rent a room in costa Rica 200 to 500 a month a month for a room

and what is costa Rica famous for i would say more than anything it’s the coffee the coffee here is really good and that’s it that’s like 100 questions on costa Rica we’re 34 minutes in uh i hope you enjoyed the video if you made it here i can’t believe it i can’t believe you made it this long hit that like button please thanks hit the subscribe to and the in the bell in the notifications i do live streams quite often uh and i’m leaving costa Rica pretty soon when we’re going to Asia so thanks for watching bye