What City is the Right City?

This is a difficult question to answer and depends on the type of person you are. Before moving to Costa Rica, I had the choice to choose between moving to a modern city where lots of English speaking people lived, or a rural town where I would find it near to impossible to find someone to communicate with in either of my native languages (French and English). In the end I chose the rural town of Barva de Heredia, and I have never once regretted my choice. In this wonderful town I have had to chance to meet the most wonderful people who have always been ready to lend a helping hand. Although we had a major language barrier, I found that this was the single biggest factor in my learning Spanish. I never took classes, as Barva itself was going to be all the language classes I would ever need.

In the end, I get the be the Barva Gringo, instead of just another Gringo living in a city that already has way to many Gringos according to Costa Ricans. Also, I feel like they respect me more for choosing to live with "common folk" rather than the upscale snooty crowd. Again, this is my personal experience and was what I was looking for in moving to Costa Rica.

Why Costa Rica?

Now that I had my Plan B taken care of, the next step would be deciding where in the World I would go. I thought about going to Africa, and had actually decided to go to Morocco, however destiny would interfere and I would end up going to visit my friend in Costa Rica prior to my departure for Africa. The love affair that ensued with Costa Rica was instant and I immediately changed my mind about going to Africa. Costa Rica's nature truly blew me away. Coming from an isolated town in Canada, what I liked even more than the weather was the proximity of everything in Costa Rica. I could drive from the Pacific to the Atlantic in five hours! I could not believe this! Also, with 11 different micro climates, I was able to see what I considered to be 10 countries worth of things, in a week trip. The decision at this point was an easy one, Costa Rica would be my destination, now the hard part was to follow; what the heck am I going to do to make that oh so important $$$.