How to Move Abroad from the US to Costa Rica (eBook)
240 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-096260-7 (ISBN)
How to Move Abroad from the US to Costa Rica - Your Complete Step-by-Step Relocation Guide
Ready to trade stress for sunshine? How to Move Abroad from the US to Costa Rica is your ultimate, easy-to-follow guide to making your move a reality - confidently and without confusion.
Whether you're seeking a slower pace, tropical beauty, affordable healthcare, or a fresh start abroad, this practical ebook walks you through every stage of the relocation process from the United States to Costa Rica.
✅ Inside, you'll get:
Clear visa and residency options, including Pensionado and Rentista programs
A realistic cost of living breakdown: rent, food, insurance, and more
Insights into expat-friendly towns and neighborhoods
Guidance on healthcare access and private/public systems
Work, business, and remote job opportunities for expats
Cultural tips to help you adapt to Costa Rica's laid-back Pura Vida lifestyle
A moving abroad checklist so you don't miss a thing
This guide is designed for anyone dreaming of living in Costa Rica - whether you're retiring, relocating with family, working remotely, or simply craving a new life in a beautiful, welcoming country.
Chapter 1
The Grey Before the Green
N
ew York City, 6:12 AM — one coffee in, one breakdown pending
The radiator hissed like it had something to say.
Eliza sat cross-legged on her couch, journal open, pen hovering mid-air. Her coffee had gone lukewarm beside her, the steam long gone, just like the thrill she used to feel for this apartment. She stared at the brick wall across the alley, a lifeless shade of brown-grey in the pale light of early winter. A pigeon blinked at her through the window. Even it looked exhausted.
“I’m so tired of grey,” she finally wrote.
The words surprised her. Not the tired part — that had been there for months. But the grey. She hadn’t named it until now.
Grey was her life lately: grey concrete, grey subway platforms, grey skies; grey Zoom meetings that bled into grey evenings; grey dinners eaten while half-scrolling, half-existing.
She looked around. Her once-coveted Brooklyn loft felt like a Pinterest board that had stopped mattering. The sleek furniture. The matte black espresso machine. The stack of half-read self-improvement books. All perfectly curated. All perfectly joyless.
“I miss color. I want green. I want blue. I want light that doesn’t come from a screen.”
She paused and drew a tiny palm tree in the margin. Then she underlined it.
The pandemic had gutted her industry. Half her agency was laid off, and though Eliza had kept her job, it came with double the pressure and none of the perks. She was designing landing pages for vitamin startups while living on vitamins and iced coffee herself.
She barely spoke to her neighbours. The guy downstairs played synth-pop at 2 AM. Her best friend had moved to Vermont to “touch grass.” Eliza was still here, still grinding, still waiting for something to shift.
But no shift came. Just the slow, creeping knowing:
This isn’t life. This is just coping on auto-pilot.
She flipped to a fresh page and started writing a list without thinking:
What I Want:
To fall asleep to jungle sounds, not sirens
To learn the names of local birds
To speak Spanish without panic
To design slowly, in my own time
To eat fruits that didn’t come in plastic
To surf, or at least try
To wake up with light on my face and not dread in my chest
To feel part of a community
To sweat more, scroll less
To live outside more than in
She stared at the list and something inside her pulsed.
Not longing — clarity.
That night, she pulled out an old photo album from a trip she barely remembered: Costa Rica, five years ago. A rare solo vacation before client deadlines had swallowed her whole.
There she was, sunburnt and smiling, standing in front of a waterfall with a smoothie in hand and absolutely no idea how to pose. Her hair was a mess. She looked radiant.
“She looks alive,” Eliza whispered.
The next morning, she added a post-it to her fridge:
“More color. More life. Less grey.”
It wasn’t a master plan.
But it was a beginning.
It had been one of those days — the kind that drained her without ever peaking. No major catastrophe, no cruel email or Zoom blow-up. Just a slow, numbing erosion.
Eliza had spent the day in her apartment, jumping between calls about a client’s upcoming rebrand. A new line of protein powders with names like Ascend and Thrive — all wrapped in sterile, beige minimalism that screamed “clean” but felt hollow. She sat through back-to-back meetings about font weights and influencer packaging mockups while her basil plant withered on the windowsill beside her. At one point, she caught her own reflection in the black screen between meetings and didn’t quite recognize it.
The overhead light buzzed faintly. Slack pinged. She replied with a thumbs-up she didn’t mean.
By 6 PM, her eyes ached, her shoulders were stiff, and she had that dry, over-caffeinated taste in her mouth that made everything feel synthetic. She hadn’t stepped outside all day. The sun had already started to disappear behind the grey apartment blocks across the street.
She stood in her small kitchen, poured a glass of wine — an Oregon pinot she’d been saving for no reason — and leaned on the counter in silence.
“What am I even doing this for?”
It wasn’t a new question. It had been showing up like a whisper lately — in checkout lines, in elevators, in the silence between calendar alerts. But tonight, it came louder. More like a pulse. A steady beat in her chest.
She sipped the wine, walked back to her couch, and flopped down. She stared at the ceiling.
I did everything right, she thought.
Went to school. Got the job. Leveled up. Paid off debt. Networked. Branded myself. Stayed late. Showed up.
And yet… here she was. Thirty-eight, exhausted, and deeply unsure of what it was all leading toward — other than more screens, more deadlines, more late-night emails thanking her for “crushing it” on a campaign that didn’t matter to anyone.
The truth — the kind she rarely admitted even to herself — was that she felt trapped. Not just by work, but by the invisible blueprint of success she had followed since she was twenty. Be ambitious. Be productive. Keep going. Save. Achieve. Progress. Buy. Upgrade. Strive. Repeat.
And still, under all of it, an ache.
The country didn’t help. The U.S. had started to feel more like a business than a home. Politics were a mess — shouting matches that never ended. The cost of everything was up: eggs, insurance, rent, hope. Cities were unaffordable. Healthcare was transactional. Everyone was angry or afraid or both. It felt like the fabric of things had been stretched too thin — like everyone was pretending this was fine when it clearly wasn’t.
She was tired of pretending, too.
The thought came fast, sharp and clear, like the first drop of rain before a storm.
“I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
It wasn’t a tantrum. It was truth. Not dramatic, just deep.
She reached for her laptop, opened a new tab. Her fingers hovered.
“how to move abroad alone”
She hit enter.
At first, it felt ridiculous. People didn’t just move. Not at her age. Not alone. Not without a perfect plan. There were logistics. Paperwork. Risks. Health insurance. Taxes. And then there were the fears — the ones that always showed up when she got too close to dreaming:
What if I fail?
What if I’m lonely?
What if it’s a mistake?
What if I regret it?
What if I don’t belong anywhere?
But then, in the quiet behind those questions, a different voice emerged — one she hadn’t heard since her twenties, when she backpacked solo through the Pacific Northwest and believed life could be whatever she made it:
But what if it’s better?
What if she could wake up without anxiety clawing at her chest?
What if she didn’t need a second screen, a second fridge, or a second income to feel whole?
What if she lived somewhere where the air smelled like fruit and the hours unfolded like warm silk?
She opened Pinterest, searched “life abroad slow living tropical.”
Images flooded in. Hammocks and surfboards. Women with messy hair laughing over coconuts. Dusty roads. Mango trees. Sunlight slanting through palm fronds. Lush, saturated color — greens, blues, reds. A life without grey.
She set the glass down and opened Canva. Started dragging images into a blank board. One after another. A treehouse in Costa Rica. A spiral-bound notebook. A coastline that looked like it could hold her pain without flinching.
It was like building a doorway she didn’t know she needed.
Beneath the collage, she wrote in lowercase:
“freedom. peace. purpose. color.”
She leaned back.
The wine was warm now. The sky had gone from slate to ink. Somewhere downstairs, a car horn blared, but she didn’t flinch. She was thinking about Costa Rica — a place she’d visited years ago, where the rain came down like music and strangers said “pura vida” like they meant it.
And for the first time in months, her chest felt a little lighter. Not because she had answers. But because she’d finally let herself ask the right question.
What if I don’t stay?
It didn’t happen overnight.
There was no trumpet of clarity, no wild, cinematic “aha” moment. Just a steady unfolding — like a curtain being drawn back inch by inch until the view outside became impossible to ignore.
For weeks after that first search — how to move abroad alone — Eliza flirted with the idea like a secret lover. Quietly. Tenderly. She’d light incense in the morning, sip her coffee slowly, and let the possibility swirl in her chest like mist. Not just Costa Rica, but leaving. Really leaving. Untethering herself from the story she’d lived in for decades.
Still, the doubts came. Again. Loud and predictable.
Who do you think you are?
You’re too old to start over.
It’s irresponsible.
It’s a fantasy.
You’ll...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 30.5.2025 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Reisen |
| ISBN-10 | 0-00-096260-0 / 0000962600 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-00-096260-7 / 9780000962607 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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