Steps before leaving

Yes, a leap into the unknown is coming! Let go of everything, ok, but not at any price...And our future meetings here proved to us that we were right, some coming in with a gun thinking that the money would be enough and leaving a few months later not accustomed to the constraints and customs of the country...Even though we had gone to Costa Rica twice, the first for a vacation (!) we knew nothing about the local procedures and procedures.

So I put myself on dedicated Facebook groups. Distrust all the same because we read everything and its opposite, some seeming to know everything about the country and giving you information that is not always very accurate: the magic of social networks :) But, by dint of cross-checking we manage to find the truth and find good contacts. The main one in my opinion is the lawyer!

A good lawyer to avoid unpleasant surprises

Because here everything goes through him! From buying a car to buying land or a house, it will be of great help to you and will help you avoid pitfalls....as long as it is good! Luckily we discovered the nugget who turns out to be the advocate of many French people and who speaks our language which is reassuring when you don't master it. Fast, efficient, super friendly, he really avoided pitfalls for us, particularly when purchasing our land because he was able to verify, among other things, that the seller was indeed the owner! And yes here some people pretend to be owners even though they are not...

Same for money transfers, going through the lawyer's escrow account makes it much easier and more secure. And let's not talk about the translations of documents that it offers or even all the documents allowing you to open a bank account.

Buying a car, beware!

Next, the car! Living in Costa Rica without a vehicle, especially outside the cities, seems impossible to me. And given the state of the roads, it's better to have a reliable product. On the other hand, it is very expensive to import. So we look back at the opportunities and there the prices are exorbitant. FYI, our 2002 vehicle (Hyundai Terracan) cost us $14,000! Not knowing anything about mechanics, I found a service provider in the capital who offers, for 300 dollars, to find your vehicle. We communicated by email in advance about the type of car desired and, the day after our arrival, he picked us up from our hotel to go see the selected vehicles. At the end of the day the choice was made, 48 hours later the car was delivered to the hotel, in our name and registered. After a year of use we are still very satisfied with it. Please note that here they do not have the same idea of ​​mechanics as in Europe... nor the same safety requirements, hence our choice to go through this service provider... without regret!

Before leaving France we did not know precisely in which region we were going to settle. Costa Rica is a small country but each region is very different. So in order to discover the country we did housesitting which consists of looking after the houses of expatriates who return to their country for a more or less long period. The advantage is that you don't pay anything in exchange for maintaining the house, they are often beautiful villas and above all you can land anywhere in the country if you accept the mission of course. If there are specialized housesitting sites, we tried to put a post on Facebook in which we introduced ourselves. The next day we had proposals. After discussions with the owners, we carried out two missions of one month each in the Samara region. We did not continue the experience any longer because the Caribbean coast, Cahuita in particular, which we knew, appealed to us: somewhere we felt that this would be where we were going to settle.