Thinking of moving here?
Spend a month here before you decide to spend a life here.
You have decided on Costa Rica. You have not decided where. A month in the Southern Zone answers the questions a one-week trip cannot — and it is a far cheaper way to be wrong.
Why we built this page
People keep telling us the same thing.
They arrive for a month, and somewhere around the second week it comes out over a glass of wine: they are thinking about moving here. Not this year, necessarily. But thinking about it.
One guest stayed six weeks while his house was being built up the road. Others come to compare the Southern Zone against Guanacaste or the Central Valley, having already decided on the country and not the place.
The advice everyone gives — and it is good advice — is rent before you buy. Rent in more than one area. Take your time. Costa Rica is small on a map and enormous in practice: the Caribbean is not the Pacific, the mountains are not the coast, and Guanacaste is a genuinely different country from the Osa.
We cannot tell you whether this is your place. We can give you a month to find out properly.
The difference
A week shows you the view. A month shows you the life.
A week gives you
A month gives you
Straight answers
The questions people ask us in week two.
- Is the Southern Zone right for everyone?
- No. It is quieter, wetter and further from an international airport than Guanacaste or the Central Valley. If you want a golf community and a Costco, this is the wrong coast, and we would rather say so now than have you discover it in week three.
- What about the roads?
- Paved to the coast, gravel up the hill. You will want all-wheel drive, and in the wet season you will be glad you have it. It is genuinely fine, and it is genuinely not a city.
- How bad is the rainy season?
- September and October are the wettest months of the year, and living through one is the single most useful thing a prospective buyer can do. Most people visit in February and fall in love with a version of this place that exists for four months a year.
- Do people actually move here and stay?
- Some do and some do not. The ones who stay almost always spent real time here first, in more than one season. The ones who leave often bought quickly, in the dry season, on a good week. That is the whole argument for renting first.
- Can you work from here?
- We do. Starlink as the primary connection with fibre as backup, both on solar, so an outage takes the air conditioning and not the video call. Costa Rica is on Central time with no daylight saving, which is easier on a US schedule than most of the alternatives.
What we will actually do
We will introduce you to people.
This is not a service we sell and there is nothing to sign. We have lived with this decision ourselves, we know who is good and who is not, and it costs us a phone call.
Ask us anything. What we paid in property tax. What the internet actually costs. What went wrong with our build. Which agent we would use again and which we would not. We would rather you had a clear picture than a flattering one.
We do not take commission from anyone on this list, and we will tell you if that ever changes.
Who we can introduce you to
- A lawyer
- For residency questions, or a purchase if it gets that far
- A real estate agent
- One who will tell you what is wrong with a property, not just what is right
- A builder
- If you are thinking about land rather than a house
- A doctor and a clinic
- Including who speaks English, and where you go at 2am
- A bank
- Opening an account here is its own adventure
- Neighbours
- The most useful of all, and the hardest to arrange from abroad
The logistics of a month
Where you shop, and how far.
Ojochal has the restaurants. Uvita has everything else — the supermarkets, the bank, the fuel, and the Wednesday market. Twenty minutes north on the coast road, and you will end up going at least once a week.
The Wednesday market in Uvita is the one to plan around — worth planning your week around. Fresh-squeezed orange juice that is genuinely glorious, fish landed that morning, local coffee — ask for Don Emilio — handmade lotions, jewellery, and authentic Boruca masks. You will recognise the masks: there are several hanging in the house.
Getting here, roads and allFrom our gate
- Playa Ventanas12 min
- Citrus restaurant, Ojochal12 min
- Uvita20 min
- Ojochal waterfall24 min
- Dominical36 min
- Nauyaca Waterfalls49 min
Measured with the clock running, from our own gate.
If you are already building
Live five minutes from your site while it goes up.
Builds here run eight to fourteen months for a straightforward house, and longer on a hillside with gravel access. Yours will probably overrun. Everyone’s does.
Costa Rican leases default to three years by law, which is why the usual rental market is no help to someone who needs four months. Ours is month to month, with no lease and no drama when your completion date moves.
Two offices for the contractor calls and the drawing reviews, a full kitchen, laundry, and a twenty-minute drive to most of the building suppliers in the zone.
What a month costs
Thirty-night minimum. Month to month. No lease.
Sleeps 6 across three ensuite bedrooms, so a couple scouting together with friends or family splits it several ways. Rates exclude 13% IVA.
Green season month
$6,500
about $215 a night
Shoulder month
$8,500
about $283 a night
High season month
$11,500
about $383 a night
Holiday month
$15,500
about $515 a night