An article about a new collection of Google Street View photos of popular places in Costa Rica led me both on a discovery of the beauty and sights of Costa Rica, and also down the rabbit hole of Google Maps Street View.

When we started blogging on CostaRicaFIRE, with the FIRE piece standing for Financial Independence, Retire Early, my earliest readers (predominately family and friends, of course) thought I was so clever to come up with that acronym. I wish I had been that clever! FIRE is already a popular movement of its own with multiple blogs, Reddit groups, Meetups and other communities being built around it. It makes sense that my inner circle wouldn’t know about FIRE. I do not come from a family of entrepreneurs, though my mom was an early side hustler in that she always had additional work [...]

This year was both my 25-year college reunion and my oldest daughter’s own college graduation. She’s starting her career, as I celebrate 25 years into mine. When I landed my first job 25 years ago, Costa Rica wasn’t even on my radar. Now, as Scott and I have Costa Rica top of mind for our second acts, I wonder if I could have skipped my first career altogether and established myself in Costa Rica from the get go. I loved the first act of my career – traditional corporate jobs for 15 years and then building a six-figure lifestyle coaching [...]

How my husband and I picked Costa Rica for our post-corporate life is a question we get a lot. There are very practical reasons that I have already explained in past blog posts, including why Costa Rica is a good real estate investment, why Costa Rica is good for our gig-based new retirement, and why we love coming to Costa Rica. Costa Rica also builds on key elements we had already been putting in place before we both went corporate-free - real estate investing and building up freelance skills. But why pick a new place at all? Why did I evaluate [...]

In various media outlets  -- The Guardian, Entrepreneur, Quartz -- you’ll see mention of the rise in freelance or “gig economy” work, alternative work arrangements to the permanent, full-time job. Some of these jobs are not remote. If you’re an Uber driver or on call as a warehouse stocker, you’ll need to live where you work. But many jobs, especially the higher-paying knowledge work, can be handled remotely. I have been focusing on skills that increase my potential for virtual work, so I have the flexibility to travel. My current work portfolio includes coaching, recruiting, writing, and teaching, all of which [...]

As surprising as it was for me to find out that Costa Rica was playing in the 2018 World Cup, and the United States was not, I was even more surprised to find that Costa Rica's first match of the tournament (at 8am on a Sunday morning no less) was being televised live on free TV in the United States, on the Fox network. This is notable for me because as 'cord cutters', we do not subscribe to cable TV, relying instead on free over-the-air network TV and internet services such as Netflix.  I was not expecting to be able [...]

I have a lot to learn about Costa Rica sports, but I'm happy to start with following the Costa Rican team play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup. I was not aware that the United States team failed to qualify in the same tournament that Costa Rica did qualify, with Costa Rica beating USA twice, and once in the New York area. As the Costa Rica team prepares to play in the world cup, I outline their journey to get there, and the path ahead.

With two properties and over 20% of our net worth invested in Costa Rican real estate, our actions and wallet have clearly answered Yes to the question, “Is real estate in Costa Rica a good investment.” I’m not a financial advisor so I would never give another person specific investment advice anyway, and just because real estate in Costa Rica works for us doesn’t mean it will work for you. For us, to be comfortable it made sense, we answered Yes to the following questions: Should we invest in real estate? (As opposed to something else) Should we invest in [...]

We recently ran into a string of air conditioning issues with one of our rental properties in Jacksonville, to the tune of $10,000. Read on for details, but this is a good example of buyer beware and that old mechanical systems will fail sooner than later. Did you know there is "$5,000 Rule" for determining when to repair or replace your air conditioner?