Keeping It Simple In Costa Rica

Stepping off the grid is easy for travellers to this Central American country, where a life less structured, filled with untouched natural charm and surrounded by beauty comes, well, naturally. Charlene Fang spent a month embracing what Costa Ricans call living la pura vida – the pure life.

When you live in Costa Rica, you become accustomed to being surrounded by noise 24/7. The midnight howls of the neighbourhood dog. The sound of monkeys jumping from palm tree to palm tree. Loudspeakers blaring happy hour adverts in Spanish from the back of a pick-up truck. The cafe’s resident chipmunk shucking its daily nut above your head as you sip your morning coffee.

Strangely, none of these noises are agitating. Instead, they’re all part of Costa Rica’s charm and what makes it an ideal escape for today’s stressed, agitated individual – that is, someone like me.

Located at the cusp of Central and South America, a short three-hour flight from Florida, Costa Rica is very livable. It’s warm, with loads of beaches and natural attractions, and a big city (San Jose, its capital) equipped with all the necessary infrastructure to support a remote work scenario or a laid-back holiday for a month.

Our plan was simple. Find a place near the beach where we could live and work during the week, and rent a car on weekends to go exploring. A chance find on Airbnb, an industrial style loft with a Balinese style pool for US$1,000 (S$1,300) a month – just a five-minute Uber ride from the surf-friendly beach town of Jaco – sealed the deal.

Both a blessing and a “curse”, Costa Rica’s proximity to North America sees it heavily influenced by the United States. Popular towns like Jaco and Tamarindo feel uncomfortably familiar, with all the accoutrements (hip co-working places, third-wave coffee bars, surf and yoga schools) and the millennial jet set that populates other nomad hotspots like Barcelona, Lisbon and Cape Town – all of them attracted by a more affordable way of life but with a lot more lifestyle thrown in.