I've been here almost two years now and just bought my first house here.
I can give you a few pros and cons,but keep in mind these are just MY personal opinions based on my tastes and personality
PROS
- Absolutely beautiful country, nature-wise. Tons of outdoor activities, jungle, volcanoes, mountains, beaches....you name it.
- Very cheap cost of living when compared with the quality of life offered
- Generally the women here are good-looking and 'friendly' (especially to foreigners!)
- Great tax reasons for individuals or companies
- Language. Many people here speak English, and its easy to pickup enough conversationalist Spanish too. I haven't really noticed much language problems here.
CONS
- Music. This is based on my personal taste, but I have never been so fed up of any type of music as I am here with reggaeton. The fact is, I never liked techno/house/dance too much in Montreal either, but most places mix it up. An hour of hip-hop here, some house there, etc...Here you literally here the same songs at every bar, played MORE than 5-6 times within 3-4 hours. No exaggeration. Rock/alternative and now even hip-hop bars/clubs are getting hard to find, as when one style of music is popular, everywhere follows suit. I heard the situation was identical to this before I moved here, only with hip-hop. Everyone follows one another basically.
- Food. Costa Rican produce is mostly local, so it tastes pretty good, but I don't like their 'national' menu consisting of mostly rice and beans. There isn't as much variety of food as I was used to in Montreal, but you can find most types of food if you look for it.
- People #1. While being very friendly and fun-loving, the people here are also very 'fake' and 'envious/jealous' of most foreigners. It's understandable, as money talks here and usually the foreigners have a lot more of it than the locals, but it becomes annoying after awhile.
- People #2. This is not a very individualistic society. Almost all people here are very religious (of course in very hypocritical ways, as usual), and most people only 'follow the crowd'. Montreal was a city with more 'independant thinkers' I would say...
- Service. If you go to restaurants/bars targeted to foreigners, you pay more but get good service usually. Any local places, the service is AWFUL (for foreigners and locals alike), largely I think because they don't work for tips. Tips are included on the bills and most waiters/waitresses/barmen never see their cut of it, the owner keeps it. However sometimes it's overly bad, for no other reason than the person working there doesn't give a damn since they are paid low or just too lazy.