[0:00] What does it really take to build a life abroad? Not just visit, not just dream about it, but actually stay. Today, I'm
[0:07] talking to the founder of Start Abroad, who made the move to Costa Rica and experience firsthand what paradise
[0:13] actually feels like when it becomes your everyday life of Costa Rica. Well, as we're speaking,
[0:19] there's a toucan in the trees right in front of me. So, that's really cool. It's a beautiful country. Truly
[0:25] beautiful. And it has everything. So, it has mountains, it has cloud forest, it has jungle, it has lake, it has
[0:31] incredible Caribbean side beaches with good snorkeling on it, the Pacific beaches with surfing and and the seafood
[0:37] and seeing whales and things. It sounds like a dream and in many ways it is, but then it comes the part no one
[0:44] puts on Instagram. In terms of the negatives, I just think getting anything done can be really frustrating and I think that's where a
[0:49] lot of people will come in the in the first 6 months, especially Americans, and just get really frustrated. maybe
[0:56] think, well, Costa Rica is not for me just because it is slow. And that's where the real story begins. Because moving abroad, even to your
[1:03] ideal country, isn't a vacation. No matter where you move, even if you move to your ideal country, first of
[1:08] all, it's not a vacation. Life is just life. And so, you're still dealing with similar challenges. And you just have to
[1:13] adjust. And there's actually this emotional curve that you go through that the first two weeks, you're like, "This is the best decision ever. I love it
[1:19] here." And then for whatever reason, you have a panic. You're like, "What did I do? This place is terrible. I can't
[1:25] believe we made a huge mistake. And then things balance out. In this episode, we talk about the beauty, the frustration, the emotional
[1:32] roller coaster, and what it really takes to turn a new country into a home and how Start Abroad can help with it. Today
[1:39] on Almost Local, the living abroad story of Zack Girth. Let's start.
[1:52] My name is Zach. I'm a co-founder of Start Abroad. We're an international relocation company supporting moves to
[1:58] Costa Rica, Panama, uh, Portugal, and Spain. I'm originally from the US. I'm from an island called Key West. So, grew
[2:05] up going on the boat. I love the water. Uh, went to school in Tennessee, and
[2:10] then I joined what was called the Peace Corps. It's a US government institution that kind of sends volunteers to
[2:15] different parts of the world. So, I was in the Dominican Republic for four years. went to grad school, studied international development and ended up
[2:21] living in Africa for five years where I met my partner. Over co we decided to launch this business and and moved to
[2:28] Costa Rica for a lot of reasons. We wanted to be a little closer to home. We wanted to be on US time zones, wanted to start a family and so now I'm in uh
[2:36] Costa Rica running this business. I'm very curious about the place corpse because I it's the first guest that I
[2:41] interview and that like never met anyone who did this. I mean I
[2:46] suppose in Europe it's less common. What is the job that you used to do with them like what is the volunteer job that you
[2:51] do with Yeah. So I joined right after college. It was I always loved living in different places. I had been fortunate
[2:58] enough to travel a lot in Europe and South America when I was young and so I just loved learning about different cultures and I also grew up in a way
[3:05] that made me want to help people, you know, help themselves and so I joined the Peace Corps. It's a
[3:11] government institution that uh sends kind of young, it doesn't have to be young, but mostly young volunteers to do
[3:19] different things in communities around the world. I was assigned to the Dominican Republic because I spoke a little bit of Spanish and I was a youth
[3:26] and community development volunteer. So, what it was was a lot of um youth empowerment and kind of education. So,
[3:32] taught English classes, kind of HIV and sexual health courses. We did women's
[3:38] empowerment. So I did a lot of like women's sports and then we did entrepreneur uh entrepreneurial classes.
[3:44] So teaching youth um about kind of starting their own businesses. And so I was there for 27 months and then I ended
[3:50] up getting a job in the Dominican Republic after that with one of the organizations I coordinated with for another year. So lived there for another
[3:56] year. So about four years in total. That's really interesting. Nice nice environment and work to do and all. So like absolutely.
[4:02] Yeah. You end up living in a community. There was no other no one else that spoke English for about 50 miles from
[4:08] where I was. And I didn't speak great Spanish when I first went. You know, I taken Spanish in high school and
[4:13] college. And they give you this language test when you first arrive. It's one out of 10. One is you can't say hola. And 10
[4:20] is you're a native speaker and I was a three. And so, you know, you're just in this community and you it's really difficult to communicate at first and
[4:27] you don't know anybody and gradually you just really integrate in the community and people really take care of you and look after you and your language gets
[4:33] better and so it was a very intense experience but also extremely meaningful.
[4:38] You said Africa in there like it catch my my attention also. How did you end from like being in Dominican Republic to
[4:45] end in Africa? So I was in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corp. The Peace Corps is a you
[4:50] know international development there's a lot of different models and the basic question is you know how do we support people to improve their livelihoods or
[4:57] health outcomes and the PeaceCore has one model which is you know we send young folks over to kind of do what they
[5:03] can with not a lot of resources and while I was there I think there's some things that I did which were impactful but there was a lot of things that I
[5:09] thought could have been done better to help people improve their own outcomes and so I decided to go back to graduate
[5:15] school to learn more about what was out there in terms of development models that I thought were effective. So I went
[5:21] to graduate school in New York and from there one of the and I studied I focused first on agriculture because for me
[5:27] before you could start your own businesses or before you could do anything else you had to feed yourselves and so I focused on agriculture and
[5:33] development and one of the big uh social enterprises is called oneacre fund and so they came and presented to my masters
[5:40] program and I ended up getting hired there and I was on their operations team in rural Kenya. So, uh, I went there and
[5:47] actually my partner, the person Anna, she's now my partner. We live together. We have a baby. Uh, she was she was the
[5:55] HR lead when I was hired. Okay. And so we met we met in very rural Kenya. Was on the field operations team
[6:03] there for a few years. Then I was promoted to a role managing the aggroforestry program. So that organization, the goal is to plant a
[6:09] billion trees by 2030. And so I was managing different country programs to help them do that. And it was just a it
[6:15] was like a really wonderful job and in time he said so we were predominately in East Africa to Kenya and then I traveled
[6:22] around different countries. It's just a beautiful part of the world that most people don't end up seeing.
[6:27] Interesting. It must be challenging also. I I suppose like you speak about it like really in good terms but I
[6:33] suppose there was challenging moments into it also. Of course. Yeah. There's challenging moments throughout life, right? And so
[6:40] there were certainly plenty of challenging moments had there's also just challenging and funny moments. Um
[6:45] so the reason the organization existed was because there used to be something called the hunger season. Uh East
[6:50] African agriculture is rainfed. And so the period between when you've eaten all
[6:55] of your last year's crops and then when your new crops are ready to eat the hunger season. And so people used to
[7:01] die. There used to be a lot of starvation. And so the the guy who founded the company did it to figure out
[7:06] how we could mitigate the hunger season. And so when you're over there and you're living in rural Kenya, you do see a lot of poverty, a lot of very poor health
[7:13] outcomes and and you're trying to do what you can with limited resources in that environment. But it was also I think you I was really proud of the work
[7:19] we did. I think we had done a lot of work to help mitigate the hunger season. But then there was there's always
[7:24] challenging moments or there was one moment where when you first arrive and you're on the field operations team,
[7:30] they send you out for a week with the field officer. So that's a local kind of first point of contact for farmers with
[7:38] our organization and they manage maybe 150 farmers in groups of 10. So I went
[7:43] and lived with a field officer for a week and he was presenting to one of his groups and I needed to go to the bathroom and we were just in a field.
[7:49] You know a lot of these meetings it's just rural Africa so there's not much and we were in a field and there was a
[7:55] cow it's called a cow dip. So if you have cows and they have pests, they need to run through medicated treated water
[8:02] and come out to deal with the pests. But to me, it looked like cement. So imagine there's 12 farmers. They're very
[8:07] impressed that I'm there because I'm from HQ. And the field officer is presenting me as this like visiting
[8:13] person from the field office. And I was like, "Excuse me a second." And like I walked across the field like 50 yards and I was just going to go behind this
[8:19] little cow dip and I stepped what I thought was a step down and I went right into this liquid up to here of treated
[8:27] cow water and I was very confused. I had an old brick foam cuz that's what they gave us and all my money like my wallet
[8:33] just soaked and I had to trudge across the field just sping wet and all the farmers like some of them ran away
[8:39] because they thought they were going to be in trouble and then I had to like basically strip while the meeting was concluded. That was a very humbling
[8:45] experience. Great first first point of view
[8:51] like remind yourself not to take yourself too seriously. That's good. Yeah.
[8:56] You said something interesting also like you met in Africa with with Anna with your partner and at some point you
[9:03] realized that you wanted to go back where time zone of family and like
[9:08] starting your own family also. when when did that happen and and why not why not going back to the US and choosing
[9:15] another extra country to to add into the list? It's a great kind and so both Ann and I
[9:20] have lived abroad for a long time. Costa Rica is each of our six the sixth different country that we've lived and
[9:27] I'm from the US. I love the US in a lot of ways but right now and I think there's a lot of people for the last
[9:33] like 10 years or so. I think there's a lot of people that think that if they have the
[9:39] opportunity to live elsewhere, it's attractive for a lot of different reasons and we can talk about those because we also provide services
[9:45] supporting people that might feel similarly or moving abroad for different reasons. We also just love living abroad. Um, and we didn't have one place
[9:53] in particular that called to us. So, all of our friends and family are spread out. So, it's not like we would go one
[9:58] place where everyone would be. She's from Virginia. I'm from Florida. We have friends all over. So what ended up
[10:03] happening was in March 2020 we were going to the US for two different weddings and as we were flying all the
[10:08] borders were shut and so we were stuck in the US for a year because of the co and we were going for two weeks. So we
[10:14] had two wedding outfits like four pairs of underwear and nothing else and we got stuck there for a year with all of our stuff in Rwanda. And over that period we
[10:21] just started thinking you know what's next? We wanted to start our own business. Anna's background was in professional HR so she had moved people
[10:27] all over the globe. What we saw was that as we were starting to consider moving ourselves, not with a company. When you
[10:33] move with a company, they take care of everything. When you move by yourself, no one's helping you out. And we saw a
[10:38] lot of people getting taken advantage of. We saw a lot of people who it should be really exciting. You get to move to
[10:43] Portugal and all of a sudden it becomes very negative or expensive. And so because of Anna's background and and my
[10:48] background, we thought we could help people. So we wanted to launch this business. To do so, we needed to be on US time zones because a lot of our
[10:54] clients would be US Canadian. We also work with Europeans. And we wanted to be a little closer to home. When you when you live in Europe or I'm sorry, when
[11:00] you live in Africa, it's a 40hour travel day, travel days to get home, it's an eight hour time difference. So if you
[11:06] call people, they're going to bed or just waking up. And we knew that we wanted to start a family. And so just
[11:12] being a little closer to home, you know, it's a direct flight from the US for our family to visit us, for us to visit them. Actually, my family's coming in
[11:18] next week. We're going to the beach. And that, you know, people would come to Africa, but it is a much bigger deal. And so it was just the right step for us
[11:25] in in this time. And then we considered a few different countries and ultimately chose Costa Rica. You've been to Costa Rica before moving
[11:31] there? I had been a few times in college. I came I actually I led a volunteerism
[11:38] trip here to build a sports court for community and then my brother and I came after Peace Corp. Actually, he and I
[11:43] came and did a few weeks here. But Anna had never been and so we were looking at so we both spoke a little bit of
[11:49] Spanish. I had been in the Dominican Republic lived kind of like Latino culture. I believe in cultural fit. I
[11:54] think sometimes you go to a place and you say, "Oh, this culture like it feels very comfortable, feels like home." And
[11:59] so Latino culture always felt like that to me. So we considered uh Panama, Costa
[12:05] Rica. I wanted Colombia because it's very cheap. But of those three, Anna just was like Costa Rica. We loved that
[12:11] it uh took care of the nature very well. They didn't have an army, very laid-back, and so it was a really good
[12:17] fit for us. Nice. How did the country welcome you? Like it was after COVID. I don't think
[12:23] it was probably one of the best moments anywhere. Probably like everyone was a little bit in panic mode.
[12:29] Yeah. How was the transition for us? Okay. So, I think if you were to move down the uh so you live in Italy.
[12:36] If you were to move down the street in Italy, it's really hard. Moving anywhere is one of the hardest things that we as humans do. And I always take for granted
[12:43] that like I've moved so much. This is my sixth country. I know what to expect. Speak a little Spanish. It's going to be
[12:49] fine. And the truth is that moving, especially to a new country, is always really hard. And I'm always surprised by
[12:54] how hard it is for me because I just think that like I know how. And so those first six months, I think no matter where you move, even if you move to your
[13:00] ideal country, first of all, it's not a vacation. Life is just life. And so you're still dealing with similar
[13:06] challenges. And you just have to adjust. And there's actually this emotional curve that you go through that the first
[13:11] two weeks you're like, "This is the best decision ever. I love it here." And then for whatever reason, you have a panic.
[13:16] You're like, "What did I do? This place is terrible. I can't believe we made a huge mistake and then things balanced out. So to your question, there was a
[13:23] transition period. We also didn't know exactly where we were going to live and so we traveled around to five different places and spent a week in each which I
[13:29] recommend to folks and we found a place that we loved and we rented for a year. Costa Rica is extremely welcoming. It's
[13:35] a really friendly, warm country, although there's still plenty of things that are frustrating and we could talk about those. We also got our license
[13:41] plate taken within our first week here and so that was a bit of a huh. Um but
[13:47] it's a really wonderful warm welcoming country and uh you know people were so friendly.
[13:53] Nice. So maybe before we go to the first replace questions because in there we will enter deeper into into Costa Rica
[14:00] life and and how is it has been for you. I wanted to ask a little bit like how was building a count a company and and a
[14:07] new like the transition from coming from a very development in the fieldbased
[14:13] work? No. as far as as far as I get to probably work uh fully from home
[14:18] remotely with clients all over the over the globe and and mostly digitalized uh
[14:25] company. Yeah, I mean it it's it was a big adjustment. Although, you know, the year of COVID, I was still working for
[14:31] Oneacre Fund from the US and so that was my first experience working fully remote because I used to go into the office and
[14:37] then do trips out to the field quite frequently. And so that first year uh online was during co and that kind of I
[14:44] think helped with the transition. It was a big change though because Ann and I used to work for a social enterprise and
[14:50] the goal was to support people to you know feed themselves more or improve their livelihoods. So it was a big
[14:55] adjustment for us that to be supporting people to relocate abroad. It's kind of a it's similar in that we want to
[15:01] support people to make you know something more positive but different different kind of scope and all of a
[15:07] sudden we're working for ourselves and I mean you probably know that when you start your own business you go from all
[15:13] right I'm in charge of this one thing and I'm going to do it really well to you have to do everything and you do the best you can and now we've grown enough
[15:20] rights that we have employees and but those first few years are just in terms of what you have to learn and everything
[15:25] you don't know is is really exciting and very very overwhelming at the same time. Why exactly doing that? No, like helping
[15:32] people move abroad. What motivated you to to put yourself in this field? Yeah. What we found was we were like,
[15:39] okay, well, we want to move to Costa Rica and we looked for companies that could help us and we didn't really find the service that we wanted. And at the
[15:47] same time, this was Anna's background. So Anna had done this hundreds of times because she was in charge of international HR and was moving people.
[15:54] And then what we we did a lot of research and we saw people's kind of horror stories of I found someone on Facebook and I paid them a bunch of
[16:01] money and it they just left like they weren't legitimate or I trusted this information I found online but it wasn't
[16:06] accurate and so now instead of getting to move to Costa Rica my application was denied and now it's a really negative
[16:12] process and now I'm not going to move abroad. You'll see that people need to move abroad for a lot of reasons. Some people want to for the adventure. Some
[16:18] people want to give their kids a different life. Some pensioners say well I need access to affordable medical care. whatever it is. And
[16:25] to see those people get really discouraged or scammed was really sad. And so we created the service that we
[16:30] wish had existed for us. And um yeah, that's how that's how we kind of came up with the business idea.
[16:36] Which countries do you cover? Is it obviously Costa Rica? Yeah. Uh Panama, Portugal, and Spain.
[16:43] Why these four? It's a great question. We get that all the time. And the answer is so when we first developed the business idea we
[16:50] were looking at countries and for US expats the two most popular countries to move to were Canada and Mexico and then
[16:57] the next were Costa Rica Portugal at the time and we we really investigated and we decided we didn't want to do Canada
[17:03] or Mexico for different reasons and so the next two were Portugal and Costa Rica and then Panama and Spain were very
[17:09] popular we wanted to pick so you know we had okay we can do several in the regions that are similar processes to
[17:16] each And we actually my family has a property in Portugal. So we were already pretty familiar with that and going and
[17:22] we were living in Costa Rica and so you know accessible visas very popular with expats in places that we felt we could
[17:29] understand and provide good services. Nice. Maybe a couple of questions more before we jump to the first reply questions and hold on start abroad
[17:36] because we will come back afterwards. So I want to ask a little bit more about the services itself and how people can
[17:41] get in contact with you if they need these kind of resources which of course are useful to relieve stress like this. The first
[17:49] one that I had is like what's the target use client or customer
[17:55] that you have at starts abroad right now? Yeah, we have a few different ones. So uh you know retirees and pre-retirees
[18:01] are big uh clients. So there's a lot of folks that have wanted to move abroad for a long time and this is an
[18:07] opportunity or maybe they want to move abroad and their have their pensions or social security go further because of
[18:12] lower cost of living or just access more affordable affordable medical care. Those very common. Another one are young
[18:18] families. So folks that want to raise their kids in different cultures or have always dreamed of doing it or want their
[18:24] kid to learn another language or or maybe they have the opportunity to work remotely and so why not? And then we
[18:30] also have young professionals, you know, you know, a young digital nomad. When I was 24, I would go and I'd figure it out
[18:37] myself. But if you're 30, for instance, and you have a little more money, and you say, "Look, I'm really busy. There's
[18:44] a bunch of paperwork here. I don't want to spend 50 hours online to figure this out. I would like you to help me."
[18:49] That's a very common client of ours as well. you know, for especially for younger folks, geo arbitrage is is a
[18:55] really kind of popular way to think about these things now is if you can make US or Canadian or UK salaries, for
[19:01] instance, and then live in a country like Portugal or Costa Rica is not the cheapest country, but there are places
[19:07] where you can live much more affordably depending on where you're coming from. Um, you know, you can live really well,
[19:12] better than you could in San Francisco, for instance. Definitely. San Francisco is expensive. Yeah. Or or Barcelona. Yeah.
[19:19] Yeah. Yeah. Um the last one before we jump to the fast replies I would ask is what is the
[19:25] biggest mistakes that you see commonly done by by the people or your clients when trying to relocate.
[19:31] It's it depends on the country because every country is a little different. So for instance Costa Rica the car market
[19:37] is is really different and so I think people will assume that things work the same as they do in their home countries and they don't and the things and and
[19:44] countries aren't going to adjust themselves to your expectations. you need to adjust yourself to how it works in the country. And I guess that's maybe
[19:51] the biggest mistake is is people just accept expect that things will work the same as they do. So even going to the
[19:56] bank in Portugal or Costa Rica is so different than going to the bank in the US. In the US and Canada and the UK, for
[20:04] instance, economies are set up for ease of commerce. Basically, they want things to function well so you can spend your
[20:09] money quickly because that's how the economies work. In Costa Rica and Portugal, it doesn't work that way. They don't really care. And so you're going
[20:15] to go to the bank and and people don't want to deal with it and so they're like, "Well, we can't do it." And that
[20:20] can be so frustrating and maddening, especially for new expats, you know, and a lot of people just get really angry.
[20:26] But one of the reasons we want to move to these countries is because they're more laidback. And so you kind of need to adjust to that and adjust your
[20:32] expectations and and learn how things work on the grounds and adjust your expectations to those. And don't expect
[20:39] that people will these these cultures aren't going to adjust to you. Wonderful. Zach, I would uh jump to the
[20:45] to the quick questions. I always ask the same 12 questions to everyone in this case about Costa Rica. So, we get to
[20:52] know a little bit more about the life there. You should try to respond each of them around 40 60 seconds each. So, we
[20:58] get an overview of how is your specific case of life in Costa Rica right now.
[21:04] The first question that I have, it's uh cultural adjustment. One thing that took you a while to adapt. Yeah, similar to
[21:10] what I was just describing, things work based on personal connections and if people like you and not because they
[21:15] should. And so, uh, you know, you go to the bank and if you're a jerk, they're just not going to really go out of their
[21:21] way to help you. And if they like you and you ask about their family and you're calm and patient, you know, they'll go out of their way to do what
[21:27] they can for you. Uh, we were going to have our electric cut off because I forgot to pay it, which is a good reminder I need to pay it today. And the
[21:33] guy from the aquas called me because he knows me personally and I've always been very polite and he allowed me to make my payment late and they didn't cut off our
[21:40] electric. If you would not have known that person in in person and that's it.
[21:45] Yeah. Or if I would be a jerk every time I go in, they're not going to know. Second question that I have is social life. How do you meet new people, new
[21:52] friends right now? Yeah. Well, we have a young baby, so we have a 2-year-old. So, our social life
[21:57] has taken a hit in the last few years, but there's a lot of community groups. So there's a a Spanish morning breakfast
[22:03] where a bunch of gringoes get together and speak Spanish terribly. There is pickle ball. So I play a lot of I've always played sports in different places
[22:09] I've gone. So I play pickle ball. Anna she's a singer. So she joined a band. There's hiking groups. You know we walk
[22:16] the dogs and see people. This is one of those places where you wave at everybody. And so even if you don't have social activities, you just go to town
[22:21] and go shopping and it feels like a social activity. Nice. Third one that I have is language. How how are you dealing with Spanish? It
[22:28] is a must in in Costa Rica. Uh, no. Costa Rica is actually pretty friendly if you don't speak Spanish depending on
[22:33] where you are. There's a lot of places where and some of our clients just never learn much Spanish and you can get by fine. We live much more rurally and so
[22:40] there are some expats here that don't speak Spanish, but we I speak I'm probably like a seven out of 10 right
[22:45] now and we have a nanny who helps with the child and so our Spanish is certainly conversational and I think
[22:51] that just really deepens your experience. So you don't need it but I'd recommend trying at least because people
[22:56] really appreciate when you try. Absolutely. What about the I mean we talk a little bit about the arbitrage.
[23:02] What about the cost of living like how how expensive it is or how cheap it is
[23:07] right now? Yeah. So people hear Central America and they think it's going to be really cheap and some countries are but Costa Rica is
[23:12] not that cheap. It's it's a middle- inome country. We compare it to living in kind of like a mid-tier city in the
[23:19] US or Canada or the UK. Our household budget per month is $3,800
[23:25] about. Depends. Uh it could be a lot cheaper if we wanted. Could also be a lot more expensive. We own our own home.
[23:31] Uh but we do have a nanny. We have a lady who comes clean the house. So typically in Costa Rica imported food is
[23:37] very expensive. Um but utilities are not that expensive. And then cost of labor is really cheap. So things like having
[23:43] someone clean your house or a nanny is way more affordable. So my brother lives in Denver, Colorado, and they pay
[23:49] something like 10 times as much to send their baby to daycare and we pay for a
[23:54] nanny who comes here from 8 to 5 days a week. All right. Um you said you own the house. So the next one that I have is
[24:00] like finding a home. How do you find apartments to live? This is challenging. Yeah. Uh, so the market in Costa Rica is
[24:07] very informal and there's just not that much inventory because most things are just short-term Airbnbs and so you
[24:12] really need to no property management companies or no realtors on the ground.
[24:18] There are some online websites that you can use to pull listings. So this is something that we do for our clients is manage this process because it is so
[24:24] difficult. We always recommend renting before you buy because in Costa Rica it's easy to buy, hard to sell. So we
[24:29] rented a place for a year just to make sure we wanted to be where we ended up and then we decided to buy and we
[24:35] actually ended up finding our own place not through a realtor. Next one that I have, it's living like a local. One one
[24:40] thing that you used to blend in and or one mistake to avoid to to not
[24:46] that well I think waving at everybody. I think you know Costa Rica, especially where we live, it's a very small tight-knit community. If you go out, you
[24:53] know, if you are in a big city, you're going to put your hood up, you're going to put your earphones in, you're going
[24:58] to walk with your head down, and you're going to kind of just assume that you don't need to interact with anybody. And
[25:03] here, that'd be very rude. And just even people driving by, if you're walking by, you say, "Ola," like you make eye
[25:09] contact, you wave, you smile. And I think not doing that is not the end of the world. But I think people respond to
[25:16] you much better if you go and you like talk to people. And I know that a lot of us are just we don't talk to people as
[25:22] much as we used to. But I think living in Costa Rica, just being very friendly, being very patient, like talking to people is will go a long way.
[25:28] Sounds sounds like a nice environment to me. It is a nice environment. It's part of the reason we're here. We wanted to
[25:33] raise our kid. It's much more community oriented than where we were. Dora nanny like they take our daughter for hours at
[25:39] a time. We don't know where our daughter is, but she's just a the grandma's house and there she's playing with chickens and they're feeding her. Our daughter
[25:46] gets invited to like their family barbecues. We don't get invited, but they're just take her and so it's very
[25:52] community oriented and very friendly and warm. Next one that I have is the work life. I
[25:57] mean you are working from home I assume but uh maybe if it's to friends or or
[26:03] people how is the the work life in there? So the the challenge is you know for your viewers most people will be working
[26:09] remotely and then so it's not really kind of local work culture local work culture they'll just kind of do the
[26:15] nineto-fives and be done we also own our own business and so I am working from home but we also travel a lot to meet
[26:22] with our different teams and different places and or I'll meet with clients if they're passing through. But when you own your own business, you're you're
[26:27] never not working essentially. But local work culture is much more laidback than
[26:32] I think our western or you know the the US Canadian UK style work culture and related to to working from home. How
[26:40] is the internet uh good? Yeah, I'm doing this call on our internet. Um you know there are there
[26:45] are little brownouts maybe once a day but we actually have our internet on a backup battery so we don't lose it. But
[26:50] the speed is good enough to do these calls or to watch whatever we want. I mean, you'll be surprised. I'm in Italy,
[26:57] but I also have a a UPS connected to my to my router right here. So, it's not
[27:02] I mean, I have I have an NAS server, but that's another story. But I also have a battery connected to the
[27:09] router. So, you don't need to be in Costa Rica. Exactly. Why not?
[27:15] Next one that I have, it's getting around. How is the best way? I mean you are in a rural area so I suppose you
[27:21] need a car to move around but in the big cities uh it's like public transport uh
[27:27] there is any applications to move around. How is how does it work? So Costa Rica if you're living in the
[27:32] central valley so kind of right in the middle of the country there's this kind of mountain highlands area. It's called the central valley and that's where the
[27:38] capital San Jose is and then there's a bunch of surrounding kind of towns and neighborhoods and suburbs and things. If
[27:44] you're living in the greater San Jose area, you can use Uber. There is public transportation, but it's not good. It's
[27:49] kind of these overcrowded buses. So, you can use Uber. Outside of that very specific area, you're going to want your
[27:55] own car just because the infrastructure here, just the way the infrastructure is set up, you're going to need to drive
[28:01] around places. It's a very mountainous country and so, you know, there's not like bike paths or things like that. So,
[28:07] you're going to you're going to probably want your own car outside of where you could use Uber. is easy to drive like the state of the roads and so on or I'm
[28:15] very used to it. I think people come down and they're freaked out. So, you know, if you're driving in Canada, the
[28:21] roads are pretty good and the drive, you know, everyone's follows the same set of rules and so you can almost zone out
[28:26] while you're driving on the highway, which is not great in the in Costa Rica. It's not that way. It's very active at
[28:32] all times. I don't mind it. I think it's fine. But, you know, there's typically two lane, so one way each way, and so
[28:38] traffic can back up. It's typically pretty windy because it's a very mountainous country. I'm very used to it
[28:43] so it doesn't bother me but it is an adjustment. See what about I mean I know from Kuba from from Mexico collectivos do do exist
[28:51] in Costa Rica like the collectivo. What is that? It's the criminal taxi like a shirt car
[28:58] approach where you jump into not as much in the Dominican Republic. Yes. So that's we used to hitchhike all
[29:05] the time in the back of like produce trucks in the Dominican Republic or we would use the collect divos when we were in uh the capital but here not as much.
[29:13] Interesting. So I suppose it's it's a matter of like how high or or low are you in the central
[29:20] I'm really tall and so I used to have they used to make me buy two seats in the collectivas because I had to like kind of go sideways.
[29:26] Crazy. Next one that I have it's healthcare. Yeah. I mean did you have a baby in Costa
[29:32] Rica? Were you already here? Like so you touched the healthcare system. How is it? I actually had a knee surgery here, too.
[29:38] So really good health care in the central valley. They have some excellent hospitals. There's a lot of medical tourism, really good dental, too.
[29:44] There's a public healthare plan that you can qualify for once you are a temporary resident, but you probably want to also
[29:50] have a private insurance because the public plan can be very slow and to do elective things. And so if you can
[29:57] afford it, we would recommend having an international insurance as well or private insurance. But I did I paid for the knee surgery out of pocket because I
[30:04] didn't have the insurance at that point and it would have bankrupted me in the US and I could afford it here. We gave birth my partner gave birth uh here.
[30:11] Part of the reason we did it too is because when you have a child in Costa Rica, you automatically become permanent
[30:17] residents and the child automatically become a dual citizen. So we got to skip kind of the visa lines by doing it. So
[30:23] we had a bit of an anchor baby, but she's a dual citizen. Now the medical system here is very good. Um especially
[30:30] in the central valley. Nice. Now the question that uh frightens everyone after a positive one.
[30:36] Bureaucracy, paperwork, visas, permits. Yeah, things move slowly and you just need to be prepared for it. And
[30:42] ultimately it's up to the discretion of whoever's processing whatever you're trying to do. So if you're doing a visa
[30:48] for instance, a digital nomad visa, we actually just had a case. everything was correct about the paperwork that was submitted, but some agent didn't want to
[30:55] deal with it and they made up some rule and now we have to comply with the rule. So, it's a it is a bureaucratic country
[31:02] and it's it can kind of generally things function okay, but they think just take forever. So, if you're going for a
[31:08] temporary residency, it takes them 10 months to process. You can live in the country while they're processing the
[31:13] visa, but it's 10 months just to give you an idea. To open a bank account can be a really painful process. So just as
[31:19] long as you know what to expect and manage your expectations and be prepared to go several times to kind of get
[31:24] things done. It's purita. So one of the reasons we like is because it's porovita but it's also porovita in terms of all
[31:31] the processes. So I see expect that. Is it very paperwork uh based or or you
[31:38] can do things digitally? So you're supposed to be able to do things digitally but those digital systems don't always function extremely
[31:44] well. some things. So, for instance, there's an online mobile payment system called CPay. So, you put money in your
[31:50] Costa Rican bank account, you can pay with your phone, and that that works great. There are online apps for the banks and things that work depending on
[31:55] the day of the week. And, you know, there's just some things that are are a lot more bureaucratic than and
[32:02] require a lot more paperwork than you would expect. I see. Next one. It's the best and the
[32:08] worst about Sorry, the best. The best and the worst. What is the best thing and the worst thing of living
[32:14] there of Costa Rica? Well, as we're speaking, there's a toucan in the trees right in front of me. So, that's really cool.
[32:20] It's a beautiful country. Truly beautiful. And it has everything. So, it has mountains, it has cloud forest, it
[32:27] has jungle, it has lake, it has incredible Caribbean side beaches with good snorkeling, the Pacific beaches
[32:33] with surfing and and the seafood and seeing whales and things. So, and they've really taken care of their
[32:38] environment and that's we always are very impressed that that's kind of been um
[32:44] people Costa Ricans feel that. So, we used to just kind of throw out our banana peels and we got reprimanded by a
[32:51] Costa Rican friend who's like no you need to that needs to go back into the soil. And so, they really do take care of their nutrient. It's a beautiful
[32:57] country. It's relatively very clean and just very warm and and welcoming and laidback. In terms of the negatives, I
[33:04] just think getting anything done can be really frustrating. And I think that's where a lot of people will come in the in the first six months, especially
[33:11] Americans, and just get really frustrated and maybe think that, well, Costa Rica is not for me just because it
[33:16] is slow. Last one that I have for this section is the top tip. Um, I mean, I suppose that's part of your job probably, but
[33:23] what is the oneline advice that you give to people who is planning to visit first? I believe in cultural fit.
[33:28] Sometimes people will move or buy a property for $400,000 because they had a great vacation two years ago. Vacation
[33:34] is different from living in a place uh living you're going to want to live in a different kind of place than you might
[33:40] vacation to. Check out a bunch of different areas. Spend as much time as you can in a bunch of different areas before kind of making a commitment.
[33:46] Nice. Perfect. Then I would say we switch gears up a little bit and I present you with the mini game that I
[33:53] prepared for you. This about this. Yeah, this is a mystery. First of all, thanks a lot for the for all the responses about Costa
[33:59] Rica. I think it it makes it nice for the audience to to listen and to get a grasp. Uh although visit first.
[34:07] Yeah. The mini game that I prepared today I it's called which country wins start
[34:12] abroad edition. So basically I will name you a category and you must choose which
[34:17] country you would you choose based on that category from the four countries that you work with start abroad.
[34:23] Great. I mean, maybe the listeners take these ones already also and they contact you with with a a chosen country.
[34:31] Yeah. Great. The first category that I have is best food. Okay. I don't want to make anyone mad. I
[34:38] don't think I think Costa Rican and Panama Well, Panama has a lot of really good international food, but if we're talking about kind of local cuisine, for
[34:45] me it's Spain. Uh Portugal has a lot of seafood, kind of North Atlantic seafood,
[34:50] which is just not my favorite. Um, and Costa Rican I think Panameanian local cuisine is just okay. Span Spanish food
[34:56] is some of the best in the world. Agree with that, I suppose. But, uh, second one that I have, it's easiest
[35:03] residency. Uh, probably either Costa Rica or Panama. So, for Spain and Portugal, it's
[35:10] a pretty bureaucratic and long process. For Portugal, you have to submit through your home country. It's going to take them four months to approve. Spain is
[35:17] pretty similar, although you can apply for the digital nomad visa from Spain, so that's a little faster. But Costa Rica or Panama, uh, you can just come as
[35:24] nationals from a lot of the countries that or our clients are from, you can just come. Digital nomad visa in Costa Rica, we can get it for you in two
[35:30] months. It's relatively little paperwork. Um, and then Panama has this new golden visa. So, if you want a
[35:35] second travel passport, you have to invest 300,000. And that's actually pretty easy to get if you can afford it.
[35:41] Next one, it's friendliest locals. Okay. So, I think Costa Rica and Portugal are tied for this. I think
[35:47] Spain it's a little more fastm moving kind of people are doing their thing you know it's a little more cosmopolitan and
[35:54] so I think when you get more cosmopolitan often it's like a little less warm and friendly because I think you get warm and friendly out of people
[36:00] just kind of relaxing a little more so I think Portugal is very very warm and friendly and I think Costa Rica is
[36:06] exceedingly warm and friendly Panama is a little more kind of U it's tied more to the US economy it's got a little bit
[36:12] more of the US hustle culture and so people are friendly I think people are also friendly in Spain but I Costa Ra is
[36:17] exceedingly friendly and I think Portugal is quite friendly. Best infrastructure. Uh Panama City is excellent. Um and then
[36:24] I think Spain, you know, depending on where you are, like if you're in Madrid, it's world-class infrastructure.
[36:29] Although I'm sure if you live there, you get frustrated by it. But really good infrastructure in Panama City and I
[36:35] think Spain more generally. Best for families. Depends. This really depends on what what you want. I I've chosen, you know,
[36:43] my partner and I chose Costa Rica for our family and we love it. We love raising our daughter in this culture.
[36:48] She's been she's part of the family of a local family. Can't beat it. If you want more of kind of a raise your kid in an
[36:55] international an international city environment, Lisbon, Panama City, Bane
[37:00] is great. Europe is also great because you can go to other European countries and there's so much history and culture which is not really the strength of
[37:06] Panama or Costa Rica. So, it really just depends on what you're looking for. Cool. Best for entrepreneurs for
[37:12] building a company? I think, you know, there's real advantages for Panama in terms of taxes. In Costa Rica, you don't
[37:19] pay tax on foreign earn income. So, Panama is really good for like nomads and people that are working abroad or
[37:25] people starting their own companies because you're if you're going to incorporate in the US like we did, you don't pay tax to Costa Rica on that. And
[37:31] same with Panama. Whereas Portugal and Spain, you're there's just a lot higher tax burden. Although, if you're trying
[37:37] to cater to locals, then Portugal or Spain probably have more opportunities for your business.
[37:42] I see. most underrated. Well, they're all really popular right now. I think they're all really highly
[37:48] rated depending on what you're looking for. I think Panama is like blowing up. Portugal has been really popular for a
[37:54] while. Everybody's always loved Spain. So, just maybe by default, I'd say Costa Rica, but I think people rate high Costa
[38:00] Rica highly as well. The hardest culture shock probably Costa Rica depending on where you live. So, there's parts where you
[38:06] can live where it doesn't feel that different from if you were in the US. But if you live where I live for instance, just the pace of life, how
[38:13] slow it is, how community oriented, it's just very And then you have to go to five different stores when you go
[38:18] shopping to get everything you want. There's not just one big supermarket. Uh yeah, that's that's probably my answer.
[38:24] Cool. The last one that I have is best beach life. Well, each country has great beaches.
[38:29] You know, if you look at the south of Spain or Alante, like there's great beaches. South of Spain is famous for
[38:35] those beaches. The Alolgar in Portugal, great beaches. that's really popular with a lot of Europeans, like a lot of
[38:40] Brits or down in the Algarve. Look, I prefer Costa Rican beaches to Panameania beaches, but you'll have some people
[38:46] that might disagree with me. What I I'm going to go with Costa Rica as my final answer. Not because I don't think these
[38:51] other countries have amazing beaches, but because you have all sorts of different types of beaches in in Costa Rica. So, you have surfing beaches, you
[38:58] have good swimming beaches, you have Pacific beaches where like the lush jungle comes right down into the ocean,
[39:03] and you have phosphorescent, and you have whales. I was at a beach in the South Pacific and Costa Rica and I saw manta rays just swimming. Uh then you
[39:10] can go you can go scuba diver snorkeling on the reef on the Caribbean side and whereas you know Spain and Portugal are
[39:16] amazing but they're they're Mediterranean beaches. So it's not like good scuba diving for instance or like
[39:21] not as much wildlife. So for me I'll go. Cool. Well clearly you know a lot about
[39:27] these four countries. So I maybe use this to go back a little bit to start abroad. If you can explain a little bit
[39:33] more exactly what the services that you are offering if they are the same for all four countries or what is the normal
[39:41] job that you take out of the hands of your clients. Yeah. Great. And so our goal is to be a
[39:46] one-stop shop uh and partner throughout the move and we try to offer as many services in house as we can. So in every
[39:53] country that's visa that's rental search. Um, some countries you need a rental, some countries you want a
[39:59] rental. In the countries where you're going to buy a car, we can manage that. And then there's a lot of very specific depending on the country specific
[40:05] process, there's services for that. So, for instance, in Portugal, we can get you the NIF or the bank account. Um,
[40:12] you know, things that things of that nature. And so, we offer different levels of service. So, we have a concierge service. It's a white club
[40:18] endto-end service where you'll get bi-weekly coaching calls with your assigned relocation specialist. We have
[40:23] a startup client portal. You can log in anytime. We have a ton offormational resources and guides and things and we
[40:28] coordinate all of our work there centrally. I think one of the things that is so challenging about a move is we're trying to manage 10 different
[40:34] processes at the same time and you have 10 different email threads or 10 different providers and so we try to
[40:40] coordinate as much of that centrally as possible. For anything that we don't do, we have vetted partners because you
[40:45] don't want to just find somebody that messaged you on Facebook. So, we work with vetted providers that speak
[40:51] English, that work with a lot of expats, and that we know does great work. So, things like medical insurance,
[40:57] tax, tax, we're not specialists, but we have tax specialists that we work with. Shipping for instance. Okay, nice. Um, I'm more from myself as
[41:06] a curiosity, but how do you work? Like, because you are physically in Costa Rica, do you have teams in the countries
[41:12] that you work with? Do you have partners? Yeah. So, we have country leads in some of our
[41:19] countries and then we work with a network of people throughout these countries. So, we for instance, if
[41:24] you're moving to Portugal, you'd be working with our Portugal program lead. She'd be your assigned kind of contact.
[41:30] And then if you are, so she's in Lisbon, but if you're moving to Porto, we have people in Porto that can do go do on the
[41:36] the on the ground thing. So, apartment viewings, meet with you, show you around, get your utility set up before
[41:41] you arrive, for instance. So yeah, we'll have kind of our central office and then we'll have people throughout the
[41:46] country. I mean clearly for the users it starts when they contact you because they have the clear idea of where they want to go
[41:54] or sometimes Yeah. Yeah. So I do free 15-minute consultations and so I that's part of
[42:02] the company that I run. So if somebody has questions about their specific situation, often they'll know where
[42:07] they're moving. So they're like, "Well, I want to move to Costa Rica in the next nine months. What are my next steps?" and then we can take it all from there.
[42:13] Sometimes people say, "Well, I'm between Portugal and Spain. Here's my situation. We can help them think through that." And then they would book one of our
[42:19] packages and then connect with our country team and then we and they can log into their portal and we'll just
[42:24] kind of lay out the strategy and the timelines for everything. So they beginning is clear when where
[42:30] does this end the collaboration with your clients like you you support them even when they are they arrive to the
[42:36] country. Yeah. And it depends on the level of service. Some things sometimes people just want all car. So if somebody says,
[42:42] "I just want you to help me buy a car in Costa Rica." Great. We're going to help you buy a car. We'll help you do the title transfer. We'll help you get
[42:47] insurance. You drive away. If they're a concierge client, we te technically are working with them for 30 days after the
[42:53] move. Because what we found is that those first 30 days, you're going to have a lot of questions. How do I set up my utilities? Where do I get groceries?
[42:59] Or there's other aspects of the visa process that need to be completed in country. In practice, if a client reaches out a year later, we're going to
[43:06] help them. It's such a hands-on tailored process. We get to know you, you get to know us. We're not going to say, "Well,
[43:12] your 30 days expired. You're on your own." We'll help. I see. Maybe one last question. Uh, which also,
[43:18] of course, it's very important for the listeners. What is the best best way to get in contact or to contact our
[43:23] services? Actually, absolutely. Well, visit our site www.startabro.com. You'll see a consultation link. uh you
[43:30] can just book it on it'll be a Zoom call or you can send us an email info@startabroad.com
[43:36] and we'll get back to you and um happy to go via email or to hop on a 15-minute
[43:41] call and kind of figure out next steps. For the listeners, as always, like the links to to start abroad will be in the
[43:48] description of the episode. So, if you are not finding it, go to the description box and you will find it there. Zach, it has been a great
[43:55] pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and and for being here today. I really really appreciate the
[44:00] explanation about Costa Rica but also knowing what you do with start abroad. Absolutely Mark really appreciate your
[44:06] time. Pleasure being here. Big fan of what you do and yeah, thank you so much. Thanks as always for the listeners. If
[44:11] you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave some reviews and some love to both the podcast and check Start
[44:18] Abroad websites and social medias. Until next time, keep keep exploring, stay curious, and see you in the next
[44:24] episode. See you. Thank you so much.