People are always looking for bargains. But as the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” This is especially true when it comes to selecting a country to live or retire in overseas. I have been in the relocation and retirement business for over 30 years and have personally helped thousands of people relocate to Costa Rica through my guidebooks, tours and seminars. I have seen and heard it all. The other day while waiting in my doctor’s office I picked up a well-known publication about living overseas. I hadn’t seen a copy of this magazine for many years. After leafing through it and looking at all of the ads for living in different countries, I realized what they were advertising was for the most part crap. The quality of life in the countries in Latin America they are hawking leaves a lot to be desires. Political stability in countries like Nicaragua one concern. Safety in places like Mexico is another problem. Mexico is now famous for kidnappings and drug wars. None of these problems exist in Costa Rica. Yes, we do have some crime but not to the extent of Mexico. Furthermore, Costa Rica is the most stable country in Latin America and has the longest democracy. Costa Rica just elected its first female president. Our outgoing president, Oscar Arias, is a former noble Peace prize winner. Uruguay is another country which is highly publicized in the magazine. I admit the country is beautiful but that is it. Unlike Costa Rica, Uruguay is about an 8 hour flight from the States. The winters are also cold and the country is not tropical like Costa Rica. They have also had some political issues in the past including right-wing death squads in the 1970s. How can this publication recommend these places to their readers? The bottom line is that one has to read between the lines of the so-called retirement magazines. The places they recommend do not have the quality of life like Costa Rica and said magazines are hyping low-end, less that desirable real estate in these places. They even go so far as to slant a lot of information in their direction by inventing charts raking places to retire. Of course the countries where they vested interests are ranked highly.