The old bromide that “family is very important” to Latin Americans is true here, though maybe not as true as in Mexico or other places in Latin America. This means that families live close together, children live with parents until they’re married (often into their 20s or 30s), and family businesses are held closely. Costa

Ask four different expatriates what they think about driving in Costa Rica and you’ll get five different answers. One expat best summed it up when he said driving in Cost Rica was like playing a “video game.” The one thing everyone can agree on is that it’s different than most developed countries. Street signs and

Once again, the rural roots of Costa Rican culture show themselves. Streets do not have names in Costa Rica (or anyway, no one uses them), houses don’t have sequential numbers, and all addresses and directions are given based on landmarks, cardinal directions, and “meters,” wherein 100m equals roughly one block. A typical direction, then, would

Costa Ricans have a tenuous relationship with time. As in many societies with warm climates and rural roots, punctuality is rare and efficiency is not in the vocabulary – what’s the rush? For many expatriates, this is one of the main attractions of living in Costa Rica. Life is slower, you know your neighbors, and

Costa Ricans’ excessively polite way of talking is just one manifestation of the extreme value that the culture puts on respect. The good thing about this cultural trait is that it makes Costa Rica a friendly place for foreigners and everyone else. There has never been a guerrilla insurgency in Costa Rica, the country doesn’t

If you speak Spanish learned in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, or basically anywhere other than Costa Rica, you will be immediately impressed at how politely Costa Ricans speak – sometimes to a fault. Here it’s typical to call any adult “don” (for the men) or “doña” (for the women), even though most other parts of Ibero-America