And Now On With the Dream

For some time now I've moved away from the dream of retiring or living in a Caribbean destination.  I guess because I don't know exactly "how" it will happen.  It's not like I have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting around that I can use to purchase a second home right now and I don't plan to put myself in debt doing this.  Who needs the stress of that.  Moving to paradise means leaving a lot of the stress behind hopefully.The older I get the more I realize how important it is to live for our dreams.  Time is limited and we need to make the most of it.

I'm not sure right now if I want to actually move to somewhere tropical and purchase a property or if I want to travel to different parts of the world for extended periods of time.  I think purchasing a place is more affordable than renting but it also limits the parts of the world you can see.  Also my current experience of the Caribbean means staying at fairly luxurious resorts where our every want is at our finger tips.  Part of me wants to experience the real life in these countries - to an extent.  However, I don't want to give up the modern conveniences.  I need to do some research to find out where I can find a place that offers a nice balance.  I'm also not so keen on the hurricanes that hit some of these areas.  For this reason I really like Costa Rica but the weather isn't all the great all year long.  There is quite a long rainy season.  I love the weather in Mexico but I'm not comfortable with the political environment there.  Safety is of the utmost importance to me and while that isn't guaranteed anywhere in the world there are some places that seem a bit safer.  Also the older I get the more I want to be in a country that has good and affordable medical care.  You never know.  So for all these reasons I am now back to the research phase.  In the mean time I'm going to start to set in place some actual goals and dates attached.  As someone said if you don't have an actual time frame and plan in place it's just a dream.  Dreams are great but they often stay dreams and don't become realities.  Now I just need to know where to start.

Back to the Dream

I originally started this blog as a way to capture my dream of owning a vacation property/retirement home in Costa Rica.  For some time now I've let that dream slip by the way side.  I think it seemed like such a long time away.  I've recently decided I needed to get back to that.  I'm excited to start the plan again.  I'm not sure if Costa Rica is the place I will eventually settle on as there is such a wide world out there.  Our recent trip to St. Lucia was also very wonderful.  I really did love it there.  The only downfall is that the flight from Ontario, Canada is a bit long - 5 hours.  I know that's not too bad compared to some places but it was just a bit too long to make the trek often.  We have a tentative trip to Mexico planned for December and I do love it there a well.  With Mexico though I'm a bit unsure of the safety.  I may just be naive but it is a bit unsettling to hear of everything that goes on there.  As well it's not that "outsider" friendly in the sense of buying property.  Costa Rica currently welcomes foreign investors so it makes it more simple.  We also have a trip to the Bahamas planned for February.  I've never been there so am looking forward to that.  I do realize that a resort vacation is much different than living in a foreign country.  I am used to living in a big city and these Caribbean places don't have all the modern conveniences I'm used to.  I guess I have lots to think about but I'm going to enjoy the journey.

Pura Vida

I've been thinking again about getting back to Costa Rica.  It is so unspoiled and beautiful.  There are so many beautiful places in the world.  Costa Rica is just one of them.  We've recently come back from a trip to St. Lucia which is another beautiful place.  I want to start thinking about a place to buy for retirement. I can't think of anything better than spending the cold winters in some place warm.  There are so many things to consider.  It's really overwhelming on where to start.  I've decided to keep my options open and explore a number of beautiful places in the world.  One reason I'm drawn to Costa Rica is that is does seem foreigner friendly.  It seems that it is fairly straight forward to purchase property in Costa Rica.  Some countries don't encourage this but Costa Rica seems pretty friendly to tourists.  The other reason is that is seems fairly safe. I can't wait to explore and see what I find out.

Some Tentative Enquiries

Today I did a little searching around the internet and have sent off a couple of emails requesting information about buying property in Costa Rica.  One was an enquiry to ScotiaBank about their vacation home buyers plan.  The other was to here http://www.centralamericasecondhomes.com/featuredproperties/pacifico.html requesting a detailed data sheet about the property.  We'll see if either responds to my enquiry.

At this point it's very early stages so I don't like to waste anyones time but I guess I have to start somewhere.  I hope they respond to me so I can start to get some questions answered.

The Adventure Begins

A lot of people dream of moving to some far off exotic place.  I guess I'm no different.  I dream of living somewhere where it's summer all year long.  Would the reality actually be the dream?  That's hard to say.  The picture here is the view from our window on our last trip to Liberia, Costa Rica.  We had such a wonderful time there. Ever since we got back I've been thinking about how we could actually move there one day.  For now I'd like to purchase a vacation home and then one day perhaps move there.  My husband hasn't been too interested in the idea.  He wants to live a simple and stress free life and having a property thousands of miles away would indeed be stress inducing.  You would need to have someone or some company you trust to take care of the every day maintenance.  If we moved there it would be a different story but we're a number of years from retirement (barring any lottery winnings of course) so we need to think of a vacation home for now.  However recently my husband seems to be open to the possibility so with that small opening in mind off I go headlong into the dream to see where it will take me.

This blog will chart my research and findings about moving to some exotic locale.  Right now I'm concentrating on Costa Rica because I've heard it's very foreigner friendly and it's easy for Canadians to purchase property there.  As well there is a pretty low crime rate and their health care is pretty good as well.  These are all things to consider.  I am open to looking at other areas though and it won't be tomorrow that we purchase so I have lots of time to research.  This blog will mainly be a place to keep all my research together in one place but perhaps it will be helpful to others in search of a similar dream.

So for this first posting it is simply noting the dream.  Where will it go from here?  That's really all up to me isn't it.