I have been here for the better part of a decade, it's pretty nice. Even in San Jose, the capital city which people seem to like to talk a lot of trash about without even trying a moment to experience it, has been really good to me.

I find most people here with disparaging remarks to say about the place seem like they could benefit from getting out of their smelly basement and check it out for themselves. There's many cities in the USA which are less safe than this place.

The only thing is for the time being they're doing their best to manage covid by curfews, I'm taking a break until I can go back and actually leave the house to get a beer past 9pm

We only stayed in San Jose for a few days. I'd really love more information on it. My experience is no doubt colored by the local area I stayed in, so a broader view is very welcome.

It's a fun city filled with amazing people and while it's got some rough edges like any large city, it's still like way more stable than almost anywhere else in latin america. There's a ton of hidden gems around the area if nature is more your thing and the surrounding area is really nice if you prefer to live closer to nature within urban reach. Even a 20min uber ride out of the city will get you up a mountain hike and usually doesn't cost me more than 6$.

I have the perspective of someone who's actually moved here a long while ago though and I don't really have a lot of respect for the huge tourism PR move to get people out of the city by talking enormously bad about it, but at the same time I really prefer hanging out with locals over tourists and expats to get that perspective.

I had never thought of the PR angle, but now you mention it, it makes sense.

Can you tell us some things you like about San José?

Cheap enough if you know where to shop and where to stay, internet/power is most solid out of anywhere in country, good to be at least near the city in case you need to meet business contacts near the airport at any moment. Great party scene pre-pandemic which is slowly starting to come back. Really nice people, very easy to make friends here. Literally if just one piece of advice, avoid the cocaine scene, it's mostly sad locals and even sadder expats and I've just seen way too many naive people without regard as to how fucked that can get with enough money down here to hang themselves with. This applies to pretty much anywhere on the planet, though.

I should also mention the weather is incredibly nice and temperate up in that city as long as you don't mind the rainy season normal of about 20 minutes to a an hour or two of rain a day. It's more rain and a lot more hot closer to the beaches.

> Intel used to have a chip fab there for a time

Insightful comment. However, this part seems inaccurate as Intel seems to only have/had a chip packaging facility in Costa Rica.

My partner and I were there last March, considering it as a place to move, and had to cut our trip short because of Covid. Some of the recent changes make it more viable, as importing cars etc, was very expensive.

Regarding the government, a lot of locals were upset with the government policies, mostly around immigration, with lots of people moving into "slums" as low-wage workers from neighbouring countries, displacing Tico workers. There were a lot of fans of Trump there because of his policies around immigration. I was surprised, as I had a good impression of the government there, like you do, and expected to see more pride in the way things were done regarding the environment.

Interestingly, one of the people I talked with these opinions was a full-time accountant who took the day off to drive us across the country for $100.

> I also had a friend who lived there for several years and ran an consulting business to companies in the U.S.

Smart! Low taxes, same time zone, up and coming country…

What's the safety situation like?

I found that pretty much every place outside of the capital felt very safe. I think this was helped by the lack of traditional "danger" signs everywhere. This basically amounts to...all of the people we came across were busy employed in some kind of industrious activity + the ubiquitous feeling of good governance everywhere. It was quite heartening to be honest.

It was not a "developed country" feeling everywhere. But it felt safe and welcoming everywhere we went. For example, I don't recall seeing bars on windows outside of the capital. And every local who we interacted with was polite and honest. When out shopping and eating at local places, we never found we ended up with something like a "tourist menu" or something with higher prices.

An anecdote, one woman who I was with forgot her smartphone at a roadside restaurant. A quick call and a drive back and the phone was returned without any fuss.

youtube has lots of travel videos around Costa Rica if you are interested. https://youtu.be/baXO0hC2GVg

I've definitely felt less safe in many parts of the U.S.

Yeah, I just got a friend's forgotten card back out of an ATM here in San José not that long ago! Costa Rica is definitely a place where you shouldn't be leaving your phone right out on the beach while you go to swim but it's also got some very good people in it who don't see the value in giving the place a bad name.

In 2013 kidnaping and robberies were quite common; a colleague escaped a kidnaping attempt after a car chase with AK47 fire, some colleagues were extracted covertly from the country when they were incidental witnesses to a gang shooting in the restaurant they were having dinner, I saw in the shopping mall all security guards carrying big, bad shotguns on they back - this is the only country where I saw that, even Israel has less obvious security in place.

No idea how is it today, it may be a lot better.

this doesn't stack with my experience of the country at all. Sure Guatemala or El Sal but costa rica is super safe.

This sounds more like El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala than Costa Rica.

The place was San Jose, Costa Rica; the mall is Multiplaza Escazu.

Worth mentioning San Jose is reputed as the one dodgy place of 0 interest you should avoid. I was told exactly this by an expat who has been there 20 years and have heard similar elsewhere.

I've heard this from expats and guidebooks written by foreigners, and even some Costa Ricans too

If a normal tourist only sees the blocks around the Ticabus bus station at 11pm and the blocks around the bus stop to their tourist destination then of course it's an ugly city.

However the Escazú, Sabana and San Pedro neighbourhoods are quite nice.

The downtown is functional (while not beautiful), compared to any other of the Central American capitals.

And the downtown main street has wide sidewalks for walking (unlike San Salvador), grid style streets (unlike Tegucigalpa), nice weather (unlike Panama), government offices, hotels, nearby (unlike all the others), and accessible by public transport.

I was there like 10 years ago, traveled across a lot of the country via public buses. It was one of the safest countries I visited.

I think it's relatively safe compared to it's neighbouring countries. Though, of course, it's neighbouring countries are what could be called failed states with some of the worst safety records of all countries in the world.

Excellent, one of the safer countries in the world.

You're twice as likely to be murdered in parts of the San Francisco BA.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/984826/homicide-rate-cos...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Homicides-are-up-3...

It's a little weird to compare local crime hotspots to a national average. Costa Rica seems to have about twice the murder rate of the U.S., but that's still low. By "low", I mean if the average accurately represents your risk, it wouldn't be worth worrying about day to day.

Safety is highly situational, and it depends a lot on the way crime happens. If it's criminals killing criminals (e.g. gangs), ordinary citizens and visitors might be fine. But if there is a lot of opportunistic crime, a foreigner might be a target.

It's probably safer than your closest major US city. People think Central America and think violence, but Costa Rica truly is a diamond in the ruff.