To all intents and purposes Danna Bowman had the perfect life, living in Dallas they owned their own business, went to all the right places, spoke with all the right people and by her own confession did a good job of keeping up with the Jones. It came at a price though as they lived on the treadmill of working hard, getting more debt and buying bigger things.

One day they received an email about the benefits of living in Costa Rica – and it got them both thinking. On her husbands 40th birthday they flew off to their new life in Atenas Costa Rica – never even having visited the country before with their two young children aged 7 and 4.

7 years on and they still call Costa Rica home living in the area recognized as having the world’s best climate. Danna loves her new life despite some of the short comings of small town Central American life and is glad they made the move.

Since moving to Costa Rica Danna has been diagnosed with a thyroid problem – you can find out more about this and her involvement in helping others with thyroid issues on her website www.thyroidnation.com

What I learned from Danna’s interview:

1. Costa Rica have no military – now I don’t think there is many countries that would have voluntarily disbanded their armed forces but it appears Costa Rica is one!
2. Although Danna educates her kids in the Costa Rican public system after initially putting them into private school she does feel the Costa Rican system is not as focused as the US one. That said she doesn’t feel there would be any issues around them integrating back into the US workforce when they leave school.
3. It’s not possible for expats to work in Costa Rica. Online work would not be an issue but obviously they don’t want jobs being taken away from Costa Rican citizens. You either need to work online or be retired.
4. Despite its back to nature image food can be expensive and it can be difficult to get hold of organic food. If this is an issue you would need to look at a way of working around this.