Christopher Howard and his dog Max

Christopher Howard has lived, worked and played in one of the most magical places on earth for more than 27 years.  His love for Central America is so great that he became a citizen of Costa Rica.

During this time, he has had the opportunity to gather a plethora of information about living, investing and retiring in Central America.  It is not surprising that he has first-hand knowledge and insight into all aspects of Central America’s culture and its people. Because of his expertise, he is a frequent lecturer at numerous investment seminars.

He has an extensive foreign language background,  having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American studies and a Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California. He also has credentials to teach Spanish at all levels from California State University, San Francisco. Mr. Howard was the recipient of scholarships for graduate study at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico and the Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Mexico in conjunction with the University of San Diego, California. In 1985, he founded a successful language institute in San José, Costa Rica.

Mr. Howard is the author the perennial best-selling travel/retirement/overseas investment guide book (15 editions), The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica (ISBN 1-881233-65-0). He is the only author of any of the guidebooks about Costa Rica who actually lives there full-time.

Due to a multitude of requests from the readers of his Costa Rica guidebook, Christopher Howard began to offer relocation and retirement tours to Costa Rica starting in 1997. Since then he has personally introduced 1000’s of people to Costa Rica through his one-of-a-kind monthly tours, seminars and private consultation services.

In addition, he has written three foreign language books including the one-of-a-kind best seller  Guide to Costa Rican Spanish, The Official Guide to Panamanian Spanish,  The Official Guide to Mexican Spanish and The Official Guide to Cuban Spanish.  These are the only language guides that have all of the local Spanish slang in English for their respective countries.

In 1998 he published the visionary guidebook, Living and Investing in the New  Cuba.   His most recent guidebooks are the third edition of  The Official Guide to Living and Investing in the New Nicaragua (2008) and the second edition of The Official Guide to Living and Investing in Panama (2008).

His forthcoming guidebooks are, Christopher Howard’s Official Guide to Costa Rica Real Estate (2009), the third edition of The Official Guide to Living and Investing in Cuba (2009) and Christopher Howard’s Official Guide to Living and Investing in South America (2010). They all promise to be the definitive books on their respective subjects.

During the last ten years  Christopher has worked  as a paid consultant for National Geographic Magazine, published articles and columns in Costa Rica Today, Escape Artist.com, Costa Rica Outdoors, Inside Costa Rica, AM Costa Rica, Costa Rica’s and Panama’s foremost real estate magazine Casa Galeria and in various publications about living and working abroad.

At present, Mr. Howard also serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Residents of Costa Rica.

In December 2004 Christopher was made C.E.O. in Costa Rica of Serenity.com – an international company which will outsource retirement locations for Baby Boomers.