About me
Christopher Howard has lived, worked and played in one of the most magical places on earth for over twenty years. His love for Costa Rica is so great that he became a citizen.
During this time he has had the opportunity to gather a plethora of information about living, investing and retiring in Costa Rica. It is not surprising that he has first-hand knowledge and insight into all aspects of Costa Rica’s culture and its people. Because of his expertise he is a frequent lecturer at numerous retirement and investment seminars.
Mr. Howard has an extensive foreign language background, having earned a B.A. 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.
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. He has written three foreign language books including the best-selling Costa Rican Spanish Survival Course and, in 1985, founded a successful language institute in San José, Costa Rica.
In his free time, Christopher has been busy working as a paid consultant for National Geographic Magazine; publishing articles for various newsletters about living abroad and working on a feature action movie script to be filmed in Central America.
In addition Mr. Howard serves as an officer on the Board of Directors of the Residents Association of Costa Rica, primarily a retirement organization.
In 1998 he published the visionary guidebook, Living and Investing in the New Cuba. His most recent guidebooks are Living and Investing in the New Nicaragua (2000), Living and Investing in Panama (2004) and the one-of-a-kind “Christopher Howard’s Guide to Costa Rican Spanish (2006).” Presently he is working on “The Official Guide to Costa Rican Real Estate (Fall of 2006).”
Due to a multitude of requests from the readers of this guidebook, Chris 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 December Christopher was made C.E.O. In Costa Rica of Serenity.com - an international company which will outsource retirement locations for Baby Boomers.
The author is a consultant for National Geographic, a columnist for Central America Weekly newspaper, Costa Rica Outdoors magazine and the ARCR bimonthly magazine, El Residente. He also write the perennial best-selling travel/retirement/overseas investment guide book, The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica. (IBSN 1881233588). He is the only author of any of the guidebooks about Costa Rica who actually lives there full-time.
