A move across the United States can be daunting not mention a move to another country. If you choose to move from New York to California, for example, you will have to find a place to live whether you decide to rent or buy. Next arrangements have to be made to ship all of your belongings there. Once you do relocate you will have to contact the utility companies to get hooked up. You will also need to get a home phone, although the increasing use of cell phones makes this less of a necessity nowadays. Then you will probably have to open a bank account in your area as a matter of convenience. Since you have moved to a new state you will also have to get a driver’s license. You will also have to tour the area where you live to find out where all of the basic services are like the post office, supermarkets, shopping centers and malls and medical care.

If you choose to retire in Costa Rica the process is very similar and basically requires the same steps. First you will have to come here and see if you like the country. I suggest you take a relocation/retirement tour like the ones I offer (see www.liveincostarica.com). They include a valuable two-day seminar to acquaint you with the legal system, real estate health care, moving your belongings here and much more. Then If you know Costa Rica is definitely the place you want to retire, it is advisable to make trips during the dry and rainy seasons to experience what the country is like during both times of the year.

Next the process is basically like one I describe above except that you are not moving across the States but to another country. First, you’ll need to decide where you want to reside and either rent an apartment or purchase a home. Then if you chose to bring you belongings, you’ll need to have your household goods shipped here by container. There is a company called Ship to Costa Rica which can handle all of this for you. Once you are here you will have get a phone, utilities, Internet hook up, a drivers license, a place where to receive your mail, a doctor, find out where the best places are to shop and familiarize yourself with the areas near where you live. Whether you bring a car or end up taking public transportation, you will also have learn the best routes to take to get from place to another.

Fortunately, there is an organization called the Association of Residents of Costa Rica which helps retirees get their residency and with the steps mentioned in the last paragraph. There is also a concierge service called Know How Costa Rica which assists retirees with any daily task they need to undertake. Organizations like these really make moving here as seamless as possible. Others have already blazed the trail for you thus making the whole process much easier. Once you go through all of the above and get settled then you can relax and enjoy your new life and all of Costa Rica’s wonders.

Many people who retiree here tend to get intimidated by Costa Rica’s bureaucratic maze especially if they don’t speak Spanish. Below are examples of two retirees who had successful experiences when deal with the local bureaucracy although they speak little Spanish.

Allan is a 51-year old Canadian retiree who has lived here for about ten years. His Spanish is far from being fluent but fortunately he didn’t have to use it in the following situation. Allan receives and sends mail using one of the private mail services available in Costa Rica. Basically these companies give you an address in Miami where you can receive your mail and packages which are then delivered to you in Costa Rica where you pick them up.

The mail companies now offer Internet shopping, so you can virtually order anything from the U.S. and have it delivered to you in Costa Rica. After last year’s “Box Day” and Christmas shopping frenzy, Allan’s local branch of the mail service was inundated with packages which caused long lines of customers waiting to pick up their merchandise. Since then the situation did not improved and Allan found himself wasting a lot of valuable time every time he picked up or sent mail. Allan decided to complain to the president of the company by sending a letter to the main branch of the company. He sent an E-mail in English and within five hours received a reply from the president. Allan never thought the president of the company would answer the letter personally. It turns out the company is aware of the problem and plans to open another branch soon to deal with the increased volume of customers and mail.

Terry is another retiree and had to renew his permit to carry a gun. This process has to be done every two years and consists of a psychological test and a criminal background check called a Hoja de Delincuencia. The next step is to take everything to an office on the south side of the Sabana Park called Armas y Explosivos. Terry took his paper work there arriving 8am when the office opened. None of the employees speak English, but Terry managed to finish the whole process within an hour. Everyone from the guard at the door to the women who took his picture for his ID card treated him courteously, with respect and was very helpful.

The examples above show that retirees and other foreigner can deal successfully with Costa Rica’s bureaucracy.

There are a lot of Baby Boomers and others who have had to put their retirement and life plans on hold because of the current world financial crisis.

According to a recent article Baby Boomers have borne the brunt of the recession burden and their bad money habits may be the root of the problem. As many of these boomers approach retirement, they face serious money problems spurred by years of financial errors.

Currently one in six older Americans lives below the poverty line. This means millions, or 16% of seniors, lack the financial resources they need to get by and are being forced to take extreme measures such as cashing in assets, moving, or tapping the government for help. Who knows how much longer a financially strapped government will be able to help?

Many Boomers will have to work longer and thus never enjoy their “Golden Years.” On the other hand, more fortunate Boomers will try to salvage their retirement with the money their elderly parents leave them. However, not every Boomer will inherit money. The ones who don’t have an inheritance will have to find a way to reduce their cost of living in order to stretch their pensions or savings.

Moving to a foreign country like Costa Rica may be the retirement solution for those in precarious monetary situations like the ones I just mentioned above. This way some retirees may be able to compensate for bad financial planning and get by on what they have by reducing their cost of living. Costa Rica offers affordable medical care, low taxes, cheap entertainment, low utility and transportation, cheap domestic labor, good rental prices thus enabling retirees to live out their remaining years with dignity.

Moving to Costa Rica is so similar to starting a new personal relationship as one of the participants on my February 2011 relocation/retirement tour pointed out. Jim Messina is a professional photographer and has a Master’s Degree in business. Both Jim and his soul mate Kathy took my retirement tour for the second time this February. They said that they wanted to repeat what they had experienced on the first tour and explore the Arenal area which I didn’t offer the first time around.

During the tour Jim shared his insightful views about people moving to Costa Rica. Relocating to Costa Rica is much like starting a personal relationship in that you bring to the table all of your personal experiences from past relationships. If you have had successful relationships in the past then your chances of being successful in Costa Rica are greatly increased. If you have had tumultuous relationships in the past then you may encounter some problems in your relationship with the country. For example, an impatient and pushy person will really find it hard to adapt here. This type of individual will become frustrated easily with the slow paced ways of doing things.

If you expect the Costa Rican culture to change for you then you are mistaken. Like any personal relationship it is very hard to get a person to adapt to your specific needs. People don’t like to be pressured into changing.

Your attitude, past experiences and ability to form a healthy relationship with the country and its people will ultimately determine the type of experiences you have here. People who don’t adapt and form a healthy relationship won’t make it here, will be miserable and will end moving back to where they came from or to another country where they will probably experience the same type of problems.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to observe thousands of retirees and their behavior. The one’s who have the proper attitude are able to take advantage of all this wonderful country has to offer and find happiness during their retirement here.

Like Mexico Costa Rica is a haven for American and Canadian retirees. Mexico has more American retirees and expats due to its more size. However, Costa Rica has more American residents (estimated unofficially at 50,000) proportionately than any other country outside of the United States. We do have had our share of “Ugly American” expats , but fortunately nothing has happened here like is going on in Mexico at present. In general we are getting a more high quality type of retiree.

No, this blog isn’t about the drug wars but a bunch of gringos misbehaving on Mexican soil. An invasion of misguided foreigners is creating problems for Mexican citizens and authorities who, without warning, are confronting an invasion that resembles a plague of locusts. Consider recent developments in Merida, a peaceful and sophisticated city of a million people in the Yucatan peninsula, far removed from the drama of the border region. Hundreds of thousands of Spring Breakers who descend on Cancun each year, flashing their breasts Mardi Gras style for beads, or licking whipped cream off each others’ bodies on stages set up on beaches and broadcast on MTV. But adolescent misbehavior is one thing, and adult criminal behavior is another.

Mexicans here are stunned at the disclosure that:

• Accused scam artists from Texas have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars through Brazos Abiertos, Inc., an AIDS charity that apparently has never been authorized by Mexican officials to do business in Mexico, according to records provided by the country’s tax authority,

* An “unofficial” library has operated for years, soliciting donations. The so-called Merida English Library has boasted that it is a member of the prestigious American Library Association, when its membership lapsed in 2007. It has presented itself as bona fide “Mexican nonprofit organization” — but it has never met the requirements established by Mexico’s tax authority to solicit donations from the public or issue tax-deductible receipts.

• Gringo Zapatistas running amok have unnerved residents. Of equal concern has been the disclosure that a husband-and-wife team of aging Gringo Zapatistas have been aiding and abetting the Zapatistas uprising and their supporters

• More ominously, U.S. authorities has identified two Americans — Mario E. Lopez and Jose Auais Dogre — as the masterminds of an international ring trafficking in stolen luxury boats and yachts.

* To compound these scams are two alarming trends: Americans fleeing “Obamanomics” and the beginnings of “doomsday” expats who believe that the world will end in 2012 — or that there’s money to be made from those who believe the world will end then. A growing number of Americans in Mexico are disaffected with the U.S. and life under Barack Obama. Some, now labeled “Refugiados de Obamanomics,” are intent on escaping to a country where there is the sense of greater personal freedoms. “I can smoke in restaurants and no femi-Nazi take umbrage if I call someone a babe,” an Old Gringo, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.

* As if the local authorities don’t have enough to deal with on their hands, more doomsday-believing Americans are flocking to the Yucatan as 2012 approaches. Recently, two groups of these expats have arrived — one has bought up extensive tracts of land in the Yucatan near the Maya town of Oxkutzcab, where members have gone about building “bunker-style” strongholds. These “settlers” claim to be building a new “Noah’s Ark,” but Mexican authorities fear this could be the scene of a Jim Jones-style mass suicide.

One expat, originally from Seattle and a Mexican resident for a quarter century, has been so taken aback by the influx of these unsavory and unbalanced Americans, she wrote a novel about them, 2012: Deadly Awakening. “Thousands of spiritual tourists have descended upon this once-peaceful city, creating chaos.”

Gracias a dios (Thank god!) we are not being overrun by these types of ugly American retirees in Costa Rica.

* Excerpts from New American Media