What the clients say

We liked the central valley and foresee the day that we will live there. Again, we can't say enough how much we ENJOYED the group, Felix (your driver) and you. You offer the FIRST STEPS of the due diligence necessary before making such a move. People who are thinking about moving NEED to take the time, effort and money necessary to aid in the decision making process. This trip was EVERYTHING that we expected and MORE.

Thanks again.

Nancy and Warren Panem ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

April 2012

Chris,

We are really happy that you took us to the San Ramón area because the price of housing was much more in our affordability range. We even found some properties on line that were fairly new and even less expensive. We hope to get back during the rainy season and will get ARCR busy on our residency paperwork. Hope to hear from you again!

Les Hettinger January 2012

Hi Chris, We really appreciated your hard work and intelligence in setting up our Costa Rica retirement tour. The seminar was very informative and your Spanish language lecture was particularly helpful. We came away with a fundamentally altered notion of Costa Rica. Our romantic notions were properly challenged and the true assets of Costa Rica (her environment and her people) were properly contextualized by the infrastructural challenges the seminar and tour revealed. We ended our stay at the Pura Vida hotel, near the airport. It was a marvelous ending, giving us a bit of an oasis in the urban Central Valley. I hope you have occasion to introduce others to that hotel, it was a green and comfortable respite from the choked traffic, smog and noise of the cities. Our favorite experience in the tour was the farmers market. Our most important insight was that traffic patterns can fundamentally alter the quality of one's life in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a beautiful country with tremendous investment potential and tremendous infrastructure challenges. We look forward to returning and to seeing you again.

Thank you for your care and thoughtfulness on this important tour.

Alanna and Sandy Mitchell-Clavell September 2011Tour

This a a major decision point in my life.

Your tour, the ARCR Seminar and the experiences I had while visiting Costa Rica have proven to me that a move to Costa Rica is very doable on my Income from Social Security. Taking your and the ACCR words of wisdom to heart, I plan on visiting Costa Rica at least one more time for a longer stay so I can make my final decision.

I met some very nice people on your tour and we plan on keeping in touch via e-mail regarding our futures. Your knowledge and kind considerations were crucial in developing the camaraderie. My only regret is that I did not take the Coastal Tour with them as well. Plus I am having a ball relating all the info to others here in NJ who are curious and wondering about their futures.

-Mike Klein August 2011
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Have been busy since our return, so haven't had a chance to write. I wanted to let you know both Pat and I really enjoyed our time with you, and found your tour and knowledge of Costa Rica to be very helpful. I also thought the ARCR seminar was invaluable and paired nicely with your tour. It will be a while before we need to make any final decision, and we plan to make some follow up trips in the future to check out more of this beautiful country.

Jeff & Pat Taylor
August 2011
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Christopher, in my opinion, deserves the title of  "Mr. Costa Rica" in terms of expertise, knowledge of the country, and great,  pertinent location tours. We took the tour of the Pacific and Central Valley,  and it definitely helped narrow our choices of where to live. Since 2008, we  have purchased a property in Escazu that happened to be photographed on a  number of web sites as what Escazu looks like (horribly flattered since we  bought it!) in terms of different architecture. I'm not talking about a  multi-million dollar property. But without Christopher and the tour we  wouldn't have seen the Costa Rica we needed to see. Bless  Christopher!

Darlene
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Chris, thank you for the wonderful, insightful combo tour of Costa Rica. A day does not go by that I don't think of CR and our trip with you. Your tour exceeded our expectations. We absolutely loved the west coast, staying at the Crystal Bellenas Hotel, having gourmet dinners in the jungle at French and Estonian restaurants, seeing cappuchin monkeys as we drove down the road and waking up to the sound of howler monkeys. I could go on and on. The two day seminar was very informative and I highly recommend it to anyone taking the tour. It answered so many of our questions and gave us many contacts. I'm glad we had a chance to see several grocery stores and go to the mall. By the way, our daughter loved the Latin music CD we bought her. All of your associates that we met along the way were so much fun and helpful: Felix, Annie, Carol and Rudy. A day does not go by that I don't think of Costa Rica with the wonderful people and relaxing life-style. I look forward to our next trip especially now that we have so much information.

Thanks again and we hope to see you soon.

Steve and Kathy Ragsdale
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HEY Christopher!

We want to thank you for the wonderful, informative, well - organized and fun tour! You are a very iknowledgeable guy! The tour helped us learn so much more than if we had read it all in the book. "Seeing it Live" rounded out the written word!

We are glad we had such a great group too! We hope we all become CR citizens soon! We have eliminated the further out areas- you were right! Our "commune" concept isn't as feasible as we would have liked. We are happy with our original two acres

Well- Christopher- THANKS again. We wish you much success in the year ahead! Things here in the states are so messed up but hopefully will improve within this year.

Keep in Touch,

Karen and Rob Hamers, Florida January 2009
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We wanted to Thank you for the wonderful all around tour which was absolutely great!!!! Our introduction to CR was really insightful and educational as well as a blast!!!! We really appreciated your organizational and educational skills and all the time and effort you spent to make our trip the best! Annie and Carol and Rudy were all great and so helpful!

Everyone in the group was so compatible and fun and couldn't have been any more enjoyable. Thanks, also, for the concern for our son, JW, when we got the call he was in the hospital. He is doing fine now. We are attaching some pictures taken and hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for everything!
Dean and Wanda January 2009
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I should have written you sooner. I just want to thank you for all that you did to make everything perfect. Thanks a million the Central Valley Tour. It was awsome! I will highly recommend you to everyone, The best part was the dinner party .

Alan Kalicott, February 2007
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We really did enjoy meeting you and your tour was great. We will recommend you to anyone who asks us.

Joan Weaver January 2007

“Just a short note to let you know how much Dave and I enjoyed both your tour and Costa Rica. I really want to thank you for all your information and insight. The seminar really was fantastic as well. It is a lot of information to assimilate but very informative and very necessary to anyone contemplating a move both part time or full time to Costa Rica. Dave and I want to definitely return in June and take your beach tour."

Jill Borough, Maui, Hawaii January 2006
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Dear Chris,

This letter is long overdue. I took your retirement tour in June of 2005. First, let me say it was one of the BEST INVESTMENTS I have ever made. I could not have seen the Central Valley on my own for twice the money and had someone to explain all the wonders of Costa Rica. But the main reason I'm writing is because of you and your information, I fell in love with Costa Rica.

I am the police chief of a small town in Oklahoma and plan to retire in less than three years, and am spending all of my vacation time in Costa Rica. I had been divorced for several years, and had just about decided that I was destine to spend the rest of my life alone. On one of my trips to Costa Rica I met Paulina who is not the typical Costa Rican woman. She is a professor at one of the universities in San José. She is very independent and has been divorced for six years. To make a long story short, we met and it was instant love. We talked on the internet for hours at a time and I called her daily. (I use a Western Union International calling card for 9 cents a minute).

Paulina has three daughters. The oldest is graduating this semester as a biologist. Her second daughter is a premed student. The youngest daughter is studying to be a veterinarian. All three speak Spanish, French and English. Her family thinks we are crazy. We are having the time of our lives. My family is very happy with my decision. Paulina and I were married on October 26th in Costa Rica. This has been the most wonderful month of my life. We are both Christians and feel god brought us together.

This year has been like a fairytale, to find love, a wonderful lady to share my life with and a new home in what I consider to be the MOST BEAUTIFUL country in the world. All I can tell others is to come to Costa Rica with an open mind, learn the language and meet the people. They are so sweet and kind. If you want someone to show you they love you, then meet a Costa Rican woman.

If anyone wishes to talk to me, I would be more than happy to help them if I can. I would recommend ANYONE thinking of moving to Costa Rica to TAKE the TOUR, have an open mind and a dream in their heart.

Don Autry
Okemah, Oklahoma
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We would highly recommend this tour to other people who are looking to relocate to Costa Rica. We definitely were able to experience the way people there live - surprisingly, it wasn't much different than the US, although there was a lot more rain than here in Nevada. I wouldn't

Linda & Humberto Waltero, August 2005
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Just a note to thank you for a fantastic tour of the central pacific and valley regions of Costa Rica. As first time visitors, your tour provided valuable insight into the tico lifestyle. We particularly enjoyed the wide variety of different areas, climates, foods, shopping and housing options. Costa Rica really has something to offer for everyone. We appreciated the absence of any high pressure sales tactics as well, as your tour truely reveals that Costa Rica genuinely sells itself.

George & Gail Merrel,St. Petersburg, Florida June 2005
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“Chris, thanks to you Ellen and I had an unforgettable introduction to Costa Rica. Honestly, we can’t get Costa Rica off our minds these days.”

Michael Morley, Atlanta February 2005, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Dear Christopher Howard:

It has been over a week since our return from Costa Rica. I want to express to you my gratitude for all the time and effort you extended in making our seminar and tour of the Central Valley of such a worthwhile experience. It marks a significant first step in making our dream of moving to Costa Rica a reality.

I cannot say enough positive things about all I learned in such a short period of time. I filled half of a 70 page spiral notebook with beneficial notes gleaned from the presentations of the different speakers. As a professional educator for more than 30 years I have attended countless conventions, conferences, seminars and workshops; let me say that I would rank the seminar and tour as one of the top three "learning sessions" that I have ever attended.

The speakers were all "top drawer." The information presented was relevant and thought provoking. The content presented was pertinent to moving to Costa Rica but relevant and applicable to anyone contemplating a "move" to and taking up residency in any foreign country. The tour, the hotel, the seminar facilities, the meals, the people who met us at the airport and helped transport us to the hotel were excellent.

As for the two day tour that followed the seminar, it gave us an excellent, in-depth knowledge of the various locales. Next year I plan to spend our U.S. winter months in Costa Rica, rent a small furnished home or condominium, explore the country more thoroughly, identify a property to purchase to establish my permanent residence in Costa Rica.

Finally, it's a relief to know that I have a number of people resources I can call upon to help me in the process.

Again, thank you for the extra mile you go to make the Costa Rica Seminar and Tour such a beneficial experience for all participants.

Sincerely,

Robert Clairmont
Adjunct Instructor
Victor Valley College
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Hello, my name is Carlos Torres and I am an American from Florida. I wish to briefly discuss how I came to live in Costa Rica. In mid 2002 I was considering retiring to either Mexico, Spain or Costa Rica and a good friend of mine suggested Costa Rica, because it is the only true democracy in Latin America, their efforts to preserve the environment and the beauty and variety of the country.

Our May 2005 Inland Tour Group

Looking in the internet, I found Chris Howard's book "The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica". In spite of the utopian title, I did purchase the book and read it from cover to cover. It covers EVERYTHING you want to know about moving and retiring to Costa Rica..it became my Costa Rican Bible!! In January of 2003, I had Mr. Howard's Central Valley Tour, which was EXCELLENT since he has a vast KNOWLEDGE of the county. In March of the same year, I came back on my own and toured the Pacific Coast area, again using Mr. Howard's book as a guide of what to see and expect or not to expect.

I was so IMPRESSED with what I saw, that I moved to Costa Rica in May of 2003. To this day, whenever I have a question about some issue, I refer to Mr. Howard's book and on occasions I have called him to ask a question or two. I would RECOMMEND his book and his tour's to anyone interested in moving to Costa Rica. My Email address is: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I welcome anyone to call me and ask about the book and the tours that Mr. Howard offers...or about Costa Rica. With warm regards... Carlos Torres.

Hi Chris

Panama overall was a disappointment.  The weather was lousy.  It rained torrents all day-everyday.   We were unable to complete our proposed itinerary. That along with a less than professional tour guide  makes it necessary to return to reconsider the country.  There were areas and things we liked, but we missed out on  areas of the Azuela peninsula.  We also found that outside Panama City, David and Boquete, the country is fairly primitive.   Cost Rica offers a more eclectic mix of choices

You set a very high bar of professionalism against which others must be judged.  We also felt there was great value for our investment in the tour and enjoyed the camaraderie of the other participants  on the trip. We plan to return to Cost Rica in the spring to do some exploring on our own (at which time we may also revisit Panama)

Thanks again to you, Santi, Mary and all involved in making it a very rewarding experience.

Hope to be able to spend some time with you when next we visit.

Warmest regards,

Rick and Carole
November 2010 Tour

With an eye to retirement in a tropical country, we begged, borrowed and bought a half-dozen books on the subject of relocating to what seemed to be the perfect choice for Americans -- Costa Rica. Christopher Howard's 'The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica' was one of the batch and it proved to be head and shoulders above any other reference.

Our Happy April 2005 Group

Indeed, we were so taken with his thorough, straightforward account, we signed on for one of his tours to the Central Pacific and San Jose/Central Highlands areas.

Chris is gifted in being able to cover a lot of ground quickly and with precision, not only in his no-nonsense book but in person, showing off the very best opportunities in his beautiful country to wannabe expats. His expertise in all Tico topics comes from long residence in the heart of Costa Rica, wide acquaintance with both natives and newcomers throughout the region, fluency in the local Spanish idiom and genuine love for this small paradise.
Thinking of moving to this delightful country? The trip starts with Christopher Howard's book and finishes with his FANTASTIC tour.” -- Will and Joan Elder, Central Pacific Beach Tour, April 2005