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Moving to Panama or Costa Rica: Need Help Choosing

14 years ago
moving to Panama or Costa Rica

We are Canadians who are tired of the cold winters. We want to move to either Panama or Costa Rica in about 1 year. We have only been to Bocas del Toro so far and plan to go check out CR and the David area this winter. We want to move there but are having a hard time deciding. We'd appreciate any and all comments either way. Here are our issues at hand.
1) Bocas del Toro, though nice, was a little too remote for us. We would like to have "major" shopping within an hour or so.
2) The humidity in Bocas del Toro seemed to agravate my wife's artheritis, so we are looking for something maybe not so humid (although I didn't find it bad).
3) We love to snorkel and that's why we went to Bocas last time. I have heard the snorkelling isn't as good on the Pacific side.
4) My wife is an avid gardner and we would like to have some land and live a "sustainable" lifestyle as much as possible.
5) We are concerned about crime and we hear it's worse in CR, but we assume that's closer to the big cities.
6) We would like to be close to a beach as well as golf.
7) We are looking to live there so immigration issue, or permanent visa issues are of a concern
8) I will also be looking to generate some income, possibly by running a B&B or a small resort.... or starting some kind of business (online or otherwise).
9) The Golfito area looks nice but it may be too remote?
10) The North Pacific coast of CR looks like it's drier than other areas
11) CR seems much more expensive both for places to buy as well as to live
12) The David area seems more attractive at this point

We are going over Christmas this year and are looking for decent places to stay in various areas for maybe 2-4 nights at a time... but that aren't too expensive.

Thanks again for all your help.

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