www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Scooter,

Give me a ring and I will give you a rundown on the pros and cons. I personally would npot try it until I had lived here at least a year.

_________________
BKTUNA/Boyd
I am never going home

Does this mean that you have not owned a place yet and this will be your first try at owning a biz?

Forget this idea.

Find a favorite bar and drink, blow your money that way,it is fun whatching the owner rip his hair out

I can help you with that

Wow thank you all so much for your insights and not being too mean to this newbie. I agree that the question of sending small amounts of money back to the states is definitely for the future, and I do not look at this idea to become a millionaire. I was more interested in being able to send money from CR to a US holding company for purchases of sorts. I am also aware that bars tend to come and go quickly. I see them come and go in Las Vegas daily. IF I were to say that my job for the last 20 years or so was to rescue failing bars and have a 100% success rate with owners that followed my plans would it make a difference in your comments? The obviously intelligent advice offered by many was to come down to CR and live for a while to check it out. How do you take a year off your life to go hang out in CR and check it out? Not sure that is feasible for me, but definitely coming down for a longer stay before jumping in is the smart way to go. Anybody have a good connection for a month-long non-mongering stay?

Some of you mentioned that there are MUCH better places than Jaco. I love hearing that, but can you offer some more specific info on where you think are better locations and why? Are they growing more rapidly? Do they have better economic demographics? Are there places where "green season" is not as affected as others?

Thanks for all the replies guys! Hopefully I will be advertising on this site within the year

Scoot

Don't let the sarcastic "advice" of the CRT experts bother you...

As far as sending small amounts back to the US, that should not be a problem. Costa Rica has dual currency, the Costa Rican Colon and the US Dollar... so there is no need to convert currencies before sending (assuming you will have a Costa Rican bank account). I believe you can send dollars from a CR bank to a US bank account. The other option is to send money via xoom or emoneygram, but both of these services will take a cut. Xoom will transfer money electronically from one account to another in a matter of minutes. One of the ex-pats banking in CR can shed more light on this. If you are using a "shoebox bank", then just convert the Colones to US Dollars at a bank or cambio, and carry it back to the States. You are allowed to enter the States with up to $10,000 US in currency and instruments.

As far as where you locate, that depends upon what kind of crowd you want. Is it ticos? expats? gringos? mongers? If you really want to be an advertiser on CRT in a year, then you are looking to attract gringo mongers. You would probably want to consider a bar in the San Jose gulch. Not exactly a "nicer" area than Jaco, but it does have mongering and plenty of clientele. If I were looking to open up a bar in CR, I would set my sights on beach locations like Puerto Viejo, Quepos or one of the resort towns on the Guanacaste coast. I also would consider inland locations like Asseri, San Isidro del General, San Ramon, Grecia, Atenas, Orisi, Arrisi, Santa Ana or even Escazu. All 'nicer" locations than Jaco, IMHO. Of course, everything I just said is hypothetical, as I would not be taking such a risk, in a foreign country, this late in my life.