At Home In Costa Rica [Paperback]

Martin P. Rice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2004

In October, 2000, the author and his wife moved from California to Costa Rica to begin a new life in a new country. Martin had a theory that retiring to a foreign country would present so many challenges as to make it impossible to fall into a rut, to bec

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris (September 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1413460283
• ISBN-13: 978-1413460285
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,090,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book about making the change, November 12, 2006

By 

John R (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Home In Costa Rica (Paperback)

This is a great book talking about a couples experiences making the move from the states to Costa Rica. Building two homes. It talks about the upsides and the problems they encountered along the way. I found it very entertaining. Kind of brings you back home to Costa Rica. Enjoyed hearing the stories of daily life in paradise as well as the pitfalls along the way. The book gives you a real feel of this couples experience of adapting to a new country. Not a retirement book but one that is very entertaining for those infatuated with life in Costa Rica.

Pura Vida!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoying the daily life of Martin and Robin, July 16, 2006

By 

M. Worth (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At Home In Costa Rica (Paperback)

I am enjoying the events as they build in what sounds like a very beautiful place. I will be visiting Costa Rica soon, and am reading as much as I can about CR before I go. When I am there, I will decide if I could adapt to life there on a full time basis. I find myself thinking that living in a less populated area, as the Rice's do, would appeal to me much more than the city life. The book is very discriptive, and I can see the picture he is painting in words. I was only disappointed about one thing... The website listed in the book does not exist. I was looking forward to seeing the pictures he speaks of in the book.

2.0 out of 5 stars useful but overpriced relative to other guides, June 15, 2009

By 

B. Stenman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: At Home In Costa Rica (Paperback)

The book is interesting in that it describes the experiences of a couple settling in Costa Rica and working to integrate themselves into the country and its culture. The information provided is very general in nature as it was compiled from letters the couple sent to people in the USA and little effort was made to expand on any of the topics by doing research. For example they mention that after several years they decided to move from the house they built at the coast to a farm that was closer to the hospitals and shopping areas near the capital and that they selected a architect based in San Jose. No information is provided as to how they selected the architect or having built a house on the coast what mistakes they would not have made if they had known more and sharing that information with the reader.

Many pages are devoted to the author's wife and her experiences with raising a infant bat and later with the subsequent care of other bats which I found neither all that interesting and irrelevant to a book that purports to provide information for people interested in moving to Costa Rica. It seems to have been added as filler which had there been an editor would have been edited out of the book.

The author undoubtedly has a great deal of useful information that would be relevant for others contemplating or actually making a move to Costa Rica, even if it is on what not to do, but this information is still largely in his head as he has not bothered to commit this to paper. There has also been no effort to update information that was accurate in the 2000-2003 timeframe, such as in getting permanent residency, availability of telephone and internet access services, medical care, insurance, etc. but has undoubtedly changed in the past 6-10 years.

It is unfortunate that Don Rice has been either unable or unwilling to update this book and to edit out sections that are not of general interest to people planning to live in Costa Rica. Its relevancy has diminished with each passing year and provides less and less value for the reader's dollar.