What is a Costa Rica Lifestyle Hack?

When you think of lifestyle hacks, you often think of things like exercise, changing your diet, and picking up new hobbies. The main issue we all have this that it is often hard to get into the groove or motivated to turn whatever our lifestyle hack might be into a part of our daily lives. It wasn’t until I moved to Costa Rica 20 years ago that lifestyle hacks just seemed to happen without even much effort. The main ingredient, I think, is always surrounding yourself with the right people. It’s much easier to get into a groove if you start out doing it as a group. If you decide to travel abroad for a vacation, you now have a long list of options of how you want to spend your vacation. More and more people are deciding not to come back from vacation hung-over but to return home with the idea of actually having improved their lives. This makes your investment on your vacation one that will keep giving dividends for years to come.

So Why Is Costa Rica Good for a Lifestlye Hack?

You might be asking yourself what exactly is a lifestyle hack. It’s effortless and is precisely what it sounds like. A lifestyle hack is a slight adjustment to your lifestyle, usually by adding something that can benefit your overall well-being. This can be the simple task of taking a walk every day,  learning to garden, or just reading daily. These are some simple hacks you can undoubtedly do from home.

Some of the other hacks that have become part of mainstream trends that seem to show significant popularity and just being fun and engaging have made Costa Rica roots. Some even say that Costa Rica is the Mecca of these different hacks that are arguably better than any other place on the planet. This is why much of the tourism industry in Costa Rica depends on teaching visitors through one-week intro courses or up to 3 months long intensive training. Much of the reason it has grown so much in Costa Rica is that of the naturally patient and excellent teachers and the natural environments offering each visitor a chance to learn and enhance their own lives by doing it in paradise.

Here are Some Lifestyle Hacks in Costa Rica

• Spanish

The first and most popular for the last 20 years has been Spanish. The Costa Rican’s have a level of patience and friendliness that any Spanish teacher will tell you is perfect for learning. The accent of the Costa Rican’s is minimal to none compared to other Spanish speaking countries.

Spanish Schools are all over Costa Rica from larger institutes allowing you to learn Spanish geared toward your specific professions like medicine, law, or technology. You will also find schools in the rural areas set up in homes offering a more authentic experience.

We always suggest to individuals looking to learn Spanish in Costa Rica to be drawn to the schools in the more touristy areas. You will find all of Costa Rica is beautiful and if you want to learn, then do it in a place where you will not find many tourists who will be speaking English. For the most part, the touristy towns are also filled with the local work-force that always has a basic English level that will make communicating in Spanish more difficult.

• Yoga

Anywhere you find beautiful beaches, you will probably find yoga. It’s not only the beaches that brought the yogis to Costa Rica; it was the idea of it being the perfect country to promote the yoga lifestyle for two main reasons.

The second reason is that back-pack surfers found Costa Rica’s surf culture. After the back-pack surfers made their way through the land, the surfers with money started to join in on the fun, and with that came the surf/yoga culture. Because of this, Costa Rica has grown into a second India as far as coming to learn yoga, be an instructor, or just live the yogi lifestyle where you can find in different beach towns along the Caribbean and Pacific coast.

You have many options of everything from the highest-end possible yoga retreats to much more affordable ones, some of which you can find in the San Jose or mountain areas.

The fact that Costa Rica has no army goes friendly with a lifestyle of total peace and meditation. As a country, Costa Rica was labeled as your oasis of nature and peace, which to its credit, it most certainly is for the most part.

 

• Sup Surf

As mentioned above, Costa Rica grew in popularity for its stable democracy and the great waves. Surfers have been exploring the different breaks up and along with Costa Rica for the last 60 years. You can find everything from expert waves to your smaller breaks for beginners.

Now you might be wondering why the title of this lifestyle hack isn’t just surfing and why we added a “SUP…” before it? Well, it turns out that almost anyone can do SUPSurf. It is done on larger boards and with a paddle that helps balance two things the smaller surfboards do not have.  The best part about this is that you have all the benefits of surfing, but you remove a larger portion of the learning curve.

Costa Rica is home to some of the top SUPSurf academies on the planet, where you will find the top coaches and pro’s doing everything to make this the next big lifestyle hack that changes millions of lives. 

In closing, I think Costa Rica has positioned itself in an excellent spot to become a place you visit and return home as a better person. Even if you just learn one word of Spanish, master a Savasana pose on the beach, or catch one wave on a boogie; you will feel like you made the right investment and just might come back for more.