Behind the Scenes of Moving our Family to Costa Rica

When we started talking with people over a year ago about moving to Costa Rica, I was so surprised (and encouraged) by how many people said, "Oh we would love to do that too!" or "We hope to do something similar when..." Now that we are here, we often run into tourists who often say, "I would love to do that!" When they hear about our situation.

So, I decided to share a few of the behind the scene things that have helped us make this move, in case you, too, are hoping to do something similar at some point in the near future.

We didn't sell, we rented our house.

This wasn't even a question for us, as our home in Wisconsin is my (Summer's) childhood house. Many people we know that have moved to Costa Rica have sold everything before coming. For us, renting our house has been great, as it gives us a good monthly income to cover expenses back home, as well as cover some living expenses here.

Packing for 5 people for a year!

We looked into two different options for renting our furnished family home. One was FurnishedFinders.com which helps connect traveling nurses with housing, and the other was Sabbatical Homes. We decided to go with Sabbatical Homes and within just a few days of listing our home, we got many interested parties. We now have the nicest family living and taking care of our home.

We sold both of our cars.

As we began to prepare to move to Costa Rica we decided to sell our Prius but keep our family van and find someone interested in renting it for the school year. Finding someone to rent the vehicle at the price that we deemed a good deal, but would also cover the monthly loan payments was difficult. After taking it to get an inspection at Smart Motors, they told us they were willing to buy it back at just a little bit less than what we had bought it for new only 2 years prior. This worked out so well, as they took care of paying off the rest of the auto loan, wrote us a check for the extra AND we were able to wait until the day before we left the country to sell it. Not having to worry about how someone was taking care of our car, or having to pay the loan & insurance payments every month has been a huge relief.

What will we do when we get back?? We plan to buy a new car, and hopefully we can remain a one car family. In the mean time, we we have this super cool Madsen electric cargo bike that could fit the whole family if we needed it to! ;)

Put all of our personal things in our attic.

Getting our house ready to rent while having 3 kids, one only being 3 months at the time, me working full time and Joel dadding full-time at home, was one of the most stressful things. Luckily, we had a lot of help from family and friends.

We decided to rent our house furnished, but that doesn't mean we left all our personal pictures up or toys out on the shelves for our tenants. To get our house ready to list on Sabbatical Homes, I staged each room (one at a time) exactly as I had planned to leave the room. For example, I pushed all the boys toys to one side of the room and then took a picture of the clean side, or took all the "extra things" from our living room and piled them up in the kitchen just to take a picture and then put all the mess back! ;) I look back on the pictures we took for the listing and still am impressed at how "minimalist" and nice it looked vs. real life with 3 little boys!

The best thing about renting our house for the school year, was the ability to downsize and get rid of things. I think I'll need to do a whole blog post just on downsizing!

I kept my job at home, Joel got one in Costa Rica.

So how did/do we financially move to Costa Rica? In addition to renting our house, I kept my job as the director of Camp Wingra, meaning that we have to return for the summer for me to work. Since Joel is a teacher with a summer vacation, this worked out well. The only problem was not all schools in Costa Rica are on the American school year schedule. The Costa Rican school year has a large break in January, and then again in July. So when looking at schools, Joel had to find one that allowed us ALL to return to Madison, WI for the summer for my job at Camp Wingra.

We did a short term rental at first.

We went with the plan to find a long term place when we got here. I found us an AirBNB for the first 3 weeks. Although I found it on AirBNB, I didn't book it through AirBNB. I was able to message the host and got a discounted price for a longer stay. We originally started with a month, but then decided that 3 weeks was all we would need. If I did it again, I maybe would have done 2 months to give us a bit more time to find a place without the clock ticking. Luckily, we arrived in the low tourist season in Costa Rica so there were quite a few places available.

I found our permanent place through Facebook Marketplace and Facebook groups. I think if I were to do it all over again, I would have tried to find a reputable real-estate agent to help us navigate the process. It was a very stressful and difficult process doing it on my own, with limited Spanish, knowing we had only 3 weeks.

Click here to read a more about our housing when we first got to CR.

** I highly recommend renting (short term) until you are in the country and know what area you like. Don't buy before living in-country!!

Things we did to make it easier for the boys.

It sounds like common sense, but we talked about it a lot with the boys. For months leading up to the move, we included them as much as possible throughout the whole process. I was very glad that we had visited Costa Rica for 2 weeks with the boys back in spring of 2022. They still remembered this time, and it made talking about the move to Costa Rica that much easier. We talked about the animals, watched videos, and read books about Costa Rica. I am not sure they knew to the full extent why we were moving, or when we would be back to our house in Madison, but at their age it didn't seem to bother them too much.

We didn't pack too many toys, but I did make sure to bring some of their favorites, lots of books from home, and a few presents (magna tiles) for our middle son who turned 4 just a few weeks after we arrived here. Finally, we brought LOTS of pictures from back home to put all over our fridge.

I remember running to Walgreens just a few days before we left to print out pictures of family and friends. I made sure to get a variety, including pictures of the boys in the snow, at school and at other favorite places.

We had a going away party!

I was a bit hesitant, but my mom insisted we have a going away party. I am so incredibly grateful that I listened to her and let her plan an over the top amazing going away party with friends and family. It was a such a special afternoon sharing our plans, saying our goodbyes and getting pictures that I later printed out to bring along with us.

Whether its a few months or a few years, I highly recommend some sort of farewell going away party. It was more exciting, than it was sad (which was my fear) and I'm forever grateful for everyone who came to the sendoff.

What other questions do you have about the behind the scenes of moving our family to Costa Rica for the year?