We Paid THIS Much for Our Land & House Costa Rica | LIVE Q+A

hello hello oh we are live now we live are we live from the jungle let's see I'm GNA refresh just to make sure Welcome to our house if you're there I don't see anything yet just waiting let's see oh we are there okay awesome hello buenos Diaz hey Henry what's up welcome hey we give people a chance to just come in Welcome to the Jungle Welcome to the Jungle grab a drink how's everyone's morning what are you drinking this morning I'm drinking a mushroom Elixir it's got a little tiny bit of coffee but like a bunch of like mushroom yumminess sounds probably gross but it's delicious what's the difference between the two what if we're looking at our live or what the they're seeing the same just a little bit different yeah but this is this is more live you can see here what this hey espresso with oat milk and honey that sounds delicious I've had to cut back on coffee which I love because it makes me too jittery and anxious but I'm always jealous when other people are drinking it and I love the smell and the whole Coffee Culture I look a little bit tired today because I was at a party here in the jungle well we both were it was really fun lots of good energy and dancing and games and yeah it was it was fun yeah when you're not near a major city with like clubs and bars and nightlife you have to make your own night life so there's like DJs that live here yeah there's there was a fire dance um there was like a bar with cocktails and mocktails and like an amazing potluck so there's there's always potluck at every party here and everyone like goes above and beyond to make the best dish so everything you eat is just like whoa so good it has been a long time Henry since we've done a live stream I think it's been like six years six years or something yeah well we've also had like pretty poor internet in our travels and here we have Fiber Optic internet Fiber Optic internet in the jungle it's pretty sweet yeah good morning Monir donica Melanie what is that I don't know if it's Lola or LSA but hello from Finland awesome we want to go back there we're actually going to try to go this year for winter okay okay I guess we can just get into questions if you guys have any questions you can leave them in the chat and uh we'll answer them but we also have questions that people have sent us already so we can start with those and yeah anything you guys want to ask anything goes feel free to just put them in the chat and we will start all right so I think one of the biggest questions since we we shared that we we moving here and we bought land is how much has it did it cost to buy land and to build a home here so we can yeah we can share like a breakdown or as much as we can remember right now I guess of how much we we paid we uh we paid 130,000 us for the land which is about a half an acre with the most epic views we chose this land not actually being here and stepping foot on it beforehand but we had been to this community ahead of time and had seen like had walked around when it was like literally just jungle and not really divided into Lots yet um but I remember like when we came at that time just standing at the top of like one of the higher Peaks where we are and just looking out at the mountain so when we knew that this was available we just like knew it was the right decision and uh yeah so that's how much we paid for this land and our build you want to share that yeah our this whole build I can even adjust this camera so look at this so I can take you on like a little a little tour here I'm making a coffee over there and our our kitchen has a lot of clean dishes to be put away and let me turn you all the way around and you guys can check out the view yeah it's pretty spectacular yeah that's what we stare at every single day uh so this house that we built was first it was about 60,000 to build this structure and then we probably added another $10,000 um in closing it in Windows and glass so I'd say about 70 grand we spent on this place now granted now like you know prices of everything steadily increase so it'll probably be a little bit more to build something like this but I mean for 200 Grand we have land in the jungle and a house uh that's probably I think this place is about like 1,600 square feet yeah maybe a little bit more we got we so we have if you haven't seen a tour of this place you can get a detailed tour in one of our later latest videos I think it was like maybe a month or so ago we posted it um but we have our bedrooms in the Airstream so now that's just two bedrooms and ca's office where before we had everything in there we had a washroom we had a kitchen and everything but we took all that out now we have an outdoor kitchen we have another bedroom slashy office so if we have our guests over they stay in my office area so it's three bedrooms a bathroom and then we're building a whole Courtyard area in the back as well which um we never shared in the video because it's a work in progress so we'll we'll be sharing with that with you guys once it's done you guys okay make a coffee while we're on this live of course okay but this place was meant to be um eventually some a place that we rent out and we wanted to build something else because we have so much more land but we're going to be living in this for like the next I know few years at least So eventually we will rent it out that's the that's the plan okay let's go to the chat and I'll take some questions there um are you going to build bedrooms eventually and leave the Airstream eventually yes yes so that like what I just said um right now this is like perfect for us and we we love it too it like turned it became more than our original idea the original idea was just to have our Airstream here build like um a roof for it to protect it from the rain in the Sun and rent it out and build another place for us to live in and then yeah but we we were like oh but we want to add this and this and this and it became so much more and now we love it so much and I kind of don't even want to leave it um but I think eventually the plan was to rent it out and build something else so we will do that and then people will get a chance to come and experience this place by renting out the Airstream all right let's see did you ship your Caravan into Costa Rica and how much did you have to pay to import it yes so we spent like five years living in the Airstream and traveling around North America and then once we were in Florida we were there at the end of is it the end of 2020 I think so right or 20 yeah 2020 um at the beginning of 2021 and we decided that's where we were going to ship our Airstream from because it's like the best port to do it to get to Costa Rica um so we did it from it was Tampa not Miami there two options but Tampa T Tampa and yeah we shipped it to San Jose Costa Rica Leon lemon Costa is on the on the East Coast it's like what three hours or so from here that and it cost this is okay so this is the crazy part it was originally supposed to cost 7,000 us about that but then the you know World issues arose and Wars broke out so prices went up for is like skyrocketed and ended up being about 11 Grand to ship it here yeah and the process was kind of nerve-wracking because I mean we had everything on our air in our Airstream like all of our belongings we just brought a couple like a few suitcases with us on the airplane and just like shipping this thing that we grown so attached to it's a big part of our life that's why why it's here and uh but we had a tracker on it so we could actually see where it was to certain point and then it just kind of like we didn't know where it was anymore we're like oh my God what's happening yeah the tracker sinks with cell towers so like as it was leaving Florida I could track it and then it kind of disappeared for like a few days until it relinked with Central America so that I could see the boat coming in coming in coming in the boat came in we were super excited and then I checked the next morning and the boat was leaving Costa Rica headed to Panama and I'm like what is going on did our Airstream just get like stolen did it forget to leave get off the ship what happened but I guess they had to like go out into the ocean and do a few circles before waiting their turn to come back in so it was definitely scary and it got a little bit damage too yeah like here at the front it got it got a little bit bent right there yeah right here it got a little bit bent because I actually had to strap the Airstream and lift it onto the boat so uh thankfully it wasn't isn't anything major it's kind of like exterior cosmetic which we can fix uh one of the projects that we have to work on projects never ending projects um yeah and it took us about a month to get our Airstream like it arrived here I think within like a week and a half or something a week but then we had to wait to get it out um yeah but that was it and then we had it here which is wild and getting it up the mountain where we are is a whole other story shared another video easy uh okay let's see what else how often do you guys go back to Canada to see family every year every year we're actually going to be heading there soon and family comes here to see us which we encourage we're like we can come to see you guys but you guys can come here and spend time in Costa Rica so that's a very intriguing offer so many of them have come and stayed and we've had we've had many adventures with many family members which has been so fun I mean we built like a Tropical Paradise here in Central America I want people to come yeah hey Rya R you can see Rya and Lou's bus if you in the very top Corner wait wait there we go yeah that's Ryan Lou's bus so we're we're close we're missing you I wish I could just call you over right now that's how it was um okay so let's go back to the other questions we have had um so for the community do you pay for all the food that you grow and how much does it cost to move there okay let's start with the first question about buying the food that is grown in our community so we don't buy the food but we pay an HOA fee every month which it pays for many different things including the the food that we get each week at the organic garden pool pool the staff there's people that that run the garden that take care of like all the the fruit trees and everything um around the community yeah there's a security guard here in the community so there's a lot of there's a lot of like staff here um and our HOA fees it it's kind of based on how big your land is the bigger your land the more your fees are going to be so for half an acre which we have is about $230 a month that we're paying in HOA fees which is pretty sweet not bad I mean if you divide that by by week maybe it's like $70 or something that's just for the food too you go to Whole Foods and you spend like for the amount of food that we get organic beautiful produce that's picked that morning like it's so fresh and so delicious like you're you're spending probably double at Whole Foods for for that so could be yeah we get a huge basket we got a massive basket of of fresh fruit and vegetables and it it it's getting bigger I notice you know each few months it something else else gets added something else is now producing so the baskets are just going to get bigger and bigger and there's a we have about five kilometers I'm not sure what that is in miles but three miles little probably a little bit more of fruit trees lining the all of the streets here fruit trees medicinal trees they all kind of play a purpose so those were planted maybe starting a few years ago so in a few more years we're going to have so much more fruit that's just like everywhere yeah yeah I like 50% of the fruit we're going to get hasn't even grown yet yeah all right let's go again to the chat how do you become a citizen of Costa Rica and what plans do you have for educating your daughter okay let's go to first the first part citizen well we're not that that's a whole other other thing you can become a resident that's what most people who move here do they either become a resident or they just leave the country once their visa is up and then come back you just kind of do like a day of travel and come back we're still tourists here so being a tourist in Costa Rica the government is very lenient and wants tourists to invest here and and spend time here so we were able to start a corporation buy land um you can open a bank account you can get a cellphone number here all while being a tourist and now that they changed um um so the typical Visa that everyone gets because there's the digital Nomad visa and then there's just the regular regular Visa that you get the stamp you get when you get to Costa Rica it used to be 90 days but now and this is for Canadians and Americans I believe probably a lot of Europe I'm not you'd have to definitely check depending where you're coming from but um now they changed it to 180 days so you can stay here for six months and before you have to leave and you literally can just leave for you know the afternoon or a day and go to Nicaragua or Guatemala or Panama and then come back and then you get another 180 days so it's pretty sweet and then there's the digital Nomad Visa too um which we have a couple of friends who have done it but because it's new it's been kind of a weird process it it's not very smooth and by the time they actually received their visas they had to renew them already so it's just like kind of a headache what is that a digital Nomad Visa allows you to stay here for a year without leaving which is I think it's a year I thought it was two is it two years it might be two oh gosh yeah it might no a year and then you can renew it for a year I believe I believe but I mean like or the regular Visa which costs nothing you just leave once and you come back um all right let's go back to all right we've already kind of answered that out of of all the places in the world how did you choose Costa Rica as your home base and do you really like it there here um It's Kind of a Funny Story we came here in 200000 for the first time 200 oh there's like a random cat it's not even our cat just climbing okay there's a lot of like that I mean this that seems like a house cap but there's a lot of Wildlife and crazy animals I've seen foxes and skunks and toucans and parrots all here like from our kitchen um I forget what I was saying oh yeah why did we choose Costa Rica um partly for that reason yeah but but like when we came here this is the cool part about this we came here together in 2007 2007 no 2009 for the first time and like the moment we both got here separately we we just had this feeling like oh we're going to live here one day and I was like oh that's weird like I had already traveled to so many countries I had never had that feeling before and it just came over me with and I hadn't really even explored the place yeah like it was the first day and it was just this feeling and there's more synchronicities that have happened over the years and also with Louis and Rya like we just we made we like I don't use the word very often but we definitely manifested this and to live here both of us in in community together in this Tropical Paradise and uh yeah kind of just like all aligned but there's so much to love about Costa Rica there I mean there's cons as well like every place but what I really love about here is the the the Tranquility the paa Vita Lifestyle the like just to like go with the flow it's more calm the nature of course you're surrounded by like lush green mountains and jungle and volcanoes and the o you got everything here so much so much biodiversity so many animals yeah I I think it's I think it's like every country has something that um that they do well right you go to certain places in in the world like Italy and like they do food so well you go to other places and they do architecture so well and that's like what they're trying to show off of their country Costa Rica is its natural environment is its biodiversity so Costa Rica has 6% of the entire world's biodiversity so if you took every animal that exists in the world 6% of all those animals live here in Costa Rica and it's one of the smallest countries in the world so it's so densely packed with jungle and with animals and the the government like really loves their nature and protect Texas M and that's that's what we felt when we first moved here so uh when we first visited here years ago so when it came time to like picking somewhere to settle down routs we wanted to be an hour within an airport we wanted to have fast internet and we wanted to be close to where our our food and water comes from yeah and this place just kind of ticked all the boxes and more because it was within a community that also had like a social life built into it yeah it just KY in the backr I don't know if you can hear uh yeah so it all just kind of came together we could go on and on about why we love it here but maybe we should save that for a full video all right um will you Kai do you want to come say hi she has headphones on she's listening to music okay will you be showing us more areas of Costa Rica in your videos yes absolutely we've been doing that but we want to we've been discussing about all the other places in even different communities there's a lot of different communities in Costa Rica that are doing things a little bit differently that look a little different different locations so we want to cover more of that we also just want to explore this place kind of from head to toe and like really show you how diverse it is and such a such a small country but there's just so much to offer like and you're going like you're going on a group trip yes a few weeks that's be are there still spots available yeah so each year we do a group trip with you guys and that we put together and this year in July we're doing one in Costa Rica in the Blue Zone of nioa if you don't know what a blue zone is there are several around there's well I should say maybe more than a handful that are defined as blue zones around the world and one of them is in Costa Rica and it's a place where people live like over a hundred like a how do I how do I say that like a condensed it's like a pocket of centurions yes which is super cool and it's if you haven't seen the Blue Zone documentary on Netflix I highly encourage it because you'll get to explore all of them and see how simil how similar they are as well as like a little bit of differences but mostly similarities so we're going to be exploring the one in Costa Rica we're going to be hanging out with these amazing human beings that are over a hundred and get to actually sit down and talk to them and not just that but we're going to be doing a three night home stay there so we're going to get to see their day-to-day living and what they do and how they interact with their their family and their community and like yeah just what their life is like and and really learn from that as well as there's a lot of Adventure we're going to be going to the beach we're going to be going on a Cameron we're going to be going to um hot springs and Hiking volcanoes and so much more so there's a couple of spots left if you want to be spontaneous and join in July July 18th to the 28th it will be with me and we have a fabulous group already so if you want to join that I will drop the link in the chat as well as in the description box later so come on it'll be fun all right um let's go back to the questions here did you join a cult yes no that's a funny one we've gotten that I know Lou and Ry have also gotten that a few times um it's not Cults no I get I get I get I get it I get it you say like oh I joined a community we all live together and share things yeah we don't share each other it's not that kind of community no no but I I can I get why people would think that um no I mean this this community I guess you can consider kind of like a a new design of what like a suburb could be right everyone has their individual land just like a suburb that you guys have seen except it's built on a mountain which is interesting everyone's custom building their houses which is interesting and we have shared elements so we we share um like Community spaces like we have a farm we have a pool we have another building that's going to be built that's like a CO working space and it uh it it's funny that people call that a cult like there's nothing there's nothing about it I mean I I totally see it like the way we dance and like all these like s caca ceremonies and yeah all those things do happen but it's definitely an alcol we didn't drink like a bunch of Kool-Aid and we're like trapped here sa we drink we do drink cacao yeah we do drink cacao though and Cacao is just chocolate is raw chocolate and it it has a lot of antioxidants and gives you energy and there's no leader okay and puts you under a spell the col has a leader there's no leader right right there's no leader here so like everyone who wants to like serve on like the the head or the board can volunteer their time to serve on the board and then they get voted in by everyone else in the community and then they're responsible for like paying the community's bills and you know managing certain elements of the community and then there's there's other teams that form under that um that help with different aspects of the community but it's really like all the people living here that have to work towards like maintaining this place and and keeping it running yeah I mean but if this is a call like give me the Kool-Aid because I will love itth okay let's go back to the chat have you had any close encounters with dangerous animals close encoun well I guess in a way whoa there's like a cool iguana over there oh yeah that's our iguana friend he lives in can I zoom in on him I don't know you can try he lives in the Rock here he's pretty cool can you see it oh he's gone but he lives in that rock no he's right there oh you see him oh yeah yeah see him atlas there he is you guys see him right here okay so this guy he's been here since we've moved and he lives in the Rock the big rock we haven't named him yet though so oh there goes atlas there goes the lizard we haven't named him so if you have any cool names that you think we should name him let us know but other dangerous animals I mean we see scorpions we've had many scorpion encounters here in our house especially when it wasn't enclosed because when we moved into our space and originally we wanted all of this open we didn't have plans for walls or glass or anything uh but then when we moved here there are factors like wind wild animals and creepy insects um rain all of that was like you know coming in and we wanted to be able to block it out so we created walls and put up the glass thank so grateful that we did that and uh before that no no close encounters we see some scorpions that can be dangerous we see really it's kind of like a beasting it's like every time I see a bee I don't call that a close encounter I mean they're just scarier scorpions are just creepier they can't kill you the ones here unless you're allergic we've seen um a couple of snakes out of all the times what we that we've been here and again we've been coming here for years before we even moved here which we've been we've moved here we've been living here for what just over two years now we saw a snake the other day and it was just like a vine snake you saw boa once but not like not in our community either um we've seen what other dangerous thing I saw like one snake on our land before we even moved here but you don't even know if it was poisonous right yeah I mean they're here they're definitely here but they don't want to be near you we don't want them to be near us so I hope hopefully it stays that way but like like I said Costa Rica is is a coast to coast jungle like a very dense jungle so yeah anywhere you are in the country there's something like within the vicinity right there's there's snakes there's scorpions there's tarantulas there's Jaguars and and ocelots right and there's stuff around but you barely see that what you see most is monkeys and incredible insects and pars bird we are bird people now yeah so amazing the birds yeah you know what I'm terrified of snakes I hate snakes but even like thinking about the word snake gives me goosebumps I have Goosebumps right now um but I thought moving here I'm like that's the one thing like it almost makes me not want to move there like I'm almost at that point where I'm like no take me back to Canada or somewhere else but we I I barely and hopefully knock on wood i' I've seen like two out of how many years three four years of being here and um unless I've been on a hike with a guide who knows where they are and we're going to look for them like and as soon as i' I've seen the ones like randomly they've slithered away so fast so um if you're afraid of snakes don't don't really worry about it you just have to be cautious use a use a flashlight at night look where you're stepping and that's it y yeah okay um talked about this thing situation what is it like during rainy season I feel like no one ever really shows what it's like that would be a great video yeah but we can share a little bit now I showed a little bit on Instagram yesterday it's it's wild it's like if you've never seen a monsoon yeah it's intense like it could probably fill an entire swimming pool in like a week yeah it gets pretty crazy like I I you don't really know how Wild it is and and like all the issues you can potentially have and unless you're in it so what we have experienced what we've learned so far is it usually starts again with the world now it's kind of like weird but typically it starts like April sorry more like May June and then like we get into like September October those are the rainiest months so it kind of progresses throughout those months a little bit here like every 30 minutes in June uh or sorry not every 30 minutes for 30 minutes a day in June and then it eventually goes to like an hour two hours and then September October is like maybe half the day of rain and it's like a lot of rain oh it's intense it's super super intense in in three seconds you would be soaked head to toe as if you jumped in a pool yeah so we took that into consideration when building the materials we chose we originally wanted to do like really organic natural products but we decided to go with a lot of cement and steel because of mold mold is a thing here that we don't want to deal with so we're trying to prevent it by yeah using those materials de humidifiers um we have really good air flow in here so let me let me show you guys a little bit so so we have one huge roof one huge roof it's a 2,000 square foot roof and all of our overhangs are are 2 meters beyond the house and that's really important it has to be beyond the house two meters because when the the rains come like at an angle you don't want that angle to you know have rain get in your house so that's important to know and let me adjust this a little bit and we have a metal roof Under The Roof is a layer of insulation and then under that is the Kane braa which you saw which is kind of like like bamboo or sugar cane um and there we go and all of our beams are metal all of our countertops are concrete and we did that because we didn't want to deal with mold we didn't want to deal with termites right we don't want our place to start falling apart like soon after we build it because of the weather and you really have to build according to weather everywhere that you are yeah you know in Canada it gets like below freezing for months and months so you need to bury all your pipes you need to have really thick walls and really thick insulation to protect you from those elements here you need to be protected from humidity and you do that with like airf flow so the entire back of our house you can kind of see the wood slats oh yeah through the air stream here the wood slats there and there's screens all through there so that most of our house I would say 60% of all of our walls are some sort of like a screen at least like up above is all screen um and then glass yeah but there's flow constantly so even with all of our doors shut and we're protected like no one can get in animals can't get in insects can't get in we still feel a breeze and we can hear the jungle sounds at night which is amazing like we don't need a sound machine we are living in one and uh yeah so if you are deciding to build here any like tropical climate that has like you know similar Seasons as Costa Rica um the air flow in a house is like key yeah and I'm so glad we did that and a large overhang for the rain so we have like a 2 meter overhang with our roof which helps a lot with the rain you know like splashing in or not splashing in yeah none of our Windows get wet or yeah or our walls too so and that's what I don't see people doing that enough here everyone's overhanging too small yeah uh okay let's go back to [Music] here oh my gosh there's been so awesome questions you want to want to grab one um have you driven through the countryside and seen the wind turbines I I've seen them from afar but I haven't seen them up close we were definitely at the countryside late recently remember when we got like yeah we took a wrong turn and it was crazy yeah it was it was intense and the roads were not nice it was a five hour detour coming back from from Tamarindo it was so crazy we so the thing here when a road is like you know they decide to like oh there maybe there's a mud slide we have to block it off for the next couple of months but we're not going to tell you about it so we didn't know ahead of time we looked in Google maps and ways that didn't alert us so we drove for like three hours came to a dead end we couldn't keep going it to turn back like three hours took another Wrong Turn ended up in the countryside and it was crazy the roads were horrible there's known around yeah it was wild yeah beautiful though very beautiful have we considered moving to another country Yeah we actually talked yesterday about like maybe taking like not I guess not moving but like taking an extended period of time to go and and travel the world and see like other communities yeah right and film some cool content for moving my my dream has always been to have a couple places in different countries and it's always been that comes to mind is like a villa or somewhere like a beautiful little apartment in Italy somewhere I think would be amazing my mom's Sicilian and we've been to Italy and Sicily a few a couple of times and it's just yeah it's in my heart so I would love to have someplace there that's the dream one day yeah I'm pretty comfortable here in Canada like yeah yeah but I do miss Toronto I miss the city sometimes you know like but then when I'm in the city for a long time I I really crave being back here and just being in nature um but you miss the things that are easy to get like ordering Amazon packages right or being able to get Uber Eats or go to any restaurant like at any time with within walking distance we don't do that here yeah someone said um Katie that we were broken into before like the Airstream was broken into and we're going to got a security system how has it been so oh hey KY good duck good duck no one even saw you um yeah so our Airstream was like it wasn't parked here in our house before it was literally just on the side of a road here in the community and yeah do you need something okay you you keep going I'll be right back it was literally just like parked on the side of the road here and it looked abandoned for you know over a year and in that time somebody opened one of our windows and we had uh a gas power generator on the inside and they took that generator they didn't break any Windows they didn't do any damage it was petty theft and that's after like a year of it looking like an abandoned container you know trailer in in the middle of the Jungle kind of so yeah it was it was pretty scary I mean Louis and Rya had their bus broken into and it got ransacked it got like hit a lot harder than than our Airstream um but ever since then I haven't heard of any problems in the community that was that was over a year ago that that happened and I was told by a local that that generally does happen um kind of everywhere in the world at construction sites and this is a bit of a construction site as people are building their houses there's a lot of like Crews coming in and out and uh ever since then we haven't had any problems no we do have a security system here as well as a dog that that barks at everything that moves that comes close to us and there are security guards too we're pretty yeah pretty protected yeah and there's yeah there's security within the community yeah so yeah and it's like petty theft I don't know if you said that but it's like petty theft when it happens here so it's not like scary crazy crimes yeah no one's hurting people at least yeah I mean it's not yeah I'm sure it happens just like everywhere else in the world but it's not the stuff you hear about normally right um how do you handle mail here that's a great question and that was like what of our first questions how are we going to get packages here because we work with brands or just things that we want to get delivered here that we order online and we found there there are shipping companies um and we have one that's about 30 minutes from here it's like this shipping center where we or whatever we order or have whatever is shipped to us it goes to our address that we have in Miami Florida and then it gets redirected to the shipping center that's 30 minutes from us and if it comes by air it takes about seven to 10 days and if it comes by ship it takes about three weeks and if it comes by air we pay I think it's like we pay by pound a pound I think yeah that's so that's the that's the issue not the issue there's no import tax though it's just the sh you're paying for the the weight of it right or the chip the tax is like included in that fee like yeah $6 by air per pound and $4 by ship per pound but it's been super reliable we've never lost a package it's pretty fast and really convenient yeah we've shipped mattresses we shipped like a solar system couches we've shipped a lot of stuff through there and uh that's that's really made it like a lot easier to to maintain our business and to also order like certain things that we need and uh it's it's definitely worth it for us yeah so there's like no overnight packages that you're going to get at least I don't know I don't think so but if you're a little patient your package will arrive it's possible Right you gotta be patient um let's see let's go back to these questions that were asked ahead of time too okay um what do you guys do when there are people you don't really Vibe with in the community we make them drink the Kool-Aid obviously we ban them immediately no um I mean what do you guys do with when there's someone you don't Vibe with on your street or in your building you just you act friendly and then you move on you don't you don't really need to be friends with everyone yeah but that hasn't happened that's what I'm thinking about like honestly honestly like everybody that is in the community um there's quite a few of us living here here now and some people that like have land and but haven't moved here yet but the people that we've met and the people that live here like I really enjoy them all and everyone is like so unique and different in their own ways but also we share such similar values of the way we want to live our life that that really bonds us all so I think it's it's that that really allows us to have a good connection pretty much with everyone of course we have our like core group of really good friends but um yeah it's been great and I love that we see each other and hang out every day it feels like I'm back in college or high school where you see your friends every day and then after that you finished school and you start a job and you have a family and you see your best friend maybe twice a year like I missed that seeing my best friends every day and we do that here it's amazing that's what I love the most about Community one of the one of the things because there's many other reasons to love it but yeah it's so good so good I would never ever not live in community now like there's no way it would be hard I I couldn't I wouldn't want to it's just too good it's too good and I think more and more people are going to be shifting to living in community because this is how we used to be this is how we used to live and then we just I don't know everyone decided to like separate and now people don't even know who lives next door to them it's just like we need to come back to this and like share things and share resources and responsibilities and be there for each other and it's yeah like if you if you really needed something or if you were in trouble or if you got injured or if you were concerned about something and you sent a message who would you send that message to probably family friends I don't know how close they live to you um I feel that living here there's a hundred people within like a a a a two walk or drive that would be there to support and we've done that for other people too I feel like it happens weekly here if someone needs something whether it's small or big and it's someone's there and in a heartbeat yeah the the the comfort you feel around like your your best friends or like close family that that's there to support you that's kind of what I feel here that at any moment there's all these people around me that are willing to help and close by in case of an emergency or any thing and there's there's definitely like safety in that and some sort of like calm in that and it's that's priceless right it's it really is amazing there yeah I feel yeah so much about it just feels so good um do people in your community work from home or do most people have to travel to go to their jobs great question a lot of people are able to work online and I think after the pandemic a lot of jobs went online like there was that option so I think that opened up a lot of options for people to be able to move abroad um so yeah there's a lot of us that work online there's not really people that go back and forth um there's some people that I mean it's not just a bunch of expats also in this community there's a lot of theal there's a lot like local people so people that can work here um as well so or people who Who start businesses here so it's kind of like a mix but mostly online people are working right check this out so I just did um a speed test so I could show you guys where it go do it again so I can show you guys the the the actual like internet speed here is it gonna Focus there you go so look at that 286 Megs up and then 171 no 286 down 171 up and that's that's really fast if you don't know like internet speeds that's super fast so it really allows people to move here and still be able to work online because if the internet sucked half of these people couldn't really do their jobs properly y um all right let's do another question here I love all these questions are all good do you plan to plant your own garden outside the community garden yes we've already started to plant a couple of trees and because it's rainy season now we are going to plant some more but we have so far we have a jack fruit tree we did have a bread fruit and a mango Steen but during construction I think they they sadly they got I know it made me really sad we have um a serum cherry tree so that's what we have so far oh we have some pineapples that we planted but we want to do I want to do like um just on the front of our house like I want to build like a box garden that has tons of herbs for cooking and salads and more fruit trees right so like where we we built this house um is only like a third of our land twoth thirds of our land is untouched and ready for Garden or another place that we can build so there's lots of room for expansion here let's see do you guys plan to visit neighboring countries like El Salvador yeah I mean we've been to the airport that doesn't count but I definitely want to yeah Explore More around this area it's like it's it's cool to be here and have access to that like I went to Guatemala took me an hour and 15 minutes to fly there and it was it was so fun you went to Panama recently and took an hour to get there yeah and cheap the flights are so cheap my flight was $60 One Way $60 $70 and I booked last minute right yours was probably around the same it was like 80 bucks to go to Panama so yeah and I'm even thinking to like send our car to Colombia because you can't drive past Panama there's like a there's a Darian gap which is a dense jungle so you can't drive through it but you can ship your car to Colombia and drive through South America like South America is at our doorstep now yeah like let's continue this road trip not with the Airstream Airstream is not moving she's retired she lives here now forever um but that would be so fun yeah I'm down for that how is the weather is it warm all year round well we kind of um talked about rainy season already because there's two seasons here there's rainy season there's dry season we're currently in rainy season and then it goes until no beginning of November and then November to April's dry and the weather Costa Rica has 12 microclimates so literally in a day you can be on the beach like sweating balls sweating balls I mean it's to say sweating a lot profusely and then drive like a few hours and then you're up like in the mountain mountainous areas and it's like cool like cold cold enough to put on a jacket so there's like a variety of of climates here all year round um but on average I'd say it's like 25 to 35 degrees every single day all year long and it depends on what time of year where you're going to get more rain or less rain that's that's pretty much it but every single day is going to be warm or hot yeah and where we are we um it's it's so interesting how it changes though like so fast like we have friends who are maybe a five minute drive from us and it wasn't raining there yesterday but it was pouring here and friends that are a little bit lower and it's super humid where they are but it's so fresh where we are like there's this beautiful Breeze all year round every single day and the way that we built our structure like it's cool in here it's it's not hot but as soon as we go out in the sun it's pretty hot today yeah um let's see how easy is it to join communities like the one you've joined can you sh can you share um where where you can find resources cool resources I mean it yeah it wasn't it wasn't difficult to join we just like we we heard about this place we came here we to check it out and we were able to see the different lots available and the price ranges for them because they varied yeah not that it's hard to not that it's hard to join no sign up process but you're basically like investing in property yeah that's what you're doing and that property happens to be within a community you can find cheaper properties that are outside the community like a cheaper piece of land for sure but you're not going to get the amenities of the community spaces right you're not going to get like the yoga deck or the swimming pool or the basket that you get every week with your fruits and vegetables and that's the premium that you pay to be in the community right and I mean I I'm not sure what it's like in all the communities in the world I'm sure there's different not rules but like kind of but kind of rules right that that the people who are part of it make yeah of course as a group because you have to there has to be some like gu some guidelines um but that's what we want to explore more of we want to that that's part of like the content that we want to create more of is visiting these communities and like learning how they work and how they run and what they're like um so we can share that with you guys here on this channel but we've been to a couple already there's many in Costa Rica um so if this is something that you're interested in I would just type in intentional communities and I recently um they've actually passed through here there's this tour company that just tours communities intentional communities around the world I'm not sure how many countries they're in right now but I know they do Costa Rica and I think they're doing some in Europe now Spain I think and yeah it's a it's a trip and you're literally every day just going to different communities and learning about them so you can just Google that I'll I'll see if I can find the actual like link to that website for that that tour group and um when I find it I'll put in the video description for you guys yeah there's there's something to be said about humans living within Community because we did that for thousands of years we lived in tribes we lived in communities we lived together where we we're we're not like solitary creatures we're not like like bears that can just be by ourselves for years and years and it doesn't affect our mental health we start getting sad right we start getting lonely we We crave being with people now when we're with too many people like if you're at a concert and it's crammed and there's so many people we also don't like that we're not fish that want to be in big schools or birds that want to be in big flocks like that we like a nice balance so when with like the right amount of of humans there's a comfort within that and we've kind of lost that in society where everyone has their own little kingdom everyone has their own little apartment or their own little house and you need to have your own tools to fix your own house you need to like manage your own food consumption within that house you need to cook every single one of your meals with within that house and pay all the bills within that house and it's it's gotten to the point where we've become totally detached from even someone living five meters away from us where we don't even know their name we don't even have the courage to go over there and ask them for help if we need help so uh the the idea of moving into a space where you do know your neighbors where it's more of like a community mentality even though we have our own house there's still you know an element that that we can rely on our neighbors right and we can be kind of like one unit that can help each other that can help watch each other's kids and help entertain each other help like throw parties together as a community there's something about that that that is exciting to us is humans and it's almost something like Primal that that's like lost like I'm kind of interested in that but like it's scary and it's unknown and I think that humans are kind of migrating into more of like a a community mentality yeah yeah um Misty Rodriguez we have a question how do you handle bugs bugs coming into your space you become friends become one with the bugs because they're not leaving um they find their way into your house even if it's closed up we get visitors from my favorite stick bugs love the stick bugs praying mantises MTH butterflies ants the ants here are they're they're wild they're all different kinds of them and they find their way in um the ants clean up your house actually they do at night they'll find every little crumb and dead insect and just carry them away it literally like they're night housekeepers they come in and they just like clean your space and you wake up you're like well right that was pretty nice didn't even have to pay them um we've had scorpions um which I was terrified about like that even that idea beforehand but now it's like oh whatever scorpion um but that yeah you get them it's just like you kind of get used to it to be honest which might sound crazy for some people who hate bugs but um yeah I don't know they just become part of life here yeah I mean before this whole place was open we didn't have walls we moved in Without Walls and that you know bugs just walk in this is this is kind of their home they live here in the jungle and we put a house in their in their path so they uh they come in but since we closed it up it's been way less oh we get there's so many cool beetles you get like you actually start getting really interested in in sex well at least we we have and our daughter loves them um you are not allowed to kill any bugs she will not accept it um and the mosquitoes I mosquitoes don't usually like me so maybe you can speak more about this but I I don't really see them maybe a little bit more in rainy season but like I yeah I I get like a few bites every night from yeah not not while I'm sleeping like not in the Airstream but yeah I find that I get bit by mosquitoes it's not terrible it's not like swarms of mosquitoes how would you compare to Canada in the Canada is so bad Canada's bad like you go to Northern Canada and you'll see like a cloud of mosquitoes it's not like that here no I think some people get that that idea that it's worse here so I just yeah I wanted that comparison so right not as bad not as bad hey look at this I want to show the lizard again he's like sunbathing on a rock what are we naming him guys still need a name name the lizard Larry Larry okay I don't know how long we doing this for almost an hour maybe okay so maybe we should answer a couple more questions and then and that will be it for this one but this has been so fun and we need to do more do you guys think we should do more lives let us know um okay let's go is it not possible to have a similar similar lifestyle in Canada living in some Countryside rural areas I mean yeah not not with winter yeah and not it wouldn't be exactly the same it dep I guess it depends what we're talking about because originally we were looking at Vancouver Island as well yeah right when we're deciding where we wanted to live in community um there's communities all over the world it just depends on your own interests right like what what is it that you want out of community and one of our main things is we wanted to escape the cold we were sick of the cold it makes you like miserable and you're stuck in doors and some people like it some people love the cold maybe are skier or snowboarder and that that's awesome um we love it for two weeks and then we're over it so and we want to be able to grow anything and you can do that here in Costa Rica so yeah there's differences a lot of differences and also probably similarities you can find um but out of all the needs and wants that we we we wanted for our lives this place here like nailed it for us so yeah okay should we do one more yeah and if you guys want like more updated um real time info of like the community space and what we're up to you can follow us on Instagram and we share like stuff on on our stories all the time on everyday life you're not following us already um Larry's looking at us is that his name now we're doing that we're sticking with it seems like it there's our Instagram I think is it going to work oh what am I doing there we go I just put that in the chat for you guys yeah and we're going to be making more videos if you guys have specific ideas of what you want to see more of let us know too because we want to make those for you okay let's go back here choosing one last question which one do you want to choose see you you let you do it we can talk about compost we can talk about languages um learning the language we talked about animals and critters already so a lot of animal and Critter questions there's a lot of yeah th those were my questions too before coming here I was like I'm gonna see a snake every day because I'm not down for that um do you um how about knowing the language yeah that's a good one see do you need to be able to speak Spanish we didn't always speak Spanish we learned from traveling and now that we have been here for over two years we've definitely improved our Spanish see I think it is important to not know the language when you come here but it's important to learn the language because you're coming like you should be you should know the language of the place you're you're living in to be able to communicate with the locals it's a form of respect it's it's how you integrate yourself into the community into the country into the culture so I think you should yeah everybody should be putting in effort learning the language of the place they're going to and living in yeah so basically I'm I'm I'm saying that it's important of whatever country you're living in to learn that language so if you're moving to the US and you don't speak you know you don't speak English then um you need to learn because that's the language of that place right so here I think it's really important to be able to communicate with the locals and it opens up uh it really opens up like the spectrum of being able to communicate here of of interacting with locals here so you'll have more fun if you can speak the language guy's asking for candy anyways um yeah and like if that seems intimidating to you it yeah it is when you're learning anything new but the best way I can say is to to learn the language is to um to immerse yourself and and into the local culture become friends with locals a lot of the times I've seen expats really just stay with other foreigners and speak English and they don't really try to I shouldn't say often this this does happen they don't try to learn the language and really like you know become part of the culture there um and you're never going to learn the language that way if you don't make friends with the locals that's the best way to learn and then it's okay if you only know a couple words here and there the more you try to communicate with each other the more words you'll learn and you'll get better and better at it so yeah I love Spanish such a beautiful language your Spanish is great thanks Melanie graas all right uh I think Henry say you speak well too I think that's probably it we've just reached over an hour and this was so much fun I can't believe we haven't done this in like six years we have to do it again I hope hope you guys also enjoyed it and we answered some of your questions if you have any more drop it in the comment section not in the chat because we won't see this I don't think after this go this ends um so that we can answer them in upcoming videos yeah that's really important it's like we use these videos to create the next one so like any question that we didn't have time to answer put it in that chat or put it in the the comments and if any of you want to join the trip in July here in Costa Rica to discover the Blues Zone with me um I left the link I'll put it again in the video description and would love to Jo have you join us there's a couple spots left and I'm offering the the the last NE next and last couple of people um an extra Spa experience that's not part of the itinerary it will be my treat and I just can't wait to travel with you it's so much fun we have the best trips we do maybe bias but I've been also told by many that our trips are the best so hope to see you there and uh yeah we'll see you in our next next video bye fun enjoy your Sunday or Monday Wherever You Are

Channel: Kristen & Siya

Views: 4,433

Keywords: costa rica, intentional community, eco village, ecovillage, airstream, vintage airstream, rv living, airstream living, homestead, living in community, living in an eco village, Q and A, hopscotch the globe, kristen and siya, van life, van life couple, rv life couple, rv life family, travel, expat life, living in costa rica, moving to costa rica, should i move to costa rica?

Id: Nh-vEQcwrDc

Length: 65min 35sec (3935 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024