Chatta.. Whatnow?
Well, let’s see. The last time you heard from us we were in a small bit of paradise called Boquete, Panama. And we were on our way to Costa Rica because Panama had made some unfortunate legislative moves, correct? Oh what an interesting few weeks it’s been! I suppose we should bring you up to speed on what’s going on.
Perhaps even more unfortunately, Costa Rica made a few legislative moves of their own. While they’ve been slowly working to make the residency process a bit easier and more streamlined, a process we were very optimistic about, they also went and stamped those efforts with a big ugly display of governmental overreach. Whether or not they wanted to be the First and Only country to take this step, they are. Costa Rica has decided to Mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for everybody, beginning at the age of 5. Now I’m not trying to start a discussion around the Covid-19 vaccine, but to Mandate that type of thing for basically your entire population is a bit of a stretch we feel. Mainly this is enforced through schooling, where officials will simply come to schools and vaccinate the kids. So if we weren’t okay with this, we could simply keep our kids out of the schools. However, another bullet point they’ve decided on is that if you want to gain residency in Costa Rica, you can no longer Homeschool your children. Well that’s Two strikes for Costa Rica, and we didn’t feel like waiting for a Third. So very sadly, we made the decision that Costa Rica wouldn’t work as our new home either. And believe me, we really were very disappointed and more than a bit heartbroken about this.
So what now?? Well, given the chaotic nature of the world these days, we’d long been discussing places we might want to try if our primary choices in other countries didn’t work out. We had quite a few criteria that we thought about and talked through, such as climate, quality and cost of living, cultural richness, availability of outdoor activities, etc. And to make a long story short, we’re now based in the area around Chattanooga, Tennessee. There’s a lot to this area, including three different states to choose from in order to make the best of tax laws, political policies, and many others. It’s a very lush, green area, right in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. And it’s still close enough to Nashville and Atlanta that we can pretty easily get all the benefits of the big city while living in a much more rural area. Most of the housing areas here, even near the city center, are much more spread out than they were back in Northern Colorado. And the areas outside the city generally have pretty big plots of land, which we’re very attracted to. Not to mention that the houses here will cost you maybe half of what something similar would back home.
So, just a short post to bring you all up to speed on where we’re at. We’ve got a shorter term lease on an apartment here, and we’re going to take some time to travel around as much as possible and get a feel for the surrounding area. And if we like it, perhaps we’ll just stay and make a life here in the South!