Shielded from the equatorial sun beneath an umbrella, Jim and Carol Lynch reflect on their unusual decision to move from the small town of Fayetteville, Tenn., to a suburb of this Costa Rican capital.
“Look around you, man,” Jim Lynch says. “This place is beautiful.”
They are among a small but growing cadre of baby boomers for whom Latin American countries with communities catering to gringos are becoming the new Florida, or at least, what Florida meant to previous generations.
From the 1950s through the ’90s, for many retirees, Florida was just a given — the place you moved to at a certain age to enjoy a daily dose of sunshine, a cheap house with palm trees and a pool, low taxes, plentiful local food, and a light-hearted sense of adventure.