Safety & Climate by Season

Crime, honestly, not glossed over

• The headline number is real and worth knowing. Costa Rica recorded its highest-ever homicide rate in 2023, around 17.2 per 100,000 people, driven overwhelmingly by organized-crime and drug-trafficking-related violence, not crime affecting typical retirees or tourists.
• What actually affects expats. Roughly three-quarters of all reported crime is property-related, not violent: non-violent theft, robbery with threat, and burglary/break-ins are the dominant categories, and thousands of crimes against tourists specifically are reported annually.
• The single most common pattern: vehicle break-ins, targeting visible belongings left in parked cars at beaches, trailheads and tourist sites. This is consistently cited as the number one practical risk for expats and tourists alike, more than any violent-crime concern.
• Where it concentrates: Tamarindo, Jacó, and parts of downtown San José see higher rates of petty theft than the Central Valley suburbs; Escazú and Santa Ana specifically are repeatedly cited as lower-crime, higher-security areas, part of why they're the two most established expat hubs.

Crime figures here draw on Costa Rican judicial-police (OIJ) data as reported by multiple expat-focused publications; treat the precise percentages as directional rather than exact, and check current-year OIJ reporting directly for anything you're making a decision around.

Practical habits worth actually knowing

• Never leave visible belongings in a parked car, at beach parking areas or trailheads, by far the most repeated specific piece of safety advice across expat sources.
• Home security in expat areas: gated communities, alarm systems and a trusted neighbor or property manager checking in during travel are standard practice in Central Valley and Guanacaste expat housing, not paranoia.

Climate is genuinely three or four different countries in one

• Central Valley: at 1,000–1,500 meters elevation, a mild, spring-like climate essentially year-round: warm afternoons, cool evenings, a gentler rainy season without the heavy tropical downpours the coasts get. This is the climate reputation Atenas specifically has built much of its expat appeal on.
• Guanacaste: the driest, sunniest region in the country, with a clear dry season roughly December through April and a hot, intense dry season that some retirees find genuinely uncomfortable without reliable air conditioning.
• Pacific/Central Valley rainy season: roughly May through November, with meaningful rainfall most days in peak months. This is the pattern most of the country, including the Central Valley and Guanacaste, broadly follows.
• Caribbean side: runs on its own schedule entirely, rain year-round with no true dry season, wettest around December–January, with a relative lull around September–October that's roughly the reverse of the Pacific side's pattern.