Costa Rica has long been touted as a great place to retire, and it actually has an active ex-pat (and American) community.

Those who know me know that I would prefer to head to Europe to retire, my #1 choice is Italy, because of the history, culture, food, and wine... But Costa Rica rates high on all the lists you find online, and I'm definitely open to be convinced to change my mind.

What we see here is that, of my top picks in Europe, Italy ranks lowest. And of my top picks of the Americas, Costa Rica is a high second. We’ll be exploring the reasons why over the next few months.