Alexandra Niki

There's a reason why your best ideas never come during meetings in windowless conference rooms. Why the novel you're writing stalls out in your beige apartment but flows when you're sitting on a friend's porch overlooking something green. Why you can't think clearly in the place where you also sleep, eat, stress about money, and doom-scroll at 2 AM. Your environment isn't neutral. It's not just the backdrop to your thinking. It's actively shaping the quality, depth, and possibility of your...

There's a particular quality to the light on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast that doesn't quite exist anywhere else. It filters through jungle canopy in the early morning, turns the ocean turquoise by noon, and goes golden and thick by late afternoon when the howler monkeys start their evening commentary. It's the kind of light that makes you understand why people throw away perfectly good careers to start over somewhere that feels more real. Puerto Viejo used to be the province of backpackers...

The most common mistake people make when moving to Costa Rica isn't choosing the wrong visa or forgetting to ship their belongings. It's treating relocation as a logistical problem instead of a design opportunity. You can have residency papers, a rental contract, and a functioning cell phone—and still feel like you're floating in limbo six months later, eating sad desk lunches and wondering where it all went wrong. Because getting to Costa Rica is easy. Building a life that actually works ...