Which of the 3 is the best area for a nature-loving, Holistic couple?

Used to live near La Suiza. Not much there though...

Did your previous real estate deal fall through?

Did you like or dislike La Suiza for any reason?  What about the other 2 areas?

It was 'OK' but you need to go to Turrialba for a decent selection of groceries and fresh produce...but that may have changed.  Admittedly, this wasn't too far. There was a lot of petty theft there, at that time. The majority of local families, as were we, were involved in the  coffee industry, which is of course, seasonal.

I only know what I have read about the other two locations, so have no firsthand experience of them.

The petty theft part is not a good thing. I have been reading about a lot of burglaries occurring not certain what areas though.
Thats the one place we only spent a short time. Very lush setting. We stayed at an ecolodge. Surprislngly not a lot of bugs.

What did bother us, was the people who would cut though our property to catch birds and remove orchids for resale in town.

We experienced a few earthquakes and watched homes and huge trees, rush along in the rivers from  the results of many serious mudslides in the immediate area. Lush growth, results from wet conditions in the hilly terrain.  So you must be prepared for ongoing work on your property.

Wow, that sounds exciting...and not necessarily in a pleasant way.  Central valley near Alejuela was on our list but it just seemed to be very touristy. The Nicoya peninsula is beautiful but the drought problems there were evident. We also did not like the strange tasting water (near Carmona).  Southern zone seems to be the place to check out.  You mentioned experiencing earthquakes in Cartago as well as landslides. All of the lots we looked at were hilly, with quebradas flowing through them.  It's ironic you should mention that because we experienced a few tremors the 3 weeks we stayed in the southern Turrialba / La Suiza region. The seismic activity may be more frequent there. I don't know. I do know we saw a funny sight on one lot for sale. The owner had put in a rancho, but it was on an obvious slant, perhaps as a result of past earthquakes. :-)  

My fiance speaks fluent Spanish and is often mistaken for a Tica, but she was thrown lots of shade by the locals in La Suiza. I guess it goes with the territory given the isolated and close-knit small barrios. Did you experience anything like that with the locals?

The area I am referring to, is La Suiza. There were a lot of 'wonky looking structures' in this area due to the massive earthquake  in Limon in 1991.

For the most part we were treated well, in the area.

You might check out the Central Valley further west in San Ramon. Not touristy at all. Very old style Tico for the most part. There are two or 3 gringo communities but when you go around town you don't see that many gringos, defintely not many tourists.

Turrialba as far as I know is very dangerous now due to the volcano always going off putting out ashes and smoke. I knew a family who LOVED living there before all the eruptions but they had to move away due to that.

Expat Dave from this forum moved to San Vito recently for his and his daughter's parrot rescue operation. He hasn't been on here much due to that, but you may be able to reach him via pm here and ask him about San Vito. You could probably call him even , he's a nice guy, very helpful; just ask him via pm if you can call him or email him.

I suppose you've looked at weather maps and know that the Golfo Dulce area gets TONS of rain. Not sure about San Vito though; I went through there once, and it seemed like an okay place but I didn't get to "know" it.

I don't know much about the specific area you mention near Perez Zeledon but I loved that area and it's close to Dominical for the beach.
The negatives I saw there were :
It's more expensive than some other areas;
It gets pretty cold at night if you are up at San Isidro altitude (or higher);
Getting there requires driving a very curvy much-used-by-big-trucks highway I think they call the "death highway" or something due to all the accidents on it, and it takes 3 hours to get to San Jose, more to the airport...

Other than that I liked it a lot and was looking to buy there years ago but couldn't afford it. Be careful re water rights. I heard (years ago) there were problems with water for homes there in some areas. Again this was maybe 5 years ago so who knows, now? Just something to ask about...

Turrialba is such a large area. The spot you are referring to is around the volcano, but have there been problems further south in Cartago, specifically the region named "La Suiza?"

As I previously mentioned, I lived just outside of town of La Suiza. It is just a few miles past C.A.T.I.A, isn't it? No where near the volcano, although we could see the top of it, from our deck. If you drive through the town, on either side of the bridge you may be able to see where the houses slipped down and on the other side of the road, the river is cluttered with trees that were washed down slopes in the vicinity. I say 'maybe', as it it is a few years since I visited the area.
We made sure if we had to fly out of the country, we always  stayed the night before in town, in case there were bad mudslides.
Even made 'snow chains' for the truck...

A short video...

Every once in a while, I'll check on the forums to see what's going on. It's probably been two years since I last posted here.

I can talk a little bit about San Vito and give you my perspective from what I've seen here. I bought a small finca about 15 kms. north of San Vito in May 2016, and have since been remodeling the farmhouse.

Whether it is the top destination of the three places you gave, I can't say, but the San Vito area is a nice place to be nature-wise. I'd suggest staying here in a motel for a couple of weeks, and each day drive out in a different direction to learn the area before making up your mind. I suspect San Vito to be more rural of the 3, therefore less people, but the area is growing fairly quickly.

I remember reading that San Vito had a population of 5,000 people a few years back (10?), and I heard it mentioned the other day that its up to 17,000 now. The economy is healthy and the town seems to be bustling and thriving. Lots of building going on, both residential and business, and the building is spreading to the smaller barrio communities located outside of town.

There are more American expats here now too. When I got here there were probably less than 10 (that I was aware of, I tend to keep my head down staying busy). I've seen more people (several retirement-age) in the stores and banks, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were 25 to 30 now. There are 5 grocery stores here (4 BM and 1 Pali) and 3 banks, and in nearby Sabalito (8 kms. south) there are 2 more stores and 2 more banks.

From what I can tell, there are two things driving a lot of the activity. First, San Vito is getting more recognition for being a birding area with more tourism as a result. Second, the town is located only a few kilometers from Rio Sereno on the Panama border. There have been several articles published online recently regarding the relative ease in crossing the Panama border from Costa Rica to get your passport stamped. Much less chaos here in comparison to driving to Paso Canoas and Penas Blancas.

You mentioned in your post about seismic activity. It seems the area around San Vito is active as well, with quakes ranging from tremors to a high of 6.1. I've noticed a couple of times when the coast town of Golfito seems to be actively rumbling at near the same time as San Vito.

Other than that, the climate is wonderful (between 64 and 83 degrees, very little humidity), lush green hillsides, it can rain like crazy (fill up a 5 gallon bucket in less than 2 minutes), and the people are generally pretty friendly here. Every 6 to 8 weeks, I drive north to Perez Zeledon (between 1.5 to 2 hours driving time) for added culture, shopping and the feria.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, just a few things off the top of my head. My guess is that you'd blend in pretty well here if you wanted to.

Marvin

That is one amazing deluge! Oddly enough a "riachuela" cuts right through the property we were looking at. I asked the owner if there had been any landslides or flooding there, and he reassured us that there had not been any for many years.  The rock formations suggested otherwise. The only other place I'd seen such violent outcropping of large boulders was off the coast of Oregon.

That sums up what we encountered when we did a day drive over to San Vito from Golfito. Wish we had spent more time there but we were there to visit friends on the coast.  They have since sold their beach home which is not what we are looking for in the way of real estate. What you described sounds about our speed. La Suiza was more (no offense meant) Jurassic park-like. We love nature but it was kind of humid at the time we visited. We will definitely go back again to La Suiza/Cartago/Turrialba but only as visitors.  Your honest review as well as everyone else (kohlerias, samramon) really helps.

The Rio Tuis, has eroded the riverside/retaining walls over the course of many years and the roads requiring one to cross over a bridge further along has often been closed for many days at a time.

It's good you talked to the owner of the property, as excessive rain can lead to problems around here. I probably should've emphasized that a little more in yesterday's post.

Case in point, excavation equipment recently spent 2 months tearing down a 200 foot hill just as you're coming into San Vito from the north. Previously, there were numerous slides, road closures, and constant clean-up, and they finally decided to remove the problem. A lot of effort here is spent keeping roads and side-roads passable.

Based on your rock descriptions, was curious whether you have a background in geology?

Tropical storm Nate caused a lot of problems around the San Vito area in Oct 2017. The Rio Terraba river to the north swelled from the heavy rain, and tore out a 40 to 50 foot section of bridge, which essentially isolated San Vito and southern Costa Rica from Buenos Aires, Perez Zeledon and points north. Buses from San Jose had to take the coastal highway to get to Neily, and then took a left up the mountain to get here. Took only 14 days to repair the bridge, was somewhat impressed by this as I thought it would take longer.

I majored in Geology at Auburn Univ.  :-) But as opposed to just teach or work for the gov or a petrol company I went back to school for holistic med. So glad I did. But my geo degree I find comes in handy now and then!

Is it true Buenos Aires is the last town in central valley for well- maintained roads and larger towns with infrastructure? I did not notice a big difference when driving down from PZ