Costa Rica is a top location in Latin America for English teachers. Each year hundreds of teachers all over Costa Rica live the "Pura Vida" life and have a tropical adventure. International TEFL Academy Costa Rica has had over 800 grads, and even more have taken the course online and found jobs here. There are basically three zones that teachers find work, however, there are exceptions and some teach outside of the ones mentioned here of course.
Heredia Area
This is by far the most popular area for people that take our course here in Costa Rica, which is located in Barva, Heredia. Around 70% of our graduates choose to live and teach around Heredia. Why?
Heredia is a university town with seven or eight universities, so there are lots of great restaurants, pubs, young locals to meet, and most importantly LOADS OF JOBS. Intercultura and Wizard are just two of the schools that hire our grads in large numbers, each school having well over twenty teachers on staff.
Heredia is also a small city and very easy to get around without a car. The vast majority of teachers walk to work, bike, or take a quick bus, so they don't have to worry about traffic or some of the other issues found in larger urban areas. The mountains and rainforests are also right there if teachers prefer to live in nature and commute thirty minutes to work as I do.
Also, our ITA school in Barva is located there as previously mentioned, so TEFL grads get comfortable in Heredia. They meet and become friends with other teachers and locals in the area. They walk out of the course with a huge social circle that can build throughout their teaching months. ITA alumni events allow grads to meet past and future TEFL grads and share adventures and meet new like-minded friends.
San Jose Area
San Jose is the capital city, and is, therefore, a great source of jobs. Even though it's not everyone's cup of tea and has loads of traffic issues, San Jose also has many areas that ARE nice places to live and work in. Politecnico and Wizard, two language institutes in Costa Rica, have campuses in San Jose. Academia Europea, a new and quickly growing institute, is also located downtown San Jose. San Pedro, another university area, is one of the nice areas of San Jose and is where the majority of our grads who work in San Jose choose to live.
Beach Areas When people think of Costa Rica, they often imagine living and teaching on the beach. With the explosion of online teaching and growth of English in Costa Rica, this is more plausible than ever, and many of our grads have found work at the beach. However, it must be noted by potential teachers to Costa Rica that because the vast majority of people and industries can be found in the Central Valley (Heredia and San Jose), that is where the majority of the jobs are. Although plenty of ITA grads find work at the beach, I advise to not become tunnel-visioned, thinking only of teaching at the beach. Many of our grads come to the course focused on the beach and three weeks into the course they realize that they love the mountains of Heredia and the advantages of living in that area. That being sai, if the beach is your calling, some extra savings and smart budgeting will make your stay in Costa Rica more enjoyable.