Hello there,
Helpful advice required. I may well be offered teaching work in Chile and Costa Rica. I would have to choose between the two locations: San Jose or Santiago. Both countries seem to offer so much. Any advice as to which potential country to go for?
cheers
This is only my opinion, but if I had the choice, I would choose Chile. Chile has a better feel to me. It is South American. I prefer the options to go to Ski, Hike, and Tour the Andes in Chile. Even if you are stuck in the city, I do not like being in the city anywhere, there are good options to get to the mountains and other places around Santiago. The weather in Santiago is hot and dry in the summer and cold in the winter with a nice difference in the seasons. Costa Rica has a lot of North Americans (Too many English speakers) and is more temperate climate with even temperatures year round. If you can tolerate the humidity and like the constant While it is a great country in its own right and has a lot to offer, if I had the choice, it would be Chile. I like the colder weather as I am Canadian. What are the things you are looking for in the trip? What else can we offer? It sounds like a great experience.
@thoughtcontrol001, calumcito asked about Chile or Costa Rica. How does a one sentence, off topic post help one in a decision?
Chile may be better paid, but winter in Santiago is very polluted, though the ski areas and coast are very near and the wine is great. I lived in Chile (based in Santiago) for many years and like it in the 8-9 months of non winter, I like the Pacific coast of Costa Rica over San Jose.
There are many beautiful places in Chile but I'd steer clear of Santiago, it's a busy and polluted city overrun with stray dogs. Valparaiso is lovely, perhaps check out options there instead.
Having been to both countries, I would prefer Chile over Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is fast becoming an American tourist trap with most of the worthwhile sights set up to extract as many dollars as possible. When we traveled in Costa Rica, we could not even opt for public transportation between cities because it would have taken three times the hours as the pre-arranged "tourist mobile". I am not sure how far out of San Jose you would get, but the places we went I would have little desire to return to.
While visitors to Chile are on the rise, it certainly does not feel overrun with tourists. The food is good and Santiago has a lot to do, a nice subway, and is relatively safe by South American capital standards. You can also easily get buses from there to other nearby places like Vina del Mar and Valparaiso on your days off to get to know them as well. While it does suffer from smog, I have to say that it has improved dramatically from the first time I went in 1999 to the last time in 2009. I was also there in June, the coldest and smoggiest time of the year and I did not find it unbearable.
What may help you is to indicate what you are looking for in particular in the given country. Certainly we can find several people recommending one country or the other since 75% of travel advice has to do with personal preference.
As to Amelia's comment above, it seems as if the OP has to choose between the two capital cities. As for stray dogs, I was in Valparaiso as well as Santiago and saw many more stray dogs in Valparaiso. :-).
Edited by: quinella66
If you are going to teach English I can recommend Chile. There is a great need for native English teachers here and the salaries are acceptable. I am currently living in Santiago and think it is a pretty good place to live as it offers many options for your free time. The downsides, of course, are pollution, traffic and high prices.
