François Sylvain is an entrepreneur, author, coach and investor raised in Montreal. After traveling across the United States and Europe, François went to Costa Rica to live his dream of living in a tropical climate.

The father of four and grandfather of six has written a unique book about his experiences in Costa Rica. This is how he describes his memoir:

The Costa Rica No One Talks About is NOT about trying to sell you Costa Rica or depicting Costa Rica as an idyllic place. It is NOT about persuading you not to visit or live in Costa Rica. It is NOT about advising you not to invest in Costa Rica. It is NOT about convincing our Western governments and organizations to stop giving foreign aid to Costa Rica.

The Costa Rica No One Talks About will give you factual and useful information to help you prepare better if you are considering visiting, living in or investing in Costa Rica. If you are in Costa Rica as a tourist, this book will tell you the areas and behaviours to avoid for your safety. You will also learn a few tricks to reduce the instances where tourists are overcharged in hotels, restaurants or bars.

Here is an excerpt from The Costa Rica No One Talks About:

Costa Rica is a popular tourist destination these days; its volcanoes, beaches and abundant wildlife are big attractions. The country’s climate and stunning countryside make it a very popular choice for adventure or sporting holidays. The beautiful white and black sandy beaches offer a wide range of water sports opportunities, while hiking is very popular in the rainforests and mountains.

Costa Rica has also become a Mecca for ecotourism. Almost five percent of all known species on earth can be found here. Costa Rica is home to hundreds of species of mammals, including the jaguar, as well as reptiles and amphibians.

More species of butterflies can be found in Costa Rica than on the entire continent of Africa and, if you are a bird watcher, there are over 850 species, more than in ALL of North America!

It is also well documented that Costa Rica has an astonishing number of plants and beautiful flowers and an abundance of fresh tropical fruits. And if you love beef, they have some of the best I have ever tasted.

And if this is not enough to convince you to visit, Costa Ricans (Ticos) are generally gentle, friendly, educated and polite and most seem to like and welcome visitors from other countries. In addition to that, Costa Rica is a democratic republic that abolished its army back in 1949.

No wonder foreigners are easily seduced by the country and led to believe that THIS IS TRULY PURA VIDA (translated PURE LIFE). What more can you ask for? Here you have a democratic country of natural and astonishing beauty, with a great climate and an amazing biodiversity, a lower cost of living than in many developed countries, a laid back lifestyle and a welcoming, friendly and peaceful people.

Would you not fall in love with Pura Vida, as many do? I certainly did when I visited in 1992. Maybe you have by now and you are ready to invest in the country or live there. After all, Costa Rica must truly be paradise, right?

If that’s the case, this book was written for you. It is also for anyone who wants to visit, live or invest in Costa Rica or anyone who just wants to learn about the authentic Costa Rica. If you picked up my book because you wanted to hear about Costa Rica from someone who has lived there for several years and is not trying to sell you the country, you are in the right place.

I also wrote it so that our Western governments and organizations could see and understand how a lot of the foreign aid they give to Costa Rica only serves to enrich corrupt officials, promotes the spread of corruption and actually hurts the healthy development of the country.

I love Costa Rica and its people. Costa Rica has great beauty and Costa Ricans have great qualities. But they are not perfect. No country is perfect and no one is perfect. However, that is not an excuse for not learning to become better. After all, this is the purpose of life and it is why we are here. Life is just a big school and we are here to learn and grow.

So I asked myself: How can I help Ticos grow and in the process help create a better Costa Rica? The answer was to write about the things that I didn’t like about Costa Rica and that no one talks about. It’s not that I am a negative person by nature and I focus on the negative. On the contrary. I have witnessed good and bad everywhere I have been and I tend to focus on and appreciate the good.

However, writing only about the positive aspects of Costa Rica will not eliminate the negative aspects. If so, they would have been eliminated or corrected by now because there are plenty of sources that only talk about the positive side of Costa Rica with hardly any mention of the negative side. It is only by shining a light on the negative that progress can be made.

In my book, I am purposely shining a light on the negative side of Costa Rica as a country and society in order to help Ticos learn those behaviours and attitudes that are counterproductive or destructive. I really desire that the information that I am sharing will initiate changes for the better.

Indeed, in order to change anything, one must first learn what needs to be changed. Then, there must be a genuine desire for change. Without this desire, nothing will truly change. Things will always remain the same when growth has stopped. Nothing stands still. Life either expands or contracts. Nature is our teacher. A specie increases in number or decreases in number.

That being said, Ticos, are you ready to have an honest look at your behaviour and attitude in order to improve not only the well-being of those foreigners who visit you or elect to live in your country but also your own well-being and create a better Costa Rica, one that will attract more visitors and investors? If you are, then please keep reading.

As you read, ask yourself: What can I do personally to be more welcoming of foreigners? How can I make their stay in my country more pleasant? Would I like this to be done to me if I visited their country? How can I make them feel good about investing in my country so that we may all benefit from their investment of time, money and expertise? How can I show my gratitude to foreigners for spending their vacation or retirement money in my country or for investing here and creating jobs?

You, Ticos, constantly use the expression ¡gracias a Dios! (Thank God) in your conversations. Is it just an expression devoid of any meaning or are you truly grateful?

Real gratitude must be felt. It is expressed not only in words or an expression like ¡gracias a Dios! but also in our behaviour and actions. Also, this is a law of the Universe. The more you are truly grateful, the more you will be given reasons to be grateful for.

You can read more by purchasing the book at the author’s online store.