We had some money, but by no means could we hang out in a foreign country with no income for any length of time. We knew the way they ran Palo Verde that we would never see any monthly income, and almost 3 years later we were right - haven't seen a dime. We could last awhile, but we had to find something we would both be passionate in doing and that would pay the bills. The positive is the bills are about 1/3 what we were paying in the states. Unless you own your own business in Costa Rica, you can't really work for someone else, well you can, but it's under the table and there's really no future in it. You need to come up with your own source. We were thinking the computer was the way to go so that's where we headed. But what to do? My computer skills were/are fairly lame, although D'Angelo more than makes up for my shortcomings. T-Shirts? So all you have to do is design and market your website and the company (Spreadshirt or CafePress does the printing, shipping etc.) We realized we wouldn't get rich off this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I still think it was. We have t-shirt website called: Gay Boy Tshirts. Boy was it hard, and what a learning curve. You need to learn new programs, how to market on the internet, site optimazation, linking and the list goes on. It didn't take long to realize you can have the sweetest website on the internet, but if no one knows about it, then well........We finished the t-shirt site and there it sits, hopefully working its way up in the search engines (we're on page 4 of google if you search gay t shirt...whoo hoo). Our neighbor and eventual partner told us about an idea he was kicking around- a website devoted to Costa Rica, but in a youtube type format- total video. He had a computer designer programmer/designer in San Jose already working on it. We thought it was a great idea (still do). We realized he was on to something, so we asked if he wanted our help. We knew he would say yes, cause he needed some capital. So, the CostaRicaTravelChannel.com was born. That was Sept. 2007. Now the website along with it's sister website TravelCostaRicaNow.com take up all our time. And is it ever fun. It is already, but will be an even bigger website- hundreds of videos about ANYTHING Costa Rica- vacation, travel, beaches, surfing, music, education, adventure, information, travel tips, you name, we have it. Then there's the other part of the site, which is total 'content,' written pages about the same things, pretty much like a lot of other Costa Rican websites, only ours is better..hehe. Eventually we will have a virtual store, forums, sell tour packages etc, the whole nine yards. Our attempt is to put Costa Rica all in one place. But what D'Angelo and I do is video tape travel tips, sort of a video Lonely Planet Tour book. We travel around the country and tape our views and opinions about Costa Rican destinations and anything we else that seems interesting.
WE HAVEN' T MADE A DIME YET! It's been over a year now. But we don't care. It will work out. It's a great idea and we'll just keep plugging away. We have good people working on this and it will be a success, we'll have it no other way. I think we found our passion!
If you need Costa Rica Travel Information then CHECK OUT our travel guide at: Travel Costa Rica NOW and see all our Costa Rica Travel Tip Videos on YouTube.
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