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From Burnout to Bliss: How an American Woman Found Freedom in Costa Rica

After years of burnout in corporate America, Kendell Renee Kelly found freedom, safety, and a fresh start in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Now, she’s building a retreat to help other Black women find their peace.

“My friends see me now,” lawyer, business strategist and entrepreneur

Kendell Renee Kelly says when people comment on how she looks since her move to Costa Rica, “and they're like, ‘Oh, your skin looks so nice!’ Well, there is 80 percent humidity where I live, so of course it does. But at the same time, there is a lack of stress. There is a lack of pressure. There is newness, freeness, and, you know, just living. That's the easiest way to put it.” 

Kelly, a self-described “weirdo” who grew up in the DMV area, says she knew since she was a kid she wanted to own property outside the U.S., but it wasn’t until around 2022 that the specifics of her childhood dream started to take shape. One of her friends from law school had just bought a place in Costa Rica, so Kelly came along to help her friend settle. What she thought would be a short visit was the beginning of a whole new life. Like so many Black professionals who’d busted their asses to make it in corporate America, women especially, Kelly was burnt out and exhausted; as she began to slow down a bit on this would-be short trip, she had a revelation. 

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“It was just like, Jesus––I would like this cape off. I just wanted a break,” she says. She had already been looking at places in Jamaica before the pandemic where she could create a retreat for other Black women like herself, the “tired asses,” as she puts it, who needed to heal from carrying the world on their shoulders. “I started to look around for some land while here, and the pieces started to fall together.” 

She’s part of a growing number of Black Americans who’ve either left the U.S. or, since the 2024 election, are seriously considering giving America the deuces. Puerto Viejo, where Kelly lives now and is creating a retreat/wellness space, is particularly a spot where Black Americans find refuge; the beach town is fast gaining a reputation for being a welcoming enclave for us, Black women in particular. “The first part is my safety, but also the kids' safety,” says Kelly, mother of 14-year-old adopted daughters. “I can tell her, ‘Leave [the house]. Go find something to do, go find some friends.’ Because I can bse sure that as she’s out in her skin, and with a vagina, she will be fine, because nobody is going to touch her. I could not let her do that in the United States.” 

Overall, she says, Puerto Viejo––an Afro-Caribbean enclave with a rich history of African, Indigenous, and Spanish influences shaped into a melting pot––has provided a near idyllic experience. Still, it, like anywhere, isn’t without issues. Her Spanish is shaky at best, and relocation and starting a business requires endless amounts of paperwork (to say nothing of financial resources). There’s also the adjusting; as many Black Americans who’ve moved abroad have said, it takes some flexibility to settle in a new environment where your preferences and everyday conveniences are no longer the norm.

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“If you're going to be online, if you plan to keep your TV, if you plan to keep your computer, you need battery sources. The power is going to roll.  You're in a country that is still developing some of the roads, so it's gonna take time to get to my doctor. If you have hair that you want to use the same products [you use at home] for, you better bring those products, because you're not going to get those here. But I know that I moved to another country, right? I understand I am an immigrant; I moved to another country.” 

Still, she says the sense of freedom, liberation, and ease of living she’s experienced in Puerto Viejo has been well worth it, and she’s joyfully building out her retreat business so other Black women can experience what she’s experienced, too. “I get to go and learn new stuff, see fruit I have never seen. I play in the dirt in my garden. I feel like a kid!”

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