When Daja Hansel-Coates first moved to Costa Rica in 2017, she had never imagined herself living off-grid.
But after spending years exploring the country and discovering its lush landscapes, she began to yearn for a simpler life.
Daja had also found herself inspired after watching videos on Instagram about two Black women from the US who ran Costa Rican retreats, where the focus was tech-free, mindful living.
Seeing these wellbeing workshops struck a chord with Daja, who was tired of modern living and was desperate for a detox from the digital world.
‘I remember thinking “wow, they’re living in the middle of the jungle!” I didn’t even know that was an option,’ the 30-year-old remembers.
Travelling to the area where the women lived, just outside the Corcovado jungle in Costa Rica’s rural Osa Peninsula, Daja spent two weeks on one of theirHoli Haven retreats. By the end, she knew she wanted to ‘plant some roots there, have a property and a place to ground and connect.’
With the aim of putting aside $25,000 (£18,468), Daja began saving, working throughout college as a student rep. In 2020, she also began raising money online and put together an investment plan, so her family could help her make the dream financially possible.
‘My mom worried about me living in a rural area and in the tent, but she was also really supportive,’ Daja explains.
‘My online fundraiser brought in about $4,000, then I did a whole investment presentation for my family, talking about the importance of having land, especially as Black people owning property, and how that would be good for our families’ future generations.’
By 2021, Daja had enough money to start looking for land. She eventually found two acres in the Osa Peninsula, for sale for $16,500 (£12,219) – a price Daja considers a bargain.
‘It’s kind of unheard of now. The land next to me has just been sold for about $80,000 (£59,246.00).’
‘Because of COVID, land prices were super low as the locals didn’t have a lot of work, because the main work in Costa Rica is ecotourism.’
The Osa Peninsula offered exactly the kind of deep immersion Daja had been looking for: a rural landscape deep in the rainforest and close to Corcovado, one of the country’s most remote and biodiverse areas.
However, when she finally moved onto the property in 2022, she quickly discovered that creating her jungle home would be very different from imagining it.
‘I think it’s a lot more difficult than people realise to live off-grid,’ the 30-year-old admits with a smile.
Although her plan was to build a house from scratch, Daja’s first home on the property was a simple canvas tent, as much of the money she had raised had gone towards buying the land.
She knew she would have to build her life there gradually, using whatever materials she could afford or find.
‘I went to my land, got out my tent and just started sleeping there,’ Daja remembers.
Her initial set-up was remarkably basic. She used fallen trees from the land to create a frame, covered it with a large piece of plastic to make a roof and placed the tent underneath.
‘There were so many sounds that first night. It was a little scary, but I had a deep sense of faith that I would be okay. I prayed a lot and made promises to the land to be kind,’ she recalls.
‘When I woke up to the sunrise, the morning sounds were so beautiful, and then I saw a monkey pass by and then another. About 100 monkeys were passing by, and I watched from my tent.
‘I had never seen so many before in my life, and I thought it was a one-time experience, but it turned out that they cross every morning and evening. It felt like a blessing.’
Daja had no electricity, no traditional bathroom and no easy access to everyday comforts.
‘Everything I had broke. I was constantly having these challenges and ups and downs,’ she remembers. ‘I pretty much had to strip down to nothing. At first, I had to go to the bathroom in the woods.’
Gradually, she turned that temporary set-up into a rudimentary cabin, using recycled and basic materials and doing much of the construction herself.
She added a roof and bathroom and eventually poured a concrete floor, saving money by doing the labour herself.
‘As much as the goal was not to pay rent, you still have to pay for a lot of things to live off-grid successfully,’ Daja explains.
Daja grew food on the property and supported herself partly by teaching English to local people. She also volunteered in community centres and on farms, and offered virtual healing sessions when she had access to the internet, which only happened a few times a month, as it was almost an hour away by hiking and bus, using a library or a friend’s house, or when she travelled back to the States.
Collecting water, gathering firewood and cooking over a fire became part of Daja’s daily routine, but the realities of jungle living were often much harder than the beautiful images she saw online, admits Daja.
‘I lived kind of in a cabin, and it was open, so I didn’t have a door or windows. It was just open, just looking out at nature, so anybody could walk in at any time, including the bugs.
‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was very challenged. There were days when I was kind of like, “Why am I doing this?”‘
Meanwhile, the tropical climate was a constant test. Heavy rain and storms repeatedly damaged the property, while humidity and wet conditions contributed to the deterioration of the wooden structures.
A one-panel solar system that had been donated to her ended up being destroyed by tropical weather twice, often leaving her living without electricity.
One of her hardest experiences came when she installed a water system, only for it to come crashing down after the wooden tower supporting the water tank deteriorated from heavy rain.
The tank broke, water went everywhere, and Daja faced the reality of having to start again.
‘It was heartbreaking, and just exhausting. It cost over $200 (£148) to buy a new one, plus I had to build a new tower.’
Despite the difficulties, Daja found a slower pace of living and distance from the demands of everyday digital life gave her clearer thoughts and better sleep.
‘When you have an experience that’s so different from how you grew up, it expands your perspective in a way that’s almost like every day is kind of like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m here.”‘
‘I saw how much that was really good for my mental health and my nervous system.’
In 2022, Daja began hosting retreats for other women, helping them reconnect with themselves through nature. Over the years, she has hosted more than 50 retreats called I Hope You Find Serenity, including private one-on-one experiences and small groups. Guests have stayed on her land and camped in nature.
Even so, Daja is keen to challenge the idea that off-grid living is simply a peaceful escape.
‘It can be very aesthetically beautiful because nature is beautiful,’ she says, but adds that ‘there were hard days when I ended up in tears.
‘I think the most surprising thing was that it’s easy to live without electricity, but it’s not easy to live without water.’
However, Daja loved the lifestyle.
‘I would immediately wake up seeing the forest,’ she describes. ‘I would see monkeys passing by, and the sounds of the rainforest were healing.’
It was only when she became pregnant last year that Daja decided she needed more comfort and moved into a one-bedroom apartment, four months along at this point, in the local town before later setting up running water, electricity and Wi-Fi.
‘At the time my water pump was broken, so I was collecting water by the river or rainwater for everything. It was too much on me, so I moved off of the farm, but I still came back frequently to oversee the house build.’
Leaving her original off-grid set-up was the right decision for Daja, but she would miss the simplicity and slower-paced life she had built.
Fortunately, she could still live remotely and bring her daughter into a home surrounded by nature, while also having more comforts.
When she was eight months pregnant, she returned to her family in Atlanta to give birth at home.
Daja insists that the decision to stop her off-grid living was not a failure or rejection of the lifestyle she had built. Instead, it represented a new chapter.
‘I learned a lot from it, but it was time for me to go on the grid,’ she explains, from her family home, which is now in California.
Today, Daja has built a proper house on the same land in Costa Rica, where she lives with her daughter, with the comforts she once lived without. But the property itself still needs work.
After three years of exposure to the tropical climate, she says the cabin is falling apart. The roof is caving in and full of holes, the front gate has rotted from the intense sun and humidity, and the walls and structure are weakening.
Her longer-term vision remains the same one that first brought her to the Osa Peninsula: to grow food, raise her family on the land and eventually create a healing retreat centre where other people can experience the sense of peace and reconnection she found there.
Although Daja enjoys having more modern comforts now, there are still parts of the old lifestyle she misses — especially the quiet and the lack of constant online distractions.
‘It’s a much slower lifestyle. Passing the trees, seeing the parrots fly overhead, enjoying nature… I miss all that.
‘My favourite thing about off-grid living was the views and the sounds.’
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