Granada has amazing restaurants serving any cuisine imaginable, some are cheap, few are extremely pricey. My favorite “restaurant” is a woman with a small space in the Central Park of Granada that serves the most delicious Chancho con Yucca I’ve ever had in my life. El Tercer Ojo is my second favorite restaurant. They serve all kinds of dishes, my favorites are the Thai and French dishes.

There are many blogs online about expats living in Granada, Nicaragua, and also many news articles about the city. Its very cheap to rent a place (and even entire house) there, the cost of living is not expensive whatsoever. The city does not have over 1 million people so its quite calm, you get to know your neighbors and all. There are no type of skyscrapers anywhere in the city (or entire country for that fact) so you don’t feel like you’re in a hectic place. I find many expats telling me thats what made them fall in love with the city.

The greatest thing about learning Spanish in Granada is that there are so many things to do nearby. The Islets of Granada (just 20min from Granada), Managua (the capital city), Leon (second oldest city), San Juan del Sur (amazing beach town, large ex-pat community like Granada), Masaya (beautiful handicrafts for cheap) and attractions like the Cerro N. volcano (among others), Ometepe island, Zapatera Island, Corn Islands, Juan Venado Island, Somoto Canyon, Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America), all the great beaches, ect. ect.

Guatemala is usually the least expensive country for 1on 1 lessons.Personally I would avoid any school that taught groups,even small groups, of students.Guatemala is also among the least expensive to live in.Colombian Spanish is the most accent free, but Colombia is not in Central America.
Guatemala,Honduras and Nicaragua are also the least expensive to live in. Guatemala has been teaching foreigners to speak Spanish longer than the others and I think they are better at it.Panama,Belize and Costa Rica have a higher cost of living and the schools seldom employ University graduates.In Guatemala there is a high percentage of teacher that are University graduates.I think the enviroment for learning is a little better in Quetzaltenango than some of the other Guatemalan cities….Just my opinion. (See link)
If you are going to spend a year and have to leave the country every couple of months anyway why not try a different school in a different country every couple of months.If you have any other questions or concerns feel free to email me.I have lived worked and studied Spanish in Mexico,Central and South America. Buena Suerte!

For central America, I would pick Costa Rica mostly because the other countries are in rougher shape. Belize is nice, but they technically speak English there.

Columbia is still considered to be a bit dangerous for Americans, but the Spanish there is the most standardized of the area. Many soap operas are filmed there because the accents are less dialectic.

Whatever country you look at, you may want to check out the CIA factbook to get the basic statistics about GDP, age distribution and political status.

I just spent about a year in the Dominican Republic and it has it’s points. There are a lot of English speaking foreigners and it’s also very close to the US. It’s only a five hour flight to Newark from there. The main downside is the Spanish is very slangy and they speak it very fast.

I lived in Miami so there were a lot of Spanish speaking people!