Six months after Luke Shantz & Steph Sitt’s “Betting on Paradise” premiered on HGTV, which chronicled their family’s move from Canada to Costa Rica and their risky renovation of a rundown hotel, the couple and their two daughters have left that dream behind.
On June 2, 2025, the couple revealed on Instagram that they were leaving Jacó, Costa Rica with their young daughters, Mia and Luna, and Hotel Amavi, the boutique hotel they transformed in 2024 with an HGTV camera crew capturing the chaos for “Betting on Paradise,” which premiered on January 7.
“Leaving isn’t easy, but it’s time,” the captioned a video montage of their life and the friends they made in Costa Rica, where they’ve lived since 2021. “Time for change, reflection, and whatever’s next.”
HGTV’s Luke Shantz & Steph Sitt Say It Was Time to ‘Move in a New Direction’
In Shantz and Sitt’s heartfelt goodbye post, they wrote, “We came to Jaco with a dream and left with something even greater—community, connection, and a place that changed us forever.”
Sitt first announced their decision in a message posted to the couple’s Instagram Stories on May 22, writing that they’d “made the difficult decision to step away from Hotel Amavi,” adding that “there came a moment where we realized it was time to move in a new direction — one that more closely aligns with our next chapter, both personally and professionally.” They also offered good wishes to the team that remains at Hotel Amavi “as they carry the project forward.”
The couple has been together for nearly two decades, but didn’t marry until January 31, 2024, according to their wedding website on The Knot. They met while “teaching ESL in Taiwan in our adventurous 20s,” they wrote on the site, and returned to their native Canada after four years. They then spent over a decade working in Toronto, per HGTV, where Sitt worked in the hotel industry, including serving as the Centralized Operations Manager for the Four Seasons Toronto, per LinkedIn.
When the pandemic hit, the hospitality industry suffered. The couple decided to go out on a limb and move to Costa Rica, hoping to put Sitt’s expertise and Shantz’s background in construction and landscaping to good use, they told HGTV.
“Creating Hotel Amavi was a labor of heart and soul,” the couple wrote in their Instagram post on June 2. “We poured ourselves into every detail—from renovating a rundown hotel into something full of life, to bringing an HGTV show to this little surf town. Watching it all unfold with this community, not just in front of it, was something truly special.”
“To everyone who believed in the dream, who showed up, danced, laughed, built, and loved alongside us—thank you,” the post concluded.
HGTV’s ‘Betting on Paradise’ Family Has Moved Back to Canada
In subsequent posts, Shantz and Sitt revealed they have headed back to Canada to plot out their next steps.
On June 4, Sitt posted a video of them on another beach — this time much farther north, in which she noted they gone “from the jungle to June in Canada,” adding, “Jaco, we miss you—but there’s something kind of magical about wearing a hoodie to the beach.”
On June 10, Sitt wrote that they were settling in after a week back in Canada, but that she was still not used to the colder temps. Two days later, she shared a throwback photo of their girls in the backseat of her car several years prior, before they’d moved to Costa Rica.
“Now we’re back at the cottage after 4 wild, beautiful years abroad,” she wrote. “The kids are bigger, the memories are deeper, and somehow… it all feels so familiar and normal.”
“Betting on Paradise” is still available to stream on HBO Max.
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HGTV’s ‘Betting on Paradise’ Couple Leaves Costa Rica Hotel Behind: ‘Leaving Isn’t Easy’