Where would you semi-retire? (slightly OT)

[Cubswin]

I was doing a bit of day dreaming today and thinking about where id like to live if (when) i ever semi-retire... by semi retire i mean play online poker on a PT time basis. This will be sometime down the road for me but I was just trying to set some goals and plan for the future. Id love to eventually buy a fishing resort or some property up north (maybe NW ontario) and then spend winters in vegas or some other warm climate. I guess im just wondering if anyone else has any dreams of semi-retirement and what they might be? Is anyone living this semi-retirement dream already? Lets here about it.

regards
cubswin

[PapaSan]

costa rica baby...only bad thing here is that the only place with high speed internet is 2 hours from the beaches /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[ewile]

I think about retirement all the time...alas...I am only 37 with 2 very young kids so this ain't ever gonna happen. BUT
I often think about driving the country in a moble home playing poker all over and spending lots of time in Vegas.

Sounds beautiful. Gotta go to bed now. Work in the AM /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Cubswin]

Costa Rica has crossed my mind as a possible winter home in the future. By the time i 'retire' though, i bet there will be cable internet at the beaches down there. I know that NW ontario has the same shortcoming but satellite internet is available up there... albeit at a hefty $100 a month. Im guessing they dont offer satellite internet down there?

cubs

[Rob Blackburn]

This is mine.

http://www.hatterasyachts.com/82about.cfm

Take time between the Keys and Bahamas, hit South America maybe once a year. Fish all day play poker at night.

[Cubswin]

How close are you to that dream? Im I invited to come fishing? Ill let you stay at my resort /images/graemlins/grin.gif

cubs

[David]

Hopefully in very few years my sons will come to work for me and eventually take over the day to day operation of my business and I can spend over half my days doing whatever I want. If they don't? I'll sell the business and do what I want EVERY day!

[TTMAN]

Is it all of Costa Rica that's like that?

[Rob Blackburn]

I'm hoping to pull it off by 32 w/o changing my current lifestyle, I'm 27 now, as long as I can dodge wife, kids and the state of Florida changing the laws on PI/Workers Comp. its very attainable.

Once I make it you can come fishing any time you want.

[PapaSan]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it all of Costa Rica that's like that?

[/ QUOTE ]

I came down here and wanted to live by the ocean and fish all day and play poker at night. Traveled the whole pacific coast looking for a good spot to live, most places u can get dial up but its not like the dial up youre used to in the us or canada.It's really slow like 2kbs ,i tried to play poker and it was horrible and very inconsistent, i was always getting disconnected.
I was told they are getting adsl in some spots around september but i wouldnt count on it, only in san jose (capital city) can you get cable internet. Satellite is expensive , i know one guy that has it that lives on the carribean side paid 1500 for installation+dish and pays 50-150 a month really cant rememeber the price he told me.

Once i get a house here cubswin i'll trade u a week here catching snapper and sailfish for a week catching pike and bass.

[TTMAN]

How much is cable?

What's Costa Rica like?

[MicroBob]

i'm off to europe.
perhaps italy or france....but i won't rule out any other possibilities.

may be reality in 2 or 3 years if somehow this whole poker-boom can continue (a very big IF). if not, then i'll have to come up with a different plan.


hey cubs....what about austria?? not your cup of retirement-tea??

[Cubswin]

I have never fished on the ocean but would jump at the chance. Im in the process of planning a trip to Smith Mountain lake here in the virgina... ive never been striper fishing and the prices look fairly decent so when i get the time im heading out there. If i ever do get a place up north i think it would be a blast to have a 2+2 fishing outing... i would of course have some sort of deal for you guys /images/graemlins/wink.gif I have recently been surfing the web and the resorts up there are priced pretty resonabily (about the price of a upper middle class home in the states). I think this a realistic goal...maybe 10 years down the road if i plan right and play lots of poker. AHHHH...i cant wait.

cubs

[PapaSan]

[ QUOTE ]
How much is cable?

What's Costa Rica like?

[/ QUOTE ]

Cable was 221$ us for 3 months of internet and tv about 100 channels inc playboy /images/graemlins/smile.gif , i prepaid one lump sum i dont know how much it is per month just for internet. The installaion fee is included in that also.

Whats costa rica like? I dont know where to start...It's the richest of the central american countries but it's still very poor,the average wage is 2$ an hour.A fellow 2+2er i met down here teaches english for ...2.85$ an hour lol. Just to give u an idea a pack of cigarettes is 1.25$ and u can eat a good meal for less than 5$ in a restaurant. Right now is the rainy season so we get about an hour of heavy rain everyday around 4pm.Temperature is about 28c on avg in san jose, on the coast its very humid and a little hotter. What else u want to know?

[Cubswin]

I have a ways to go before retirement (im only 26) but europe is not out of the question. I love europe... I went to grad school in london and did a degree in european politics and have been dating a parisian gal for 2 years now so I may eventually end up there at some point in my life. I would love to be there now but it is so hard to get a work permit.

Vienna is a great city but the western part of austria in the mountains is more my thing.... at least far as semi-retirement would be concerned. I think something more rural would be my thing... atleast for a good chunk of the year... plus rural living is so much cheaper so the buck would go further.

cubs

[Ponks]

Goodluck man, sounds like lots of fun.

Ponks

[Spartacus]

I was thinking the same thing! I have a 7 month old daughter and would love to show her the country from a mobile home before she starts school. What better way to finance the trip than to play poker all over the country.

[Spartacus]

Nomar gonna bring you a World Series before you retire? As long as we are fantasizing here, how about watching Nomar play all seven World Series games between Fenway and Wrigley? Oh to dream......

[TTMAN]

How much is rent for a nice 7 room appartment? Are the people nice? How are the women?

[PapaSan]

[ QUOTE ]
How much is rent for a nice 7 room appartment? Are the people nice? How are the women?

[/ QUOTE ]

Renting a 3 bedroom house in a rich area for 600us$ a month, i think you would have a hard time finding a 7 bedroom house most are pretty small.

The people are very friendly, when we were looking to rent a house we met a woman posting ads for her rental place and she came with us in our car and showed us about 4 places to rent, she wasn't a realtor or anything she was just being nice. However many costa ricans try to rip you off if you try to buy things theres a local price and a gringo price. If u don't act like a tourist you will be fine.

The women....no fatties, they all wear tight clothes and love to show off their bodies. Lots of them want a foreign man to marry , i have never seen so many beautiful women in my life. Just walking down the street you will see so many hotties. Prostitution is legal here so you gotta be careful of the girls u pick up in bars u might end up having to pay!

[CostaRicaBill]

Costa Rican's are some of the friendliest people that I've ever met. The women are beautiful and the men are not known to be the most attractive, which is a great combination for me and PapaSan /images/graemlins/cool.gif. The temperature is great all year round but during the rainy season it will rain hard for a couple of hours in the afternoon, but never in the morning or at night.

Right now I'm working at a Spanish language immersion school, and yes, make like $4 an hour which is actually not horrible here. A lot of the online sportsbooks are located here and pay around $5 an hour which is considered a really good wage. Construction workers can make as little as $1 an hour. I took the job to learn Spanish, but now I'm pretty fluent and am making more in reload bonuses alone every month than my real "salary." But that's another story.

There is only one cardroom here which usually spreads 2/4 holdem and omaha, 5-10-15 holdem, no limit, and has lots of tournies.

[TTMAN]

Is it easy to live there? Do you need a Visa or do you have to become a citizen? Or can you just go and rent a home and no one cares?

[playerfl]

broadband cellular is starting to hit the market and in 10 yrs thats all you will need. Cable modem or higher speed wherever your cell phone works. Plug the cell into the laptop and you are set.

[highlife]

[ QUOTE ]
Nomar gonna bring you a World Series before you retire? As long as we are fantasizing here, how about watching Nomar play all seven World Series games between Fenway and Wrigley? Oh to dream......

[/ QUOTE ]

since when is nomar capable of bringing any team a world series? and no i'm not a yankee fan, i hate them. i'm just being realistic here. if anyone is going to bring the cubs a WS it will be that incredible starting pitching corps (when healthy)

[Adde]

Hey cubs!

In january this year I was thinking about something similar, going away for some month/s, heading for warmer climate, reasonably cheap living and better time zone (online poker prime time is in the middle of the night here in Sweden).

I was looking for an internet connected apartment that like 3-4 people could share for some time. Carebban, Costa Rica, Buenos Aires, Spain, Thailand. Found some interesting objects, but other things came in between and nothing happened.

I'm an old man, muuuuch older than you (33), so maybe I should skip the "semi" in "semi-retire". /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Cheers,

Adde

[tripdad]

[ QUOTE ]
I was thinking the same thing! I have a 7 month old daughter and would love to show her the country from a mobile home before she starts school. What better way to finance the trip than to play poker all over the country.

[/ QUOTE ]

i barely remember anything before Kindergarten. you may just be wasting fuel here. you may want to consider a long summer vacation when she's 7 or 8. also, a motorhome will work much better than a mobile home /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

cheers!

[Cubswin]

Adde

I remember your post about this subject. I am still entertaining the idea of doing a pre-retirement living abroad trip before the semi-retirement but i think for the time being i need to settle down and start plunking some money into some property rather then keep paying rent. Rent is defintely an -EV play.

I think Buenos Aires is defintely the best of those options because their economy is in a pinch at the moment so things are much cheaper there now then the have been in the past 20 or so years. Nice two bedroom apartments with weekly maid service and high speed internet included can be found for less then $600 and the women... well you can imagine. Another place i have considered is the philippines. I have a friend who lives in Angeles City there and it sounds like a load of fun with all the go-go bars and expat community. A 3 bedroom house in a gated community there costs less then $300 and beers are 50 cents. High-speed is also available there at a reasonable cost. Oh....and if its your sort of thing the gals cost $20 for the whole night.

If you ever get the urge to live abroad again be sure to look me up because i might be up for it....assuming im not wrapped up in something else at the moment. It would be hard to coordinate but definitely worth it if it ever did happen. Glad to see you poke your head in here again /images/graemlins/smile.gif

regards
cubs

[Cubswin]

As you can imagine I am quite excited about Nomar. Never in my lifetime have the cubs had a good shortstop so this is a first. On paper this team is the best the cubs have had since 1984....and i think that they are even better then the 84 team. The injuries have been a real bugger but if they can manage to stay healthy and win the wild card i really like their chances. Pitching is the key to the playoffs and the cubs have plenty of it. Come playoff time they will likely go to a 4 man rotation so they will have one of their ace staters on call in the bull pen. I really like the chances of this team IF they can manage to stay healthy from here on out.

cubs

[flophitter]

I find I get itchy feet after a year in any one place. Now that my salaried job is all net-based I have a fantasy to travel around in a mobile home or car with caravan (trailer), doing my ebay and online poker, too. Is it feasible to use satellite internet successfully from a vehicle? - stationary obviously /images/graemlins/blush.gif) Is there a provider which covers big chunks of the world so I wouldn´t need to keep changing? Like this thread btw /images/graemlins/blush.gif)

[Baulucky]

My plan is to buy a small house in Bonaire (one of the smallest of the Dutch Antilles). Top snokelling, windsurfing spot. Off the beaten path. Extremely good communications/internet, etc.

4-6 months in Italy and a few weeks in the US round off the balance not to get "Island-Sickness".

Oh, did I mention pay tax nowhere?.

[TommyTutone]

I work with a lot of Brasilians, and would not say no to Rio. $1US=$3.2R which works about to be $16-$32$R/hour if you can play winning poker at small stakes which is a very respectable living as I understand it.

[judgesmails]

You can't beat a good tico breakfast and Cost Rican coffee in the morning!