Internet-poker-playing world traveller

[ddubois]

Is anyone doing this? I mean taking a laptop and going from place to place, making a living playing poker on a beach in Peru one month, Guam the next, Singapore the next, etc? I'm curious about the logistics of it. How do you connect to the internet? Are there nearly world-wide cellphone modems? Or satellite internet? Do you have to change your access strategy from location to location? How do you do your banking? Protect yourself and your belongings from theives? Asses the logistics of, and decide upon, your next destination? figure out where to sleep, what to eat, when no one speaks English? Or do you stick to 'touristy' destinations to abate these issues?

With a a year's salary in the bank, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm thinking of taking a sabatical at some point and doing some real travelling, and taking advantage of the fact that poker can be played from places with a vastly lower cost of living than Hawaii. I don't need to stay at 5-star hotels and I'm fine eating rice and fish soup for a $1 a day in Laos.

This is probably a pipe dream given that I have a wife and two young children, but I'd still like to know more. And besides, we're living with the in-laws, she's unemployed, and the kids aren't old enough for school yet, so we're less tied down than most; it might not be that unfeasible.

[Erdnase]

hi,

was thinking about doing that myself. No idea about the special logistics.

A friend of mine just came back from 6 month through South America. He spent a grand total of 4000 bucks on the whole trip, including EVERYTHING (airfare, lodging, food, party, etc).
His secret: hospitalityclub.com and couchsurfing.com

Bonus for Internet Poker Players: all these people have internet access!

Just some random thoughts,

Regards, Erd.

[Hosh]

As you know it is easy to travel the world playing. I play all the time and travel. Deposits go from my account to the banks and taken out via bank cards. Most contries now have some type of high speed internet access. You have to make sure the site has not blocked where you are going due to bad credit cards from that country. In my travels I have personally met 5 players doing as I am. Now the you have a wife and kids. I must ask if you are crazy for having this dream. My dream is always to have wife and kids. I think it is one of the lifes pleasures and each of you that have children are considered lucky. Take care of them and enjoy life. Travel with them when you can and enjoy. All the best.

[toby]

This is a very fantastic idea. Sounds like something I'd want to do after graduating college and before grad school.

About internet access, how about this:
portable wifi hotspot with ev-do
ev-do world coverage

If you end up doing this, I hope you keep a blog or post regularly to 2+2. I'd love to hear about it.

EDIT: free hotspots in europe

[pokerjoker]

I am spending the summer in japan and have been playing fine. The only problem Ive had is setting up a netteller account since they have to call your house.

the added bonus is you get to play against the fri/sat night drunks in the middle of the day on sunday.

for airfare I suggest looking into an STA travel around the world trip ticket. Basicaly fly wherever you want for 2000 a year as long as you do not come home.

hope that helps...a bit?

[Fuchida]

I have a wife and 2 kids. My wife is leaving work next month to assist me in playing poker and the house is on the market. We will be moving somewhere sunny and cheap in the near future [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ddubois]

To broaden my "target market" I would be interested in hearing from any people who moved from the US to someplace not-in-the-US, just to exploit the cost-of-living differential, and their results.

[MicroBob]

there are a couple of posters who have reported that they are in Hong Kong and Japan and Thailand doing something like this.

There were a couple others who were looking into moving to Argentina or some other nifty location.

The threads are probably 2-3 months old by now.

this is a topic that interests me as well.

[Femto]

I kept telling my friends that we needed to do this... Glad to see others agree it's a fantastic idea.

I'd like to go to some obscure town in Italy and just chill there for awhile, play poker somewhere with obscene views and a nice beverage at my side. I know most places have internet access, but the places I'd most like to play in surely wouldn't.

So, does anybody know about satellite/cellphone internet?

edit: this is my favorite place in italy...

[MicroBob]

my GF and I will possibly be doing an American version of this at some point.
She can get a gig as a 'travelling nurse'. She would go to wherever they have a nursing shortage via some agency which means just about ANYWHERE.

Our current plan is to move to New Orleans next year and stay there for a year or two perhaps.
Then off to wherever in the U.S. we want to go for 3-6 months at a pop. Hawaii, San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, Colorado, Destin FL (my parents and sister live there and my GF loves the beaches) and perhaps even Vegas (during WSOP time when I would be likely to be there anyway) are some of our ideas.

The travelling-nurse agency covers the cost of moving and residence is my understanding.

So her hope has always been to eventually do this travelling-nurse thing...and my job is already transportable obviously.


hitting europe at some point might be an option as well.


And winning the occasional entry to a major tourney on the PPM cruise or pokerstars cruise to Bahamas or to Aruba or Paris or Barcelona or wherever could be a nice little 'side-trip' as well.

of course, by the time we're finished with all this travelling and are ready for kids she would be about 37 and I would be 43 (only kind of kidding...she's 28 and i'm 34). Hmmm.....maybe we'll have to cut short some of those travelling ideas.

But these ARE the general ideas that we have been talking about.