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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

The peculiar thing about programmers is that they're the one profession that can easily work remotely and travel, and yet they're the one profession that doesn't.

I believe that the ease with which one "can easily work remotely and travel" is affected far more by life situation than by profession. Modern technology has made it just as easy for non-programming electronic workers to do this, too.

"Life situation" is another matter. Just a few of the things that make it difficult for some people to do this:

  - marriage
  - children
  - spouse's job
  - pets
  - caring for elderly parents/others
  - community commitments
  - financial responsibilities (mortgage, etc.)

As one who is tethered to his home and family, I thank you, Alex, for allowing me to live vicariously through your year for the past 5 minutes. The stories were interesting and the pictures were beautiful.

</BackToRegressionTestNumber127BeforeThePhoneRingsAgainAndTheCatNeedsFed>

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The peculiar thing about programmers is that they're the one profession that can easily work remotely and travel, and yet they're the one profession that doesn't.

Just don't try to build a business as an indie iOS dev if you want to travel. I've been trying to do this for the last year but this week Apple disabled my iTunes account, insisting that I'm not allowed to access it from Asia since my credit card account is a U.S. account. They've categorically refused to budge on this so now I can't even update apps I've bought through iTunes or the Mac App store. Since the apps I write have to be able to interoperate with other music apps, they've effectively shut me down.

I had this problem when I was living in Thailand. I just set up OpenVPN on my linode, problem solved.

http://library.linode.com/networking/openvpn

Good idea, but I don't really feel comfortable building a business at constant risk of some new whim from Apple's security algorithms. I know quite a few other iOS devs have made this work but I feel like I've had the better part of a year's work yanked out from under me and I don't want to take a chance of that happening again.

Oh, that.

Well if you're going to let a minor inconvenience like geo-restricted service access prick your plans maybe it's not for you.

I don't really feel comfortable building a business on a platform that requires me to break its rules to support it. Who's to say that whatever hacks I put in today will work tomorrow?

I will stake my entire years income that you still be able to access iTunes via a US-ended VPN for the entirely of it's existence.

Maybe, but one careless sync from a cafe WIFI might undo all that diligence.

Always, always, use a ssh tunnel when interacting with mega-corporations abroad. Except when you book hotel nights or transport tickets at the last minute.

I thank you, Alex, for allowing me to live vicariously through your year for the past 5 minutes.

This comment made me perk up.

I've eliminated all of those things you mentioned from my life and replaced them with:

1. Alcohol 2. Traveling 3. Triathletics

In the last 3 years I've been to over 20 countries, been to every continent (except antartica), boot strapped two companies in NYC and have completed a half-ironman (and on my way to do a full next year). I realize I couldn't have done any of that if I had any of those aforementioned responsibilities.

Random, but honest (meta) question: Would people be interested in reading more about this? I always feel like if I blog about these things it would just sound like bragging.

Definitely interested. It sounds like you're living the life I want to live. Damn this cube...

"Damn this cube."

I immediately had a picture of a mime.

Definitely interested. I would read your article/book.

id love to read it!

Please do! I find these stories very inspirational, in a life hacking kind of way.

Hang on. You mean you've removed your marriage, children, pets and caring for elderly relatives from your life?

I guess I haven't necessarily removed them, I've just neglected to pursue them or don't have the burden.

Marriage - I've been single for 5 years, and adamantly stayed single, to the point where I've been in a couple of longer term "relationships" that I've simply cut off in pursuit of other things in life. In reflection I feel this may be a quite cynical outlook on life and will probably change in the near future.

Children - I wrap it.

Pets - Don't have the time nor want to spend the incredulous amount of money required to maintain one.

Elderly Relatives - All of my grandparents have passed and my parents (who are almost in their 60's now) are generally in very good health. I guess I'm very fortunate.

Being a Programmer (specifically a contractor or consultant) actually solves a few of those problems for you, since it allows you to throw money at them. Here's what I've been doing since saddling myself with wife, kid and mortgage:

- Consult. Thus freeing your wife from needing to work (knocks off two items on your list).

- Consult from the road. Thus taking care of those financial responsibilities.

Other ways those problems go away if you're travelling and working most of the year:

- Travel. Thus turning defining your community as "Travelling Rock Climbers", "Travelling Surfers", or simply "Travelers"

- Kids might be hard. I chose to have them this year instead of 10 years ago, thus meaning I can bring them along

- Pets are harder. Maybe a really big bowl of food and leave the toilet seat up?

But the short version is that if you want to make travel a priority, you can. Pretty much any excuse you come up with is for your own benefit. I've met plenty of families on the road with school-age kids who weren't planning to go home any time soon.

It's all doable. We'd love to run into you out here.

I have been travelling a lot lately because of my current work and would love to know more about these kinds of community. So you arrive at some country where almost nobody speaks English, how do you actually find anyone you can meet up with?

In my case, I tend to travel for rock climbing or surfing, and it follows that if you show up at a world class climbing destination you'll naturally find that a lot of other travelling climbers have beaten you there are are also staying for the season.

After a few years of chasing rocks around the world, you start to notice that you keep running into the same people time and again. Even if you never actually talked to them when you were both on the beach in Thailand a few years back, and only said hi when camped at Ceuse (Southern France) last summer, by the time you run into them again in Kentucky you might as well introduce yourself because you'll certainly be seeing them again some time.

Over time, you tend to gather lots of friends this way. And when you come back to spend another winter on the beach in Thailand you can guarantee that at least a few old friends will be there as well.

Beyond that, most countries tend to have a few spots that attract travelers. Next time you talk to somebody who's been to Peru, ask where they went. They'll answer Lima, Huacachina, Nazca, Arequipa, Puno, and Cusco. In that order. Go to any of those places, find a comfy looking bar, walk up to a table full of scruffy looking people and ask where they're from. Next thing you know you'll have a half dozen new friends and a bunch of good stories. And if you ever go to China, you'll probably run into one of them at a similarly comfy bar in Yangshuo.

A substantial proprtion of people are travelling alone and want to strike up a conversation with you, even though they're headed off somewhee else the next day.

Youmight not even need to find a bar: the popular sights and major cities of the world are full of hostels geared towards encouraging their guests to meet fellow travellers (some more overtly hedonistic than others). They're easy enough to find in travel guides and hostel booking websites

You'll also be surprised just how many local people speak English in the rest of the world, particulary when affiliated with the tourist trade (Latin America being something of an exception, but basic Spanish isn't the most difficult language for an English speaker to learn.)

Posted from Puno

It is easier to make friends from your own country abroad than at home, because ex-patriots are missing their friends from home and looking for other people to hang out with.

Ex-patriots tend to hang out together, and are relatively easy to find, particularly in a country where your face makes you stand out as a foreigner.

I can see that being my problem since in the places I have been to I actually do seem to be a local. I also happen to stay only for a couple of weeks max and that doesn't help.

One curious thing I have seen is that some ex-pats don't want to meet other ex-pats from their home country. I tend to agree with that since not doing so decreases your chances of meeting new local people which can be really interesting.

Uh, "expat" is actually short for "expatriate", not "ex-patriot". The latter would mean something completely different, so that's quite a confusing usage, in my not so native English speaker's opinion at least.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate>.

Freeing your spouse from work, not your wife.

I agree with the sentiment, but the correction here is unwarranted. He starts the post with "Here's what I've been doing". Assuming the poster is actually married to a woman, it's not incorrect to use "wife" here. His use of the second person in the list that follows ("your wife" and not "my wife") looks like a grammar mistake, not a sexist goof.

Hmm, a lot depends on how you read the context of the list. It's always best to give the most generous interpretation, so I retract that.

I'm amused/interested in how your comment changed the upvotes and downvotes my original had. Before it was positively received (+11 at the point I checked), but that was enough to drive it down to a +1 (no, there's no grave injustice here, no one should think to re-upvote it out of some misplaced sympathy). I can definitely see how your point would nullify it, but actively driving almost a dozen downvotes? HN folks are a fickle bunch =)

> - Consult. Thus freeing your wife from needing to work (knocks off two items on your list).

Some people, freed from needing to work, still want to work. I would not give up my job even if I were independently wealthy.

Especially if that wealth comes from your SO and not yourself, making you totally depedent. That's even worse than just being bored without work.

Totally agreed -- my wife & I have both spent time financially dependent on the other, but we're best when we both have incomes.

There's a kind of fresh air that gives to a relationship -- the unspoken undercurrent is "I could leave but I don't want to" vs. "it would be incredibly difficult for me to leave, so I really hope things keep going well". The dependent spouse has far more skin in the game, in every interaction, whether the earner takes advantage of that or not.

If you're both comfortable that you're capable of making a good income at short notice, that would have a similar effect (and one of you can take some time off when you have a kid, travel the world, etc.), but you'll need a solid career first to give you that confidence.

   TheCatNeedsFed

Are you, by any chance, from around Western Pennsylvania?

After this rain, the car needs washed, too.

And the lawn needs mowed!

Yes.

You deduced that from 4 words in a closing tag? Scary, en at.

Maybe you can help me with the text parsing logic that feeds the Business Intelligence for Email app I'm writing.

Pittsburgh just made an impression when I worked there. :p

Yins all scary!

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