Perhaps you just didn't push it far enough: I took a 90% pay cut and am happy with it :)
When I lived abroad and was going for cheap, since I was so damned burnt out, most of the people who did not manage to totally convince locals to treat them like a local paid way more for things like rent (though still very cheap by American standards). I mean, you could find cheaper places, but I wouldn't expect not to pay for it in other ways. I mean unless you were just sort of roaming around, couch surfing (easier a couple decades ago, before AirB&B got so popular probably).
The most I could imagine ten thousand lasting, even scrounging, anywhere I lived, was probably around half a year at most (much less if rent was not factored in, or if you are sharing a place of course; I was not). That'd mostly include parts of Asia, and Central America. And most places like that, connectivity came at sort of a premium price. The internet between a vps in the states and southeast asia was damn slow fifteen years ago.
Couldn't have been too fun when that ten thou ran out. I would never have left the country with no modicum of a guarantee of income upon returning. Gutsy move.
The part about living on that $10k was not so much what threw me (I mean, you CAN live on $1k a month, and I know people did it, certainly back in 2012, but you are not going to be eating much Western food, or springing for many extravagances like Western brand liquors, probably). What threw me was how, halfway or 2/3rds of the way through that year, without that ongoing idea of replacing that $1k a month, anything going wrong would seriously suck. Locals work and replace spent money with money. So do expats.
> You would not live as an American would, though.
yeah, not being American was definitely contributing factor too.
Getting work in tech 15 years ago after a break was hella easy compared to now. Guessing you, like I, are also deep into the years of maybe being called overqualified.
I guess the crypto bros and influencers have taken over a lot of whatever you wanna call what existed during the few decades when tech expats had it. Sorta changed forever when all the betting platforms became legal in America (whether you are or were American), too. The mood changed. So did the local populaces.
I worked remote when I traveled.