

Ask HN: Quit my job and learn to code in Thailand for a year? - dcpdx

I currently work as an account manager at a large company and I'm building a web app on the side with a freelance Rails dev.  It's always been a goal of mine to work in technology but my career is taking me in the opposite direction.  After teaching myself HTML and CSS, I've started learning Rails so I can begin contributing code.  The problem is that with my job, progress is slower than I'd like it to be and it will probably be a few months before I achieve basic competency and can do anything useful.<p>I'm 25 and have a fair amount of cash saved up, no debt, mortgage, or family I'm beholden to.  My idea is to take a load of cash, move to Thailand, and live very cheaply as I teach myself to code.  Hopefully, after a year, I can come out the other side armed with the knowledge to build whatever I want whenever I want.  It'd also be one hell of an adventure; I just got back from a trip to Beijing a few weeks ago and loved it so I'm at least a little familiar with how things work in Asia.<p>Has anybody in the HN community done anything like this?  I'd like to know if I'm completely delusional here or if there are solid points to this idea.  Also, would a year be long enough?  With no income to speak of I'd have to make my cash last for as long as I'd plan on staying there.  Any advice/insights would be appreciated!
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gexla
I have been doing something of the same. I started out learning web
development while going to college. The first big plus was that I was able to
quite my part time job and do web development working from home. I then quit
college to do freelancing full time (I hated college and my grades were crap,
so this wasn't as bad of a decision as it sounds.) I then decided that I could
take this a step further and not just work from home, but work from anywhere
in the world. I then moved to the Philippines and two years later I'm still
there.

Peter Cooper mentioned that your year out could turn into a "procrastination-
ridden year of hedonism" and I would agree with that. It's really easy to get
caught into a "vacation" mindset. My first year here ended up being more of a
case of "let's see how little work I can do and still get by" rather than
building my business. The beer here is really cheap and there are a lot of
expats who don't work. Every day is Friday, and if I'm not careful I can slip
into their same routine.

That said, I'm not sure I would take the path you are looking at. I think you
need to define your goals more clearly. What is the reason for learning to
code? I learned how to code during my free time after work and on the
weekends. Most important for me wasn't to have a lot of full days to learn how
to code, but rather practicing every day if even for an hour a day. So, you
don't have to go on a year sabbatical from your job just to learn how to code.
Also, if you are practicing every day, you can get pretty good relatively
quick.

After you learn how to code, what are your plans? This is where you are very
vague. Though I'm a freelance web developer, I wouldn't suggest this for most
people. This is a real business and takes real commitment. It takes a lot of
time and effort to really figure out the business side. It's stressful and I
don't have much time or energy left over to work on my own projects. I would
love to be working on some sort of start-up idea which would allow me to
switch, but I can't afford to break my business cycle (quit accepting work,
build my own application with no money coming in, perhaps have to start taking
in new work if my idea doesn't work out and having to rebuild the cash-flow
cycle.)

If you want to build something, you can take the time to learn the code just
as you are doing now. As you said, progress is slow but you are still making
progress. If you were to be competent in 3 months, then that's not really very
long. Maybe another few months and you would be surprised with what you could
accomplish. Even if you aren't a guru yet, you might just be good enough that
you can tackle just about any problem that you run into. At this point, you
are "good enough" though you will continue to hone your craft.

So, the moral of the story is that the year away isn't something you need to
do. You can learn what you need to learn doing what you are doing. Keep
building up that savings (something you will lose when you leave,) keep
building on the side and be patient. Eventually you may even be able to build
something that makes a bit of money. If you could build an application which
could bring in $1000 / month in profit then you would have enough to live on
without having to dip into your savings. That's the point where I would be
considering moving abroad.

I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying that you should be honest with
yourself and define your plans more clearly. What is it that you really want
to do? If it's simply to get away for a year in Thailand then go for it. If
it's to learn to be a better coder, then stay on your present path, it's
working! If it's to quit your job because you are simple "done" with it, then
go ahead and take a sabbatical to find yourself again (though I'm not sure I
would want to burn through my savings to do this, it would be better if you
could support yourself while there so that you don't have to touch your
savings.)

On a side note, the Philippines is also a great place. It's about the same
cost of living. English is an official language. The visa allows for tourists
to stay up to 16 months without having to do a visa run outside the country. I
live in Dumaguete and I work out of an office (working from home just isn't
effective for me anymore.) The biggest downside is the infrastructure in
general is probably worse than in Thailand.

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petercooper
Only you can analyze yourself and determine whether a "year out" could turn
into a procrastination-ridden year of hedonism. At 25, though, you're not too
old to have a "gap year." If you can realistically make it work with your
resources, what's the worst that could happen? You come back with your tail
between your legs in a few months?

The key thing you mention is not having any family to support.. once you go
down that road, you're highly unlikely to be pulling off stunts like these
unless you have an extremely liberal significant other and the derring-do to
stay strong with a family in tow. I'm married and have a daughter now and even
getting out to California for my once-regular vacation is now a project with
logistics on the scale of invading a small country.. :-)

Hopefully someone else can come along and give you the specifics on how easy
this is to do in Thailand, but in terms of actually doing it, if you see no
significant downsides, go for it.

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codenerdz
I wonder why Thailand? Are you planning to spend your time in Bangkok or the
islands? My memory of first was a fairly dirty and hot city with exception of
malls and palaces, while my memory of the latter was a very chill place with
exception of monsoon month where it would be a challenge to concentrate on
work. All in all, you will a need a place with high speed broadband and air
conditioning at the very least.

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mattm
If it's on your mind, go for it. Otherwise it may just end up as a regret down
the road.

Thailand is cheap. You can easily live on a few hundred dollars a month so a
"fair amount" of savings should be no problem.

I don't know why you asked though. Are you looking for someone to talk you out
of it?

~~~
gexla
Easily a few hundred dollars a month? I doubt that. Maybe a Thai with support
could do that. I have never been to Thailand but living on that much in the
Philippines, which is comparable, would be difficult. You would be barely
squeaking by.

~~~
mattm
My friend recently went to Chiang Mai. His decent hotel room cost something
like $3 per night and his meals were about $1.

I went to Thailand in 2002 and stayed in an awesome resort right on the beach.
It cost $8 for the night including food. Thailand is really cheap as long as
you don't spend all your money on beer and liquor. A few hundred dollars per
month goes a long way.

~~~
gexla
You can get a room here for about $4 - $5 per day. This doesn't include
utilities but if you only run a fan and go without cable and internet then
utilities won't be much. You can also get meals here for $1 / day.

There are other costs that you can't forget. Transportation can easily cost
you another $1 / day unless you walk everywhere. There are places where you
can get free wifi but if you can't do that then an internet cafe will charge
40 cents per hour. The killer is the visa, which runs approx $60 / month.

I didn't say you couldn't do it. I said you would be barely squeaking by. For
some that is okay (easy even) but for me it's difficult. I have tried to live
on that budget and it's not fun. We might call it backpacking, others call it
poverty. ;)

Maybe at first you can take this as a personal challenge to live cheap. In my
experience that eventually wears thin and you sort of bounce back to wanting a
decent life again. I suppose that's the point where it became not fun for me.
Fortunately, I didn't have to keep living like that, I simply quit taking it
easy and did more work.

However, point taken. You can live very cheap if you choose to, and that gives
people an idea of where the bottom would be for a foreign visitor (many
Filipino's live on far less.)

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jeggers5
1\. Don't go on your own 2\. make sure you can go back to your current job if
things don't work out

~~~
boolean
It's perfectly okay to go on your own. In fact, that alone would be great for
your own self development, and don't worry about #2 at your age.

~~~
Brewer
I agree with boolean here. Moving to a different part of the world will push
most people out of their comfort zone, but that won't necessarily happen if
you go with someone you know.

A year in Thailand sounds like a great adventure and a great chance to "find
yourself" (please forgive me for the cliche). If you're gonna do it, then do
it right.

