

Code on the Road: Laid off? The one thing you absolutely need to do on the first day - tjakab
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/05/laid-off-one-thing-you-absolutely-need.html

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kirubakaran
This is my plan too.

I read "C With Assembly Language" by Steven Holzner as a kid... he wrote that
he works 6 months and travels for the other 6. It has been my dream since. It
should work out this year.

If you are planning, reading "The Four Hour Work Week" might help.

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vikas5678
Oh yeah, highly recommend the book, a lot of his ideas seem controversial, but
there are a few points worth taking away from the book. There's also a nice
podcast on his website.

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pchristensen
I couldn't find the podcast on his site. Could you post a URL? Thanks!

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kirubakaran
AFAIK there is no podcast. May be he means all the YouTube videos?

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vikas5678
umm, I registered on his website and that gave me a link to the podcast. See
if this link works for you:
[http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/19/the_4_hou...](http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/03/19/the_4_hour_workweek_secrets_of_doing_mor)

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pchristensen
Thanks - it's a recording of his presentation at SXSW, not an ongoing series,
but I'm looking forward to listening to it.

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menloparkbum
I went to Africa after burning out at my first startup (which spectacularly
imploded 9 months later). I recommend travel, but taking time off is not
necessarily a panacea. In particular, be realistic about how much money you
have and will spend. Otherwise, when you come back you have to scramble to
find a job, which isn't an optimal position. In retrospect, the time could
have been better spent figuring out a startup of my own.

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streblo
This is one of the coolest articles I've seen on YC in a long time. Thanks for
helping me de-stress!

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Alex3917
Agreed. This is pretty much the greatest article ever. The funny thing was
I've been thinking about going to Thailand this summer anyway, so this article
pretty much clinches it. I get my diploma in a couple weeks (I failed twice at
dropping out) so this is the time to do it.

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jasonkester
Wow, thanks! It's amazing to compare the reception of this article here versus
Reddit. Over there, 700 people voted it DOWN, whereas here I'm being offered
free beer.

I think I'll stick around!

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pyroman
You travel a lot. Are there any cheap places left in the Caribbean? I've
thought of buying a sail boat and floating around there for a few years.

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jasonkester
Check out the coast of Honduras and the islands nearby. It's still plenty
cheap and there are un-touristed beaches to be found. The little slice of
Guatemala that touches the Caribbean is good too.

Good luck!

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joeguilmette
i'm actually going to be doing just that. my employer (10-20 employees) was
nice enough to grant my request to let me telecommute from brazil for a few
months.

how's that for relaxed management?

i could not agree with this article more. people need to loosen up and go see
the world much more than they currently do. farecast is a great place to buy
plane tickets and couchsurfing is a great place to find a roof.

go out and enjoy yourself!

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jrockway
Yeah, this is the way to do it. Instead of quitting your job and traveling,
travel while you have a job. Someone I work with routinely travels around the
world and lives with friends for a few weeks. As long as there's the Internet,
you can get plenty of work done, and have plenty of time to enjoy the world.
Why sit at home and chat on IRC when you can just go live with other
programmers for a while. (We work on a lot of open source stuff, so it's
always good to hang out with the other contributers. If you don't have a lot
of hacker friends, this approach might not work.)

Anyway, I liked what I saw :) so I'm going to Tokyo tomorrow for this purpose.
It counts as work, and will be quite fun.

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lux
I've been putting off buying a house or making any big commitments like that
for precisely this reason. Doin' the startup thing right now, but there's no
reason why that can't happen from wherever I happen to be too. Working on a
plan to free myself geographically sometime in '09!

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subwindow
This is my plan precisely. It'll be Ghana for me. A surprising amount of the
third world has a decent internet connection these days. If you can get that
plus a decent hotel room for a few hundred bucks a month, why not give it a
shot?

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technoguyrob
This is why I hope to be earmarking half a million for a trip around the world
in a few years. I may only end up using a tenth of that, but I don't want to
limit myself in terms of activities: scuba diving, mountain climbing, safaris,
maybe a few expensive hotels, foreign clubbing, etc.

All with a laptop at hand.

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kirubakaran
Do it once as a pauper and then as a prince.

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nanexcool
I went to Thailand when I was 23 (I'm 27 now). Stayed at the Khao San Road,
traveled a lot. It's a great place to get away from it all. Cheap too, and I
earn Mexico wages.

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sanswork
I leave Canada for Australia in a few weeks. Though not the 3rd world it's a
new base of operations which will allow us to easily travel around Asia.
Though I plan to work the odd consulting gig to help pay for it mostly we'll
be living as cheap as possible and moving as often as possible for the next
year or 2.

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st3fan
Go to Amsterdam! Tulips, pickled herring and lot's of fun :-)

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kirubakaran
We have tulips too (Seattle).

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martythemaniak
He probably meant the other tulip.

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tulip>

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kirubakaran
Wow! Thanks.

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attack
Spend more money right when your income is in highest jeopardy? Most of us
wish.

I'd suggest just going in the summer while you're still employed and office
activity has slowed anyway. My plan, anyway.

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sanswork
The point is that you are free to stay as long as you want and not have to
rush it. A few weeks in a new place is rarely enough to get a real feel for it
and experience everything that place offers.

Besides you'll probably be spending less traveling in 3rd world countries than
you will living in a tech centre in North America or Europe.

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ivory
This is a great article and timely because my friend just asked me yesterday
if I'd like to go to Thailand with her this Christmas! But I'm going to
Nigeria so I guess this article is spot on.

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cstejerean
Good luck buying anything from Ebay while in Nigeria :)

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quellhorst
Wow... I want to do this.

Any ideas on living / working in these areas? How can you get online?

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jasonkester
It's funny, but internet access is a lot easier to find in the developing
world than it is in the US or Europe. In the States, it's all private and
corporate DSL with the occasional unsecured wireless router to be found.

In rural Cambodia, it's a little building in the village with public
terminals. These get used by the locals since they can't afford a machine or
connectivity of their own, and by tourists who are happy to pay the equivilant
of a dollar an hour to check their email.

Generally, they don't mind if you push the keyboard out of the way and plug
the ethernet cable into the back of your laptop.

All in all, it's about 1000x easier than trying to find a pub in England with
functioning Wifi.

