

How to travel the world while freelancing as a programmer - ashray
http://bkpk.me/programmers-its-time-to-pack-your-bags/

======
EwanToo
Seriously, what's with the adverts on that website? I get a pop-under,
multiple flash banners, and in general it slows my work PC to a crawl.

I can imagine this guy is making more money from adverts than from
freelancing...

~~~
ashray
Author here. Really ? :( I didn't think the ads were intrusive because they're
set to not run any popups. That website doesn't make any money, well, it makes
like 20 cents a day but I don't think that counts.. :S

I remember there was a post on HN a few weeks ago about how devs using macs is
causing serious usability issues. I think I just got bitten by that :S I'll
try and boot up Virtualbox and look into it. Sorry for the bad ads.

~~~
markyc
popup on linux also. is 20 cents/day really worth the ux mess?

~~~
ashray
No it's not and I would fix that given the chance. I just wish people wouldn't
flag this down. Infact, it should be fixed now.

~~~
ersii
I just opened and read the piece on your site, I did not find the ads
intrusive (any more, perhaps?) nor did I get a pop-up/pop-under advertisement.

But, the site is still massively resourceful - Firefox, at least, is having
massive troubles rendering the site. Scrolling is _really_ painful - smoothly
with a scrollwheel or with up/down keys.

I havn't tried to debug the site, but I thought the above might be of interest
to you anyhow.

I'm on Firefox 13.0.1, running Ubuntu on a Intel i5 first-gen.

------
hnwh
What antennas do you use for connecting in each country? I'm a programmer
working remotely primarily, but would like to start doing it while travelling
around the world. Would love to chat with you more. Do most countries have
stupid issues with multiple internet network types such as in the US, or can
any 3G modem work in most places? And is 3G enough? I find I'm mostly
comfortable with around 7 Mb/s down, 3Mb up

~~~
ashray
I use my iPhone 4S and tether it to my laptop. Most countries do have
different frequency bands but an iPhone or newer Android will work just fine.

7Mb/s down and 3Mb up would be too much to expect off 3G. Even over Wifi in
many countries, that would be too much. You could realistically expect about
2Mb/s down, but this really varies from country to country.

3G is enough for keeping track of things, pushing changes to github, uploading
a few facebook pictures, etc. You can't really do much more than that without
wifi. But thankfully that's available almost everywhere!

~~~
hnwh
For my remote job, I need to have daily skype conferences with up 4 people..
have you found that you can use skype reliably over these 3G connections, or
is that something that you haven't really done much?

~~~
ashray
I've used skype over 3G. Infact, I've used skype with video over 3G as well.
However, a 4-way Skype over 3G is probably very difficult in most countries
(but hey, choose Japan and South Korea and you should be able to 16-way skype
on their mobile internet ;)).

What I'm trying to say is that you could move to Brazil, rent an apartment
with a 10 Meg line, and carry on with your work. I know a day trader (he calls
himself the wandering trader..) who did exactly that.

------
espinchi
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Any issues with the Visas? I guess you can't stay more than certain amount of
time in most countries, right?

Also, what about health insurance?

~~~
ashray
I usually travel on tourist visas but it's easy enough to apply for visas up
to 90 days in each country. Most of these visas are extendible for the same
duration exactly once. Of-course it varies from country to country. But 90
days gives me plenty of time to see a lot in most smaller countries.

Health insurance is usually issued for 6 months and travel health insurance
ends up costing me about $130 per six months and this does not include
treatment in the US (I'm not traveling in the US so it doesn't matter to
me..).

