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I feel like quitting my job and moving somewhere that I hope will feel completely different. I just checked and it seems like passports are actually pretty easy to get. And there are places where you just apply (UK, Germany, probably more) and then you can stay for months. And it just occurred to me that if I could support myself entirely through Internet work, I could just live in a new country for a few months, every few months, for years. Is that true? Is it really that simple?
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Oct 5, 2015 03:06
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It's easy to get a valid passport from your country of citizenship but this doesn't necessarily mean you can easily get a visa to live/work in any given country. Generally, the more developed the country, the harder it is to move and work there. "Work" generally means at a traditional job getting paid in local currency though, if you're self-employed earning money online via your home country it's unlikely that would require you get a working visa. I guess yeah technically you are working in the country but something like running a website would be completely invisible to local authorities. That said travel itself is easy as hell, and if you're American, you can pretty easily get a tourist visa upon arrival into a wide variety of countries. Plenty of people are able to support themselves via side income while traveling, and most tourist visas max out at 90 days. So after that point you head to another country or go on a "visa run" to re-enter as a tourist again. Keep in mind tourist visas give you basically zero access to any kind of government services of the country, so you're on your own for healthcare for example. Likewise you would probably be unable to get credit, get a local address, etc. zmcnulty fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 04:14
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Great, another goon posting about how they are bored with their existence and instead of bettering themselves think living in another country is a quick fix. OP, did you do all your research through Google on the spur of the moment? Because moving to another country isn't something that you plan lightly. Passports (and citizenship) aren't something you get at a corner drug store and "Internet work" isn't something to base a new life off of just like that.
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Oct 5, 2015 04:20
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I think how long you can stay in a place and what you can do there also depends greatly on where you're from in terms of how easy or hard it is. I don't think you said. Also that is an extremely bad reason to up and move to a place with a different culture and/or language and presumably 0 support system around you like you have in your home country.
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Oct 5, 2015 04:39
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zmcnulty posted:It's easy to get a valid passport from your country of citizenship but this doesn't necessarily mean you can easily get a visa to live/work in any given country. Generally, the more developed the country, the harder it is to move and work there. "Work" generally means at a traditional job getting paid in local currency though, if you're self-employed earning money online via your home country it's unlikely that would require you get a working visa. I guess yeah technically you are working in the country but something like running a website would be completely invisible to local authorities. Cool! zmcnulty posted:Keep in mind tourist visas give you basically zero access to any kind of government services of the country, so you're on your own for healthcare for example. Likewise you would probably be unable to get credit, get a local address, etc. I did not think of that. :\ Justin Godscock posted:Great, another goon posting about how they are bored with their existence and instead of bettering themselves think living in another country is a quick fix. I did better myself. Now I'm wondering how to better myself even better and quicker by moving to a bunch of different places. Justin Godscock posted:OP, did you do all your research through Google on the spur of the moment? Yes. Justin Godscock posted:Passports (and citizenship) aren't something you get at a corner drug store and "Internet work" isn't something to base a new life off of just like that. Well, sure, but I'm just trying to determine feasibility right now. As an American, an American passport can be had in 4-6 weeks if I provide a photo id, a birth certificate, a passport photo, and about $165. On 90-day tourist visas, I could then live in four different countries per year. Tendai posted:I think how long you can stay in a place and what you can do there also depends greatly on where you're from in terms of how easy or hard it is. I don't think you said. I'm an American. I've already moved from a rural southern state to NYC, so I've done the 0-support-system thing before and it seems fine. Never done it in a place with a different language, though, and I only know English. Shouldn't be too hard, though. Anyway, good to know it's easy. Thanks, everyone!
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Oct 5, 2015 04:41
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EB Nulshit posted:I'm an American. I've already moved from a rural southern state to NYC, so I've done the 0-support-system thing before and it seems fine. Never done it in a place with a different language, though, and I only know English. Shouldn't be too hard, though. (Not that I've seen this before or anything)
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Oct 5, 2015 05:02
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Let's say you're supporting yourself though some kind of programming nerd online whoreing and plan to live abroad. Ok, fine. You need a place with internet access. Most places have this now but some places, like a beach, might not. Or it might be not on all the time, or really slow for what you need to do. Sometimes if you get a room or whatever you go "hey that wasn't too bad" then you try to find an ISP and get them to put a cable in and it's like you're cure cancer. There are small businesses in many countries these days that basically function as a place where you can work with reliable internet to help people like this but they are not everywhere and obviously sometimes get raided by immigration because obviously there are people on tourist visas in there working, which is not what is supposed to go on, and while the current visa system in most places doesn't accommodate "digital nomads" very well its still the system. You need a place to live. Hotels are always at least 3x what an apartment would be for the same period of time, in some locations way more than that. Maybe you can afford that in a place like Thailand, but you can't afford that in other places. Will you be able to find a person to rent you an apartment or a room for three or so months? In some places you absolutely can, they don't care, you put money in their hand they give you the key, that's it. In other places even the professor from France who has lived there for years has the bogperson landlady peering at them and basically saying "we don't want no stinking foreigners here, besides you guys steal" and has to have his employer or a local friend intercede for him. You need to be able to stay in the place legally. This involves getting a visa. As an American you can actually travel to the vast majorities of countries without a visa by just showing up with your blue passport with the eagle on there and they say "ok you can stay for two weeks" or "okay you can stay for 30 days." This is not a visa, this is a visa waiver. To get a visa you mail your passport to an embassy or consulate with a fee and some paperwork that you printed out from their website. In a week or so they mail it back to you and they've put a big dumb sticker on one of the pages in your passport and that is a visa. The visa will have to be activated by entering the country you're going to within a certain timeframe (six months is normal, some are much more restrictive) and will last for a certain amount of time once you activate it. Your typical tourist visa is good for sixty days and can sometimes be extended one time in country for thirty more. This gives you three months to "live" in that country. What do you do after that time though? Well, some countries will let you get back to back to back tourist visas and effectively let you live in a place just on tourist visas. Most places however will say "hey, you're not a tourist, you're living here, no more tourist visas for you fucker." In that case you have to apply for a different kind of visa. These other kinds of visas are much harder to get. Sometimes people pretend to be a student by taking stupid local language classes (which often don't actually require that the students attend, just that they pay). Sometimes people pretend to be a businessman and open a business there, but often this requires you hire some locals and have a bunch of money to show off so this can be awfully expensive -- other countries you just bribe some shitheel who runs a passport processing or visa expediting business and he passes some of that bribe on to a douche in the consulate who rubber stamps you as though you're actually a buisnessman. Sometimes you can get retirement visas by showing a passive income and enough savings and (sometimes) by being old. They all generally last for a year and after a year can be reapplied for over and over so long as your documentation holds up. Why do you need to bother with this when in most places you could just go in on a visa waiver and just not leave for ten years? Because if you do that they might throw you in the lovely jail for a week and fine you a bunch of money and never allow you to return and possibly share your status with other countries who may then be very reluctant to let you go there. You need health insurance. Lots of countries will basically let you die if you don't have it. Your health insurance should include repatriation in case you get the herpaids in Mongolia and don't exactly think the doctor there with a talisman on a stick who is currently burning straw in a steel wastepaper basket for heat is trustworthy. You need a fat wad of savings at all times so that if this happens (or something else bad happens) you can get through it, rent a place back in the US again, get a job again, and get going. Here are the things to not worry about : -I don't speak Fongool. You can feed yourself by pointing and handing over money. If you live somewhere for a long time and don't learn the language you're scum and won't be a real person while there but there's always someone around who can speak English. -How do I go places. If anyone speaks English its the clerk at the airport or the big bus station. -What about bizzaro diseases?! Unless you're literally in the jungle malaria isn't probably a big scare. Africa is the almost only place that has weird superparasites. -How do I maek girlfriend. Foreigners have an advantage with girls in almost every country, but it's not a pussy pass. Besides, there are going to be other expats and tourists around in 99% of the places you'd be interested in anyway. Try searching on google for "digital nomadism" for more links and info and poo poo. The biggest issue I think you'll find is that if you're applying for a programming job (or any job) that can be done from anywhere in the world than that job can be done by anyone in the world. Why hire you at western wages when there's a whole boilerplate code company in India that will put a team of guys on the same task for 1/5th the cost? Well, sometimes there's a reason and some people will pay for that for sure. However a lot of the people you see talking about how they're a digital nomad are making less than the loving English teachers in that country, though they will deny this to you up and down, as it is a matter of pride to them. In any case before you start traveling and undo your local job it would be wise to try to support yourself only through online piecework for a few months or so to see how much you can actually make doing that. If your plan is to move to a new country every four to six weeks be aware that that's a very high cost of living, probably on par to living reasonably in NYC, what with plane fare and visa fees and hotel rooms and not knowing how to do anything cheaply every time you move &c. There are people who do this, but not a lot of them. This alone should tell you that either there's something hard about it or some catch you're not thinking of. I assume you made this thread to cover the "not thinking of" part of things and I will tell you that probably the two biggest things that you're not thinking of are a) the income issue I brought up just above and b) moving every four weeks and being in a new place over and over can become so much work that it's really hard to work while you do that, making the quality and quantity of your work go down or else making your miserable. Not that this always happens, but it happens. E: You don't even have a passport yet? Geez dude. Go ahead and order one now, they last for ten years. Always get the extra pages, sometimes you have to pay a little more for them, it's a little checkbox on the application. zmcnulty posted:"Work" generally means at a traditional job getting paid in local currency though, if you're self-employed earning money online via your home country it's unlikely that would require you get a working visa. I guess yeah technically you are working in the country but something like running a website would be completely invisible to local authorities. Be careful with that. Currently people doing this kind of stuff get away with it mostly because there's no effective way for local governments to keep tabs on them and say "Hey! You're not a tourist! You're working while you live here!" but most of them will tell you that its technically against the law to stay and run your website in their country as your work while pretending to be a tourist. Some countries do actually go to the workspaces that people do this stuff from and lock people up and deport them or force them to pay bribes or whatever. If they ask and you say you are a tourist who has a passive income from home, then fine, whatever, but you can't march up and down the street proclaiming (or run a blog saying) MY NAME IS TURDLORD, I LIVE HERE ON A TOURIST VISA, ACTUALLY I WORK WHILE HERE FULL TIME, I AM AN INTERNET GUY, LOL THE FREEDOM because there's a good chance someone in an office somewhere will be like "Hey this idiot needs a different visa than the one he has in my opinion, go put him in a paddy wagon and make him pipe down." raton fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 06:29
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EB Nulshit posted:I feel like quitting my job and moving somewhere that I hope will feel completely different. I just checked and it seems like passports are actually pretty easy to get. And there are places where you just apply (UK, Germany, probably more) and then you can stay for months. And it just occurred to me that if I could support myself entirely through Internet work, I could just live in a new country for a few months, every few months, for years. Is that true? Is it really that simple? Are Americans really like this?
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Oct 5, 2015 10:01
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Hogge Wild posted:Are Americans really like this? It's not strictly an American phenomenon. There have been several separate threads over the past few weeks of people wanting to move to another country, with the the romantic idea that things will be better in another country, (America, Canada, France, Great Britain.) only to be told that it's a horrible idea if you don't have a work Visa. The desire to leave everything behind and go to another country seems to be fairly universal amongst first worlders.
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Oct 5, 2015 10:13
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thrakkorzog posted:It's not strictly an American phenomenon. There have been several separate threads over the past few weeks of people wanting to move to another country, with the the romantic idea that things will be better in another country, (America, Canada, France, Great Britain.) only to be told that it's a horrible idea if you don't have a work Visa. Lord knows that say Syrians would never feel that itch #firstworldproblems #whitepriviledge
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Oct 5, 2015 15:17
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Sheep-Goats posted:Currently people doing this kind of stuff get away with it mostly because there's no effective way for local governments to keep tabs on them and say "Hey! You're not a tourist! You're working while you live here!" but most of them will tell you that its technically against the law to stay and run your website in their country as your work while pretending to be a tourist. If you come to Canada with this plan we will kick you out and tell you not to come back without the right visa. Apparently the EU's not too keen on it either. A succession of tourist visas with no visible means of support will get all of your poo poo searched, and the first sniff of you being paid for something will probably get you deported or worse. Also, taxation may be a problem. As an American your tax laws follow you everywhere (ask Canadian teenagers born in the states about their 1040s), and a lot of countries consider you to be "working there" if you're physically inside the place and being paid to do stuff. Avoiding these taxes may have inconvenient results.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:27
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OP I do 100% telecommuting off-and-on and rent to a bunch of expats and both of those things are hard but doable if you definitely, definitely want them, more than you want say stability or a high standard of living. You can make it fine as a tourist or independently wealthy playboy with a point-and-grunt grasp of the language but not being able to really read or converse fluently puts you on roughly the level of a high school dropout, and unless you're at the top of your game at at one of the small pool of nerd jobs that don't benefit from physical presence or already have an established network of longterm clients working through the internet means you're competing directly with Sandeep from Ishapore who's willing to work for seven cents an hour. It's like quitting your job and becoming an artist fulltime - sounds glamorous to office drones, pretty fuckin' awesome if you manage to swing it, but it's a lot of hard work and sacrifice with no promise of a reward at the end and you're not just going to roll out of your Willy Loman job one day and become the toast of the Lower East Side with your fingerpaint self-portraits. What do you do for a living now, what are your skills, where are you thinking of going, how much do you know about it? Do you know anyone there? Have you ever been there? Do you know anyone who's willing to pay you for remote contracting or are you planning to sustain yourself on Mechanical Turk poo poo and transcription?
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Oct 5, 2015 15:30
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:Lord knows that say Syrians would never feel that itch #firstworldproblems #whitepriviledge EDIT: Or wait were you being sarcastic 
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Oct 5, 2015 15:31
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everyone thinks they can just run away from their problems whether that's the narcos leaving your firstborn's head under your pillow or the existential bleakness of performance reviews
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Oct 5, 2015 15:41
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:everyone thinks they can just run away from their problems whether that's the narcos leaving your firstborn's head under your pillow or the existential bleakness of performance reviews
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Oct 5, 2015 15:45
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um duh everyone knows that's Thailand 
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Oct 5, 2015 15:47
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Everyone should be allowed to love each other but I think it's okay to put reasonable limits on affection.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:50
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flakeloaf posted:Everyone should be allowed to love each other but I think it's okay to put reasonable limits on affection.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:50
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also what happened with the basketballs full of heroin, OP is that something to do with why you want to get out of the country all of a sudden
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Oct 5, 2015 15:54
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Oh wait this is THAT guy? For fucks sake tell us what the basketballs were for already.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:54
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even if you move to Japan and get an apartment in the hentai district coming up with like the first third of a funny scenario then running out of steam will not be trolling, just sad
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Oct 5, 2015 15:59
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:also what happened with the basketballs full of heroin, OP lol what
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Oct 5, 2015 16:05
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Hey if I hosed off with a few thousand of MS13's heroinballs I'd want to move to Zanzibar too.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:06
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Hogge Wild posted:lol what
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Oct 5, 2015 16:07
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ok then op you have made us post a few times, but as trolling goes, i've seen better
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Oct 5, 2015 18:16
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:even if you move to Japan and get an apartment in the hentai district coming up with like the first third of a funny scenario then running out of steam will not be trolling, just sad lol
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Oct 5, 2015 22:14
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Why do people think I'm trolling? I was thinking, at some point, I want to quit my job and live off my savings while I make mobile games. I figure now and the next couple years will be the best chance for an individual to make something that can sell enough that I would be able to live off the profit forever instead of having to work forever. I think this is doable because I'm finally at the point with my skills that I can look a project and have a vague clue of how I would approach it, and have the confidence that I won't gently caress everything up. I then realized, instead of moving to some rural state and living for cheap, maybe I could live for cheap outside the US while I try to make games. That way I could do two things I want at the same time: live in a foreign country and quit my job to use my programming skills for myself. Can't do it while I'm working because my employer owns any code I write. Basketballs are an idea I had for how to pass the time while still employed. I figured I could buy and sell stuff online to make money while I'm still employed, because I have a strong desire to have redundant streams of income, just in case the job market goes to crap and my pay gets cut in half, or in case "you're doing better than you have to! good job!" becomes "you're doing worse than you have to! you're fired!" or something. But someone mentioned if I drop-ship then things get easy. So I closed the thread since everyone thought it was some conspiracy bullshit and it seemed funnier that way  I can't quit my job for another 9ish months without having to pay back my signing bonus, so I have time to think about it. quote:What do you do for a living now, what are your skills, where are you thinking of going, how much do you know about it? Do you know anyone there? Have you ever been there? Do you know anyone who's willing to pay you for remote contracting or are you planning to sustain yourself on Mechanical Turk poo poo and transcription? My skills lie in programming. I don't know where I'm thinking of going and there isn't a place I know anything about, nor is there a place where I know people or have been before.  Don't know anyone who is willing to pay me but by the time I can actually quit my job I'll have at least six months of living expenses saved up, unless those months are going to be spent in Manhattan or London or somewhere else that's super expensive. So I really should aim at cheap places. But it's not super important to get all the details worked out, because nothing can happen for many more months. But I'll be 26 by then, so I need to have some kind of plan if I'm ever going to spend real time outside the country. I'm not getting any younger.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:20
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EB Nulshit posted:Why do people think I'm trolling? Because when we read this quote:I want to quit my job and live off my savings while I make mobile games. the conclusions we could possibly reach are: 1. You are trolling; or 2. You are a fool.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:40
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You should find out instead of asking idiot goons imo.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:24
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Yeah, it's feasible. That's all I really needed to know. Thanks again, everyone!
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Oct 6, 2015 02:38
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I'm just amazed at the idea of a person over the age of 6 not having a passport, and adults talking about the process of getting one. Amazed. Real answer: if you are good at programming you probably don't need to go through the hoop of being a secret self-employed tourist/undercover programmer, dodging borders for your next visa extension. You should look into applying for jobs as a programmer abroad, or even at a international company that would give you opportunity to work as an expat. Then you won't have to deal with the hassle of trying to live a normal life with all that's included (healthcare, renting apartments, even getting a library card) on a tourist visa. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 08:20
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Oh also OP read that Five Hour Workweek book for the boilerplate method to live overseas forever and do no work for your money (that no longer works).
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Oct 6, 2015 09:01
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Justin Godscock posted:Passports (and citizenship) aren't something you get at a corner drug store and "Internet work" isn't something to base a new life off of just like that. It's funny because I literally went to a corner drug store to get my passport photo taken.
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Oct 6, 2015 13:27
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lilljonas posted:Real answer: if you are good at programming you probably don't need to go through the hoop of being a secret self-employed tourist/undercover programmer, dodging borders for your next visa extension. You should look into applying for jobs as a programmer abroad, or even at a international company that would give you opportunity to work as an expat. Then you won't have to deal with the hassle of trying to live a normal life with all that's included (healthcare, renting apartments, even getting a library card) on a tourist visa.
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Oct 6, 2015 14:36
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Europe is kind of a mess right now...
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Oct 7, 2015 13:37
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OP I hear you can buy a Syrian passport for 70 euro, why not just grab one of those and head to Germany? You'll get free room and board while you work on the next candy crush.
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Oct 7, 2015 21:08
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rock rock posted:OP I hear you can buy a Syrian passport for 70 euro, why not just grab one of those and head to Germany? You'll get free room and board while you work on the next candy crush. you dont need a passport for that most of the people lose theirs on purpose before they arrive
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Oct 7, 2015 21:28
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Move to Puerto Rico. There are tax benefits for businesses, it is part of the US, similar time zone. Also if you really need a passport you can just to the passport office in person and get it the same day if you have a valid reason. Moving to a new country is not needed to find somewhere dramatically different than where you are now. Try texas, or the southwest, or living somewhere cold.
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Oct 8, 2015 01:28
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lampey posted:Move to Puerto Rico. There are tax benefits for businesses, it is part of the US, similar time zone. Also if you really need a passport you can just to the passport office in person and get it the same day if you have a valid reason. Moving to a new country is not needed to find somewhere dramatically different than where you are now. Try texas, or the southwest, or living somewhere cold. Puerto Rico sucks tho
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Oct 8, 2015 01:29
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If you join the Army and then defect to North Korea you will probably have a steady gig the rest of your life starring in propaganda films
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Oct 8, 2015 06:09
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