So I've been living/traveling abroad for around 3 years and the whole experience has been great. My life is immeasurably better abroad and it seems that the longer I live abroad, the more likely it seems that I'll be out here for good.

Especially now with things getting worse back home in the U.S. (online poker legislation, economic recession, obesity epidemic, weather getting worse and worse due to global warming, etc) I don't see myself moving back, possibly ever. I plan on visiting a few weeks at a time to visit friends/family, WSOP, food, etc. But permanently, no.

Just curious if anyone else feels the same way. For those of you who are in a similar situation, what are your long term plans?

You forgot to mention getting your first 96k in income tax free each year.

Personally I feel the exact same way, except I have yet to leave (less than a week away). I want to legally avoid taxes, have a non fat wife, pay less for cost of living, oh yeah and play poker where I want to play.

I am hoping/praying that I love living abroad just because my life will be so much easier not living in the USA.

The problem is that there aren't that many good places to live abroad...

How many candidate countries are there really? Saying that weather is getting worse in the USA seems like you are really stretching it - it makes no sense, actually. The biggest two benefits is ability to play poker - assuming you are a big winner, and tax advantages. Those are big advantages and everything else is mostly a wash, IMO. But how many people make 50K+ from poker each year? Look at PTR - very few. It only makes sense for very few people.

Euro countries are expensive as hell and running into same issues as USA.

Cheaper third world countries are becoming more expensive by the day and more restrictive by the day. You can see how country X or country Y was a hot expat destination during some 5 year period and then the attraction fizzles out as the country develops and becomes more restrictive for expats. The 'sweet spot' for a lot of developing countries has passed.

I like the idea of travel, so I like the idea of living abroad. But generally you end up on a very, very short visa and immigration leash, can't ever own your own house and land, can't work there legally without jumping through a lot of hoops, can't enter many of their protected industries, etc.

I thought about making a move to Thailand but realized it makes no long-term sense. Expensive, and highly restrictive. Great place for a vacation, fair place to live single, and horrible place to try to live long term and have a family.

I think there are way more than you may realize. I agree with a lot of what you said, but all it takes to pass the hurdle of immigration and property ownership is to marry a foreign girl (I'm assuming this is true with a vast majority of countries, especially if you get her preggo). If you REALLY want to live abroad forever that is probably the easiest way to do so. Proceed with caution

And yeah weather due to global warming is nonsense.

Is that really anyone's plan, though? To get some 3rd world country girl pregnant and marry her so you are not tied on immigration leash and can live there? hmmm...

And in many countries, marrying a local girl doesn't help you that much. You may not be on strict immigration leash, but you still can't own land, still can't get work permits, still can't enter protected industries, etc You can say that you can do all that stuff under the table in your wife's name, but in that case you are screwed completely the second things go sour with the wife. That's a crappy strategy at best.

I'm 100% with you on this one. Just arrived back to Ireland after spending the last 15 months travelling. I will be travelling again. Even learning spanish! which i didnt sleep through 5 years of spanish classes at school

Who said anything about a 3rd world country dump?

I'm not saying move to a country and get a girl pregnant so you can stay. Obviously that is ******ed by itself. I'm just trying to point out that if you really want to stay somewhere forever you are probably going to want to marry a local girl anyway (unless your dumb enough to move to a country with ugly womens) and that does help immensely with immigration issues.

And obviously you cant work in a foreign country. But your a ****** for moving somewhere if you suck at poker or dont have some other sort of income.

there are plenty of countries that are still up and coming plus with the internet advancing more every year it makes these places easier to play online poker. Think the biggest question is will online poker survive?

where have you been living? what was best/worst places you have been to?

also, do you see yourself settling in a 3rd world country or a developed one that just doesnt happen to be the usa?

If you're not talking about developing countries, then you certainly are not talking about cheaper cost of living. In fact, even in developing countries, if you want to have a Western style apartment with a nice bathroom, aircon, kitchen, hot water, etc you often have to pay prices as high or higher than in the US because such comforts are considered upscale and limited to the rich people and expats of those countries (scarce). So a place in Vegas can rent for $700, but same place in Panama C/Bogota/Caracas will cost $1000.

On top of that, many of these supposedly 'cheap' countries have huge import duties on just about everything. When you are a tourist in Bangkok or Bogota, you will not feel it. But if you live there and you realize you need something, you will pay 50%-200% more than in the US. You might get away with no car in BKK if you don't have wife and kids or big grocery shopping or whatever and avoid the 200% tax, but in many places like Bogota a car really helps and you will have to swallow the 50% tax.

There are a lot of 'shadow' expenses like this when living in 'cheap' countries. They are not immediately obvious until you actually have a normal life and family there and they smack you in the face.

You overestimate just how many people consistently make money from online poker. Before BF, I was a semi-reg at 1KNL. Every 6 months, the lineup of regs changed drastically. Things change very quickly online and someone making money today will not necessarily make money in 6 months.

Look at PTR/etc and try to estimate how many people make a fair but not great income of 50K/year. Look at the increasingly lower and lower BB/100 winrates for everyone. Very, very few poker players have the luxury of moving, IMO.

A true poker pro should never have all their eggs in one basket. If you move to a country where you are severely restricted from working/consulting/investing/opening up businesses, then all you got is poker and can't spread your risk. Saying that you will just move somewhere else or go back home and get a job at Wendy's as last resort is not much of a life plan - at the very least it means that the prospective country is not such a good destination.

I have thought about this question a ton and have been living abroad for 1.5 years.

One of the biggest issues is that you cannot even gain citizenship to some of the most appealing countries. Asian countries are basically impossible and those are the best ones. This means You will always be an outsider. Worse, your eligibility to stay in those countries *forever* is really uncertain - even if you're married. Starting a business/family or buying a house seems really risky out here. I have not looked up the laws for other countries outside of Asia I guess so maybe things are better elsewhere. Also tied into this is property ownership laws. In many of the countries I have looked at you basically have to trust a third party with everything. This is simply unacceptable to me.

Another big issue is if you want to start a family. Even though I *HATE* the politics of the USA (foreign policy, security that kills freedom) I have to concede that if I had kids I would still want them to be in a developed country like the USA. If it is just me - great, I can stay in the developing world forever. But if you put a kid in that situation you're really giving him crappy opportunities compared to back home.

The final big issue is that you are leaving all of your old friends and family back home. I didn't even realize it at first but after X months I realized that by default I was basically giving up these relationships completely. Only one of my friends has bothered to come visit out here and when my year plane ticket is about to expire this time I am on the fence if I will actually return home with it or not. My family life back home is not great - if that was better I really doubt I'd even consider staying abroad forever. Even still, I do have some really awesome friends back home and I miss them constantly. So this is another big issue to think about.

The last big issue is that wherever you end up should have some good opportunities outside of poker. You don't know if you will play cards forever. By moving abroad when your options besides poker are questionable is extremely risky and short sighted. Thus, if you're the place you are moving to limits your options a ton you should really be wary of your overall thought process.

If these issues don't really apply to your plan then I would say go for it. If they do you really have to think about things carefully. Anyway, good luck sir - I am certainly in the same boat and I have been thinking about this stuff a lot. It really is just a hard decision.

I'm really not sure what you are trying to argue here, and I'm def not saying everyone should move abroad that had a 50k year once. Obv poker gets tougher, but I dont think thats what OP had in mind to discuss when he started this thread. Like I said, if you cant consistently win at poker and have no other means of income then yes it is pretty stupid to move abroad to play poker full time. That should be very obvious to just about anyone.

It's pretty obvious that your experience abroad is limited to Thailand, since Thailand is one of the only countries in the world that imposes such restrictions. In most countries in the world, anyone can freely own land, and there is no such thing as "protected industries" that foreigners cannot work in.

Not to mention that it's perfectly possible to have a decent investment strategy no matter where you live, since you can trade on any share market and invest money in any kind of fund you want no matter where you live. So living in a place like Thailand with no work permit should not affect that side of your finances at all.

My point is that: different countries, different limitations, different problems. Almost all of the 'cheaper' countries have some sort of combination of the things I mentioned.

(For example, some sort of similar land restrictions and limitations exist not just in Thailand, but also in Philipines, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, and these are just the first few Asian countries I thought about googling.)

The situation with buying land isn't as difficult as you make it out to be. There are ways for foreigners to buy land in all those countries, or do you think that companies like HSBC just buy their land in their wife's name?

It's true though that most people don't bother because renting is both financially smarter and a lot less hassle.

Live abroad? I thought you guys all thought your home country was the greatest in the world LOL

"Proceed with caution" is in the race for understatement of the year.

98% of the time I'm think "STOP, DO NOT PASS GO" would be a better suggestion.

i feel the same way about my country, i love the states tho. so i guess the neighbor grass is always greener.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

go to a place that doesnt have cars or cows. i recommend southern sudan.

There is a reason its called GLOBAL warming mate

well played sir.

nevertheless, op, that country is for you.

It's all relative...live wherever you can make the best life for yourself. There's no reason that living abroad is inherently better than living in the States, and in the vast majority of cases it will be worse (in the long term).

I've been living in Asia for 8 months now fwiw.

There is that internet poker thing...

aside from that. lol.

Getting incred chicks that would be unattainable at home?