Every experience is different and a lot depends on your host. While I was in London I had two different hosts. The first was an Indian who is very active in CS (couchsurfing). When I arrived he served me dinner and then he set me up with an oyster travel card to make my bus and train trips cheaper in London. We went out to Central London for the night and met up with a few other couchsurfers at a bar. Then the next day he showed me around the city and took me to Buckingham Palace and other places in the area. He had to go that evening but gave me directions on how to get to my next hosts house and a nice path to walk along the river.

I arrived at my next hosts house at around 10pm and he made me tea. He was busy and had work the next day but was kind enough to give me a place to stay for the night. In the little time we had we talked about his travels and my plans for my trip. He gave me a map of London to take with me and gave me a route to walk going to the main sites I didn’t see the previous day. In the morning we ate cereal and he gave me a ride to the train station.

In Istanbul I have had two hosts as well. The first was very very kind and gave me pasta when I arrived. However, he was extremely busy and I had to leave his house at 5:30 in the morning the next day. He did not return until 10pm and then told me he had to leave town the next day and could not host me the following night. I was supposed to stay with him one more night but ended up getting a hotel. It was not a negative experience, he was very kind, just too busy–though leaving at 5:30 am was not fun. My 2nd host is actually a German staying in Istanbul for a few months to work on a project for Mercedes. The first thing he did was give me a key to his flat. He lives in a ridiculously central location with hundreds of bars, cafes and clubs in the area. He likes to go out for a couple beers every night. I was supposed to be here for three nights but I have already been here for 4 and I am staying 4 more for logistical purposes. I need to stay in Istanbul until Saturday and he is kind enough to host me until Friday–so I will either need to find another host for Friday night or get a hotel for one night.

In return for their hospitality you do not give your hosts money though you could throw in on something like food. But maybe you will buy them dinner or drinks at the bar as a thank you or cook dinner one night (maybe a traditional dish from your country;hotdogs and beans for me woot). My current host loves Starbucks so I will probably buy him a 25 dollar gift card to Starbucks or something like that before I leave

All the hosts are different and a lot depends on how busy they are. However, there is another really cool aspect to couchsurfing. That is the events. Any member of the site can set up an event at any time and people can sign up if they would like to attend whether it be people who live in the area or travelers in town. While in Los Angeles I tried to attend a weekly Sunday bar hop at least twice a month. But now while traveling I can look at the events going on where I am and I have a place to go meet people. In London I went to a picnic in a park where about 30 people attended; a mix of travelers and Londoners. I also went to a picnic in a park in Istanbul where a similar number attended with a similar mix. On Wednesday I went to a bar hop in Istanbul where CS had the whole top floor of a bar (most the bars/clubs here have multiple levels) and well over 50 people came. Especially in a place like Istanbul it is really cool to attend the meetings because it puts you in a place where almost everybody there speaks English and they are full of interesting people.

Istanbul is a very very active city. I was scheduled to leave to Izmir by bus (about 12 hours away) yesterday but I asked my host if I could stay for one more night because I was supposed to go to an island for the day with some other travelers I met at the meetings. However, I got waaay too drunk last night and did not make it lol. Anyway, there is another event starting on Saturday where people are going camping for a few nights about three hours away from Istanbul. It sounds like a lot of fun and I want to go, but if I went to Izmir I wouldn’t be back in time–So that is why I am going to stay in Istanbul for the rest of the week, so I can go camping on Saturday. So far there is about 20 people signed up for the event and they have done the same trip the past two years. Should be a lot of fun and I’ll meet some fellow travelers, people from Turkey who may either host me or meet me for drinks when I arrive to their town later in my trip or just make new friends and enjoy the experience of bringing so many cultures together–which is really what couchsurfing is all about

This poker article was (re)published on JackTenOffsuit.com and the original author(s) retain all rights.

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I began playing poker how I imagine most people do; drinking beer with friends. I quickly started to take an interest in the game and read a few books. Once my dad saw I was reading and putting the effort in to learn he had confidence that I would become a profitable player and became my biggest supporter. As I gained experience and an understanding of different concepts my results improved and I started to become profitable

I have never had much money to play cards and bankroll management is just as important to your game as the results on the table. Like anything else in life it takes money to make money. Once I do get a little bit of a roll going I usually spend it on snowboarding or travel.

My biggest win before 2009 came at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I went to Vegas with a few friends for the weekend and then stayed for the rest of the week by myself. On my last day there I decided to play a $330 guy in tournament at Caesars. I had played the same daily tournament earlier in the week with a smaller buy in and bubbled when my AK lost to AJ os rivering a flush. The tournament had 72 players if I recall correctly and I made it to the final 3. At that point it was a crap shoot with ridiculous blinds and the other 2 players wanted to chop. I was short stacked and they agreed to and even chop for 4,771 each  which ended up being roughly my profit for my stay and a new bankroll was born. Until I went to lunch with my friend a couple days after returning to LA that is. He was going to Israel for a wedding the next week and I still had 5 weeks off of school so what to do was obvious. I bought my flight that day and was in Israel shortly there after.

I paid so much for my flight that there was no way I was only staying in Israel the 10 days like my friend. So I got dropped off at the bus station in Jerusalem and went off on my own for a few weeks. It was intimidating to be alone in a foreign country for the first time but those fears quickly dissipated and my confidence grew. I took a bus to Eilat, Israel and crossed into Jordan to go see Petra. I do not know that anywhere in the world exist as great of Petra, it is by far the most amazing place I have ever been. I then returned into Israel and then crossed into Egypt where I traveled for a couple weeks highlighted by sailing the Nile for 5 nights on a felucca and being invited to a Nubian wedding along the way.

Then I returned home, broke (though I now have far superior money management while traveling and that trip taught me a lot).

I am always broke, you get use to it. So maybe under that context it is believable that two of my better poker runs both  began with 5 dollars. Believe it or not, it is true

A couple summers back I was at my friend’s house with three other people and they wanted to play a little 5 dollar game for fun. I had no money on me and was not smoking at the time. My friend Jeremy told me if I would hit a blunt he would give me 5 dollars and we could play, so I did, and I won 20 dollars. That night we went to a home game in Northridge, CA with a 20 dollar buy in and 27 players. The top three paid and I took first place. I forget how much it was for, but it was around 350 dollars. From there I went to the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles and played low stakes cash games all summer long 5-6 days a week with Jeremy minus a couple trips to Vegas.

When school started up again I couldn’t play as much and decided to put what I had left online. I had absolutely no bankroll management for tournaments, played way too big and lost it all pretty quickly.

I determined I didn’t care for online poker as I continued to put on 50 bucks here and there and lose it in one or two multi table tournaments rather quickly.

Then one day I had no money online and was watching team pokerstars pro Andre Akkari. A railbird asked him the question “If I have 100 dollars what tournament should I play” and he responded “play $1 tournaments, you should have at least 100/1” and right there it clicked. I have since realized that this is easy information to attain on any poker forum but for me that is when it clicked. I right there decided I was going to deposit 1,000 dollars and play using this method.

My results flourished as I pretty quickly turned my 1,000 into 7,000 playing mostly $12 180 person turbo sit and go’s on Poker Stars.

Anybody who plays poker knows it is an extremely stressful and frustrating game. I don’t think anybody on the outside can realize how brutal this game is and the ups and downs of your roll as you go through swings. About 18 months prior my dad was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and his illness was weighing very heavily on me. I was stressed out. The compounded frustrations of taking beats everyday playing cards did not help and I began to hate the game and become irritable and moody even though my downswing wasn’t all that terrible. I began to play on tilt not giving a fuck and playing over my bankroll, my discipline which previously led to solid results was gone. At this point I thought it was best to take a step back from the game and cashed out. Shortly thereafter I had the urge to play and thought I could take the beats and be stable enough to not let it get to me but that was not the case. I continued to play poorly and allow the game to make me irritable and moody. So I decided to stop playing until after my dad passed and cashed out up a few thousand on pokerstars overall.

I still loved poker and had the desire to play. I told my dad many times that after he was gone I was going to get back into playing. He was my biggest supporter and had full confidence that I could succeed at poker. While my dad was in hospice Jeremy transferred me a dollar here and there to play 10 cent tournaments just to give myself something to do when I came home at night.

After my dad passed on December 14th Jeremy gave me 50 dollars and said to mess around to get my mind off stuff. His father had also passed away from lung cancer when he was 16 so he knows how difficult losing a parent can be first hand. It was way too soon and I blew the 50 bucks pretty quick.  I planned to eventually put on another thousand or two when I thought the time was right and I thought I was able to get back to playing solid disciplined poker.

Then on January 4th Jeremy transferred me another 5 dollars to screw around with. I hung around for a little while and had it up to 15 dollars and then back down. I bought into a $2.20 180 man turbo leaving me with $1.18 in my account and took 2nd place for 72 dollars. From there I built my roll up to 1,036 dollars playing mostly 2.20 turbos and I knew the sky was the limit from there.

I was still stressed, but now over money. I had been planning a world trip and a few thousand dollars from poker would help immensely. I had a dream trip in mind. Then suddenly the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders.

On Sunday March 8th I played the $11 200k guarantee. 29,999 players entered. I doubled up the very first hand of the tournament with AA vs KK and it was destiny from there. I went on to take 3rd place for 15,000 dollars. My turbo experience and ability to play with big blinds is what helped me succeed most in the 200k. The blinds rose every 10 minutes and it played like a giant turbo. Obviously you have to have some luck on your side to make it that deep in a field that size but I played with supreme confidence. I told myself over and over that I was going to win it when there was still thousands of players left, “why not me?”. I am also confident at a poker table but I felt differently that entire tournament for some reason. Maybe something can and should be learned from that and that is how one should always feel. The power of positive thinking!!

It was a great victory that gives me a bankroll which makes playing a helluva lot easier.  I don’t know what will happen for me in the future with poker but I do know I have a love for the game and a desire to improve. I will continue to play and give it my best shot. I have full confidence that if I continue to play with a disciplined bankroll and keep focused the sky is the limit. Equally important the bulk of the win is going to send me around the world and I’m going to experience the trip of my dreams

During my travels the ability to play cards regularly will be limited but I hope to play as much as possible. I am going to look into getting a room in certain places and try to grind online for a few weeks or a month. The first potential destination for this is Bulgaria. There is a college town called “Plodiv” which is the 2nd biggest city in Bulgaria that has sparked my interest. If I like it there I will see about making a temporary stop and giving it a go. We shall see what the future holds for me

I am real excited for how well cards have gone for me since returning to playing after my Dad’s passing. After taking 3rd in the Sunday 200k all I wanted to do was call him and tell him the news. He would have been so proud of me. When I called Jeremy (who now lives in Vegas) from the bar that night to tell him how I wished I could tell my dad, he said that is the first thing he thought when he watched me make the final table. Then he said “but he knew it was coming, we all did”. I like to think that is true, my dad knew it was coming, from the time I picked up that first poker book

I play on Pokerstars as Ubermensch84

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I do have ideas of where I would like to go in general and goals I would like to accomplish. They may not be the typical goals of getting a promotion at work or buying a new car, but I assure you that conquering your dreams to see the world and executing a journey of such magnitude will rival almost any other accomplishment in life. My trip will begin in London for four nights and then I fly to Istanbul. That much I know and the plan ends there. I do have future ideas as I’ve dreamed of this trip for some time. I have debated the pros and cons of sharing them with you. I may come up short of my dream, but that is not so much a negative as nobody will ever be able to say that I didn’t give it my best shot. Most people don’t even try! Besides, no matter the length of my journey and how far I make it there is no denying that the experience that lays ahead for me will be a positive one. The only real negative of sharing is that I don’t want to have a set plan. I want the freedom to go where I want, when I want. If I love a city I may want to stay a little longer. If I hear great things about a neighboring country I hadn’t intended on going to then I would like to go there; Just like that, Go!! But, what I’ll do is make it fun and give the master outline I have in my head and we will see how much it changes along the way. Maybe at some point in the middle we can look back and realize this rough outline meant absolutely nothing. Who knows, but it will give you an idea of what kind of trip I have in mind regardless of how close the end result is.

My trip starts in London for four nights followed by Istanbul, that much I know. I have heard the greatest things about Istanbul and Turkey in general. Everybody I have spoken to about Turkey who has been raves about it. Seasoned travelers who I tell about my trip focus in on Turkey. After Istanbul I plan to travel around Turkey for roughly a month making a circle and bringing me back to Istanbul. From there I will travel North to Bulgaria. In Bulgaria I hope to play some poker (poker will be the topic of my next writing). I will continue North to Romania and Hungary for the summer. Then into Slovakia and Czech Republic. Timed just right I will arrive in Germany for Oktoberfest. From there I will carry on to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, then enter Russia via St Petersburg and head down to Moscow.

In my head I see Moscow as the halfway point of my trip. It is the divide between East and West and the departure point for a journey that I see as one of the highlights of my trip. That is to take the Trans Siberian Express across Russia (and Siberia) to Beijing via Mongolia. Once in China I would like to follow the coast down South going to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau. (If poker treats me well I would love to go to South Korea and/or Japan from China). From China I will enter Vietnam and traverse over towards Thailand going to Laos and Cambodia on the way. From here Malaysia and Singapore are viable options. However, the greatest option of all may very well be to fly from Bangkok to Kathmandu, Nepal to embark on a tea house trek. I see no better way to end my trip other than having no end at all

There are tons of other options and possibilities for the above that I have already thought over. Wouldn’t it be amazing to go to Tibet? How about running of the bulls in Spain or beer tasting at a monastery in Belgium? Beaches of Croatia? That doesn’t account for the endless paths and forks in the road yet to be offered along the way.

I have always dreamed of backpacking the world but I never really thought it would happen. My brother traveled for five years backpacking and living abroad and he is my greatest inspiration. I have always been envious of all the places he has been and amazing experiences he must have had.

Over the past two years I dedicated my life to my father while he was ill. He was my greatest friend and I spent almost every day with him. I cancelled a trip last summer to Turkey and Greece to stay with him, with absolutely no regrets. My dad never held me back at any point in life and offered me the ultimate freedom, but I would never ever leave him for an extended period while he was here, even when healthy. I have never felt this trip was available to me in the past, but now that my father is gone I feel no forces keeping me here in LA. My dad knew about my trip and I think he was more excited about it than me. This trip will be dedicated to his memory

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