In DC I usually go out in the U Street area. It has a good mix of slutty girls, pseudo-hipsters, and Ethiopians, without too much of the late-night thuggish ruggish bone element a few blocks away in Adams Morgan (even if it didn’t I’d still pass because of the general sloppiness in the women that party there).

Recently I was at the apartment of a friend of a friend, located only one block away from my favorite spot in U Street. It was small but nice, with a little bar, a large bathroom that would make for airy dumps, and a view from the living room of street action below. I went home that night and fantasized about having my own apartment in that area, and how much better my life would be. I would get more one-night stands due to better logistics. I could cook for women and romance them in my bedroom. I could maintain normal relationships. Even with my current income I could rent that apartment without having to eat cans of beans more than twice a week.

Then I asked myself, “What girl have you met in DC that you would be eager to bring to your new pleasure palace?” Up to that point every DC girl I had banged recently with at their place, in a car, on a lady friend’s couch, or in a park next to American University. My question was tough. There was that young Italian girl I saw briefly but we were more fuck buddies than a couple. The Spaniard was just my type but she didn’t stay in the city for long. All the others were cheap thrills without long-term potential. The more I thought about it the more I realized that there is no girl living in DC who I would want bring over to my pad, spend time with them, and then clean up afterward. This is in addition to overpaying for DC rent (compared to other cities, anyway).

A couple days later I spent time with an old friend. He asked me what work I needed to do that required me to stay in the area. I had no answer. “It seems like you already got your dose of family and friends,” he said, “and now it’s time to hit the road again.” I had only been back for three months, but he was right. Besides a handful of people, there is nothing holding me here (all my hobbies and work can travel with me). During the summer I was using the excuse of sleeping with random girls to delay having to make a real decision of what to do next.

After talking to my friend I got home at 6am and stayed up for another hour making a list of things I have to do before leaving again. I accepted that nothing here captures my imagination, or even motivates me to work hard or be a better man. There is no comfort in the growth zone, and there is no growth sleeping with another American slut. It’s a waste of my prime.

I finally made a choice, selecting a starting country using a very similar process that Eddie Murphy used in Coming To America. I plan to be there early January. I need two months to prepare and then another month to get through the holidays. I’m already starting to experience the feelings of excitement and fear that came before my previous trips—two emotions that disappear within the first week in my new home as I learn how to adapt and carve out a routine that keeps me sane and healthy.

I’ve always thought I’d choose the lifestyle I’d want to live, yet for some reason I feel like it has chosen me instead.

The next interview is with a guy who needs to either start a blog or write a book. He has dropped the most amount of travel and game knowledge that is not only accurate but also fun to read, so it’s no coincidence he has the highest reputation count of everyone on the forum (even higher than me). He’s the only guy I haven’t met recently whose material I’ve successfully integrated into my own game.

MiXXmaster’s most recent contribution was a field report on Solvenia (you can see from the replies how eagerly forum members await his reports). You’ll find his best advice in threads about Brazil and Colombia.

On to the interview…

1. Can you give us a little background on your age and the type of environment you grew up in? What are some things that influenced you earlier in life that put you into the position you are in now?

I’m 35. I grew up in very tough streets of Brooklyn, New York to humble and hard-working class parents. I was never the most popular kid in school, and especially my neighborhood since my parents did not allow me to integrate with the riff-raff that plagued my streets. I got into a lot of fist fights as a kid and a teenager, mainly because I was different, and was not part of the lower-class, Puerto Rican/Dominican Hispanic community.

Both my parents worked, and did not live off the welfare system like the rest of the poor Spanish kids in my neighborhood. I got good grades in school; the other kids envied me and called me names all the time. I was probably one of the few kids whose parents were not on welfare, and who had a good family without drama or a brother in jail, or a mother with a new boyfriend every other week.

What influenced me the most to succeed in life was the day I was jumped by eight neighborhood kids. They beat me pretty bad with their steel baseball bats, bicycle chains, and Timberland combat boots. I was 12 at the time, and I remember that beating ’til this very day. They beat me senseless. Sure, I got in a few solid punches of my own, but sadly, it was not enough. I had not done anything to them, but just because I was not part of the street gang and aimless lifestyle they had, or who knows, maybe they were just bored, I was always a target of violence. I guess there is nothing better to keep you humble in life than to get punched in the face and feel real pain.

As the blood fell from my eyes, I knew that this is not the life I wanted, and that the only way out was to educate myself as much as I could so that one day I would never have to return to the ghettos of Brooklyn, NY. I could have done like my cousin, who got fed up with the daily fights, got a gun, and shot 3 kids dead—he is still doing life in prison after 20 years of being locked up. That’s not what I wanted either.

Among all of this mayhem, there was a neighborhood girl……yes, a girl that gave me butterflies all over my stomach. Her name was Johanna (she looked like Pebbles, the late 80′s pop singer). Man she was beautiful, and I never knew just how much she liked me. I probably regret never having the guts to talk to her, and rumor was she liked me very much and always asked about me secretly. One day, many years later, in my early 20s, I found out my then best friend banged her. It broke my heart to hear that my best friend banged my childhood crush, and I never told him.

2. Talk about your ideal girl. What does she look like? Where is she from? What’s her personality like?

Wow—that’s a tough question. I’ve had so many women in my life, I am not sure there is such a girl. I am attracted to intellectual/executive women, but those women come with a hefty price tag—marriage. I don’t believe in marriage. Whenever there is free choice to walk away, it somehow makes being with somebody fun. You are not pressured or legally bound to stay, and that’s what marriage is to me; a legal contract designed to punish a man for not being happy down the road with the woman he chose.

If I want straight ‘no-strings attached’ sex, I go for Latin women. They are hot in bed and thirsty for sex as much as men. However, as a girlfriend and someone I just want to do anything with, and maybe spend Christmas morning opening presents with, I like women that are mentally a challenge to me (otherwise I get bored very quick). A woman with a playful charm, and witty personality is a winner to me.

3. What type of game do you run? How does your typical bang go down? How do you change your game when you’re abroad versus in your home country? How do foreign girls and American girls differ?

My game is usually 75% playful, 20% funny, and 5% cocky. I usually run street game. Street game is just about anywhere women can be found—of course to mix it up, I often to clubs, but only before 1:00am—after that, its a waste of time to be at a club, and not in a cozy, private apartment of a woman you are seducing.

I typically approach women in a very playful manner, kind of like the innocence of a kid inviting her to play outside her grown-up world. I observe carefully how she reacts to this approach, and can usually tell what outcome I will have if she plays along, and how she plays along. I typically bang women on the 3rd date, but wait no more than 5 dates before completely going aloof on her, or dropping her completely and moving on to the next one.

When I am abroad, I typically get as much information about the culture as possible, learn some friendly lines, and look for places to take girls away from their everyday lives. Foreign girls give me the sense that they compete for me, compared to American girls where it constantly feels like I must compete for their attention. The roles reverse in other words, and I enjoy being approached and chased when in a foreign country.

4. Describe your travel experiences and strategy. What kind of lodgings do you stay in? How do you approach integrating yourself into a new culture with regard to food, language, local customs, etc.? What do you fill your days with? Do you have a basic strategy for meeting women while you travel?

I usually travel to private apartments for the convenience of being able to integrate with local people faster than in hotels packed with tourist or traveling businessmen. Most women hate the stigma associated with going to see a foreigner in a hotel. The apartment gives them the same feel they’d have with a local guy. As far as integrating with culture, I usually start querying Facebook contacts, and making new friends and asking about it. Some even turn into lays when I arrive.

5. How do you make a living? How did you get into it? What are some skills you had to learn?

I work in the film industry as a film scorer. I produce music for commercials, TV shows, movies and Latin soap operas worldwide. I started this field working as a foot courier at Unitel Video in New York when I was 14. Mariah Carey came in one day to review her video “Dream Lover,” one of her very first songs produced by Tommy Mottola. I then met a comedian popular in the 90s named Sinbad, and sat down to edit a Showtime special he was doing. I sat through the editing session, and I knew it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life, especially since I got to work with stars and celebrities. They’re now my clients.

Aside from the creative side, I had to learn many skills, including how to showcase and sell my work (a.k.a marketing guru). I also play musical instruments.

6. What are your future goals? How do you see your life playing out in the next 10-20 years?

As I approach 40, I think about winding down a bit—working less, and doing more with my life. I never married or had kids, but I think my current set-up is perfect to travel the world worry-free. I want to experience cultures and find a place to live where I will enjoy a slower paced lifestyle, while still chasing local women.

Twenty years from now? I will just be happy to be healthy like a race horse. I cannot ask for much—I lost my father to a car accident—so you never know what curve ball life will throw at you. I’ll enjoy what life has been able to give me short-term: physical health and financial health too.

7. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far in life?

Never be afraid to walk away from anything, and keep moving. Don’t get pinned down by staying still for a long period of time, and don’t be afraid to move on to next challenge. Things always work out.

MiXXmaster is an active member of the travel forum. Read other lifestyle interviews here.

There are a few guys on the forum who are either living the dream or close to it: independently mobile while banging foreign beauties. This week I’ll share interviews with two of those men (in the future I’ll be putting up more).

Today’s interview is with Naughty Nomad (a guy who raw dogged an HIV-infected African girl). Even though he’s in his early 20s, he has collected more flags than most men will get in their lifetimes. Without further ado…

1. Can you give us a little background on your age and the type of environment you grew up in? What are some things that influenced you earlier in life that put you into the position you are in now?

I’m coming on 24 years old and just finished university (in stereotypical Irish fashion the family business is in pubs). I was fortunate enough to have a liberal upbringing as my parents are entrepreneurial hippies who love to travel and smoke weed. Since I was a little kid I always dreamed about exploring the world and simply refuse to accept alternative conventions. Luckily, I have friends and family of a similar mindset. I now work my life around travel.

2. Talk about your ideal girl. What does she look like? Where is she from? What’s her personality like?

I’ve thought a lot about this. She wouldn’t be Irish that’s for sure! You got to diversify the gene pool.

With looks I’m very particular. She would have to be very exotic, the kind of women who enters a room and renders other men dumb; jaws on the floor hot. I prefer sallow skin, jet black hair, very slim, a low upper arm circumference, good hip-to-waist ratio, a strong jaw line and big eyes—I told you I was particular. Certain ethnic groups fit the bill – Arabic, Eastern Slavic (preferably Ukrainian), Amharic (Ethiopian), Indian, Armenian & Latin girls.

With personality I guess the main thing is she can mingle with friends and family effortlessly. That requires a girl who’s relaxed and confident with a good sense of humour. This needs to be balanced with someone who is passionate, sensual and affectionate. Who best fits the bill in this regard? In my experience I would say Filipinas. There’s a reason they’re rumoured to make the best wives.

So to answer your question, my ideal women would have the personality of a Filipina and be mixed race Ukrainian/Ethiopian. That’s why they call them ideals right? Why stop there? I could become a Muslim and get four wives – a Malaysian, a Saudi, an Ethiopian and a Slavic Azerbaijani—now that’s ideal.

In reality, I’ll probably fuck half the planet trying to my “ideal women,” reach 50, give up and marry a Balinese beauty queen in her 20s. Sigh.

3. What type of game do you run? How does your typical bang go down? How do you change your game when you’re abroad versus in your home country? How do foreign girls and Western girls differ?

I peacock quite a bit and it works wonders—sombreros, jaunty summer hats and berets often make up my attire. I get approached quite a fair bit as a result. I’m also quite direct, but without being needy; kind of take it or leave it approach. Consequently, 90% of the women I sleep with is within 7 hours of knowing them. I have the same pick-up line for every girl I meet… “Where are you from?” Generally, I’ll have been to their country or can speak a few words of their language. This really gets the ball rolling. I DHV [demonstrate higher value] with a few travel stories, make a few jokes and try to get them jealous by talking to other girls. Generally, if I manage to kiss, there is a high probability of a fuck. I like to use some NLP stuff to get girls horny as hell soon in the interaction and then I back off, ignoring them for ages—it’s great fun! My mid and end game is solid, provided the logistics are favourable.

My game plan changes massively depending on the region. In Eastern Europe I run a lot of internet game and arrange dates before I go over. I’ve hooked up with quite a few girls this way, even banged a model or two. In Asia, I use day game and give out my number in shopping centers. In Africa, I just show up! Haha. Western girls are different, as direct game isn’t as effective and a lot of BS is required. Outside my country, the Irish card works wonders, especially with Americans. In Ireland, I generally get lazy, save my cash and just find an Asian or African fuckbuddy for a few weeks at a time.

4. Describe your travel experiences and strategy. What kind of lodgings do you stay in? How do you approach integrating yourself into a new culture with regard to food, language, local customs, etc.? What do you fill your days with? Do you have a basic strategy for meeting women while you travel?

I have a serious hard-on for dangerous places. I’ve been to over 50 countries, including Antarctica and a few self proclaimed republics. I try to travel 3 months in the summer and 1 month in the winter, with a few side trips in between. I generally stay in cheap places as I usually travel for long periods of time. I’ve couch surfed a few times—it’s a fantastic way to meet new friends and get into local social circles. I love mingling with natives as much as possible and usually take a language course before I travel. I’d like to think I’m pretty adaptable—I’ll eat, drink and wear pretty much anything.

My strategy for meeting women is documented above but I would add that having a local SIM card is crucial, as well as knowing a good place to take a girl on a date and a potential sex location afterwards. I spend my days doing the usual tourist stuff, but usually stoned. In some places, I just go nuts and can have up to three dates a day, that keeps me pretty busy!

5. How do you make a living? How did you get into it? What are some skills you had to learn?

I own a small printing and web/graphic design company with an office in my hometown. It’s a simple set-up, but it makes money. On weekends, I’m a DJ and a freelance croupier. I’m also in a band and have a small recording studio that sporadically gets business. My income is irregular but is flexible enough to allow me to travel. I’m by no means rich, but when you’re your own boss you can do whatever the fuck you want, when you want.

6. What are your future goals? How do you see your life playing out in the next 10-20 years?

By 35-40, I want to have visited every single country in the world! I’m currently training for my microlight (ultra-light aircraft) license and plan to circumnavigate the globe by the same time frame. I’m also investigating opening a few hostels abroad in the near future; a great way to finance living abroad, meet women and gain fluency in a language. We shall see.. for now the world is my oyster! I would also like to see the blog becoming more popular, it’s very enjoyable sharing one’s experiences and getting into the whole blogger buzz. It’s only a few months up and things are going great.

7. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far in life?

There are no absolutes and life is fucking short. Everything is relative, especially with women. As soon as you step outside your own country and start sniffing round, you come to realise the grass is definitely greener; beautiful women are very curious to meet foreign men and are in abundance. Who are we not to indulge?

Naughty Nomad’s blog has numerous travel guides for Asian and European countries, with a main focus on girls and drugs. Read other lifestyle interviews here.

1. “Your wife has got to understand that no matter how much you love her, you’re a hunter, and your hunting is no threat to her. But no wife will ever understand that. No, no woman will ever understand her man.”
—The Book Of Laughter & Forgetting by Milan Kundera

2. “Don’t you see that a man’s whole personality is bound up with his income? His personality is his income. How can you be attractive to a girl when you’ve got not money? You can’t wear decent clothes, you can’t take her out to dinner or to the theatre or away for weekends, you can’t carry a cheery, interesting atmosphere with you. And it’s rot to say that kind of thing doesn’t matter. It does.”
—Keep The Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

3. “I am afriad that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.”
—The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

4. “The curious little talent that I happen to possess—the ability to hypnotize a woman with words—very seldom lets me down. It is not, of course, done only with words. The words themselves, the innocuous, superficial words, are spoken only by the mouth, whereas the real message, the improper and exciting promise, comes from all the limbs and organs of the body, and is transmitted through the eyes. More than that I cannot honestly tell you about how it is done. The point is that it works. It works like cantharides. I believe that I could sit down opposite the Pope’s wife, if he had one, and within fifteen minutes, were I to try hard enough, she would be leaning toward me over the table with her lips apart and her eyes glazed with desire. It is a minor talent, not a great one, but I am nonetheless thankful to have had it bestowed upon me, and I have done my best at all times to see that it has not been wasted.”
—The Visitor by Roald Dahl

5. “At the time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowering overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it. I would have waited for birds to fly by or clouds to mingle, just as here I waited to see my lawyer’s ties and just as, in another world, I used to wait patiently until Saturday to hold Marie’s body in my arms. Now, as I think back on it, I wasn’t in a hollow tree trunk. There were others worse off than me. Anyway, it is one of Maman’s ideas, and she often repeated it, that after a while you could get used to anything.”
—The Stranger by Albert Camus

6. “Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.”
—Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

7. “It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.”
—Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

8. “I am, as you may have gathered, a fairly resilient fellow. I explode when provoked, but I never brood about it afterwards. I scrub it out. There’s always another day. What’s more, nothing stimulates my mind so much as a whopping disaster. In the aftermath, in that period of deadly calm and absolute silence that follows the tempest, my brain becomes exceedingly active. As I sat drinking my whiskey during that terrible evening amidst the ruins, I was already beginning to ponder and plan my future all over again.”
—My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl

9. “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an Alp on the brains of the living.”
—Karl Marx

10. “The only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.”
—The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

11. “And beneath his pessimism, his bleak conviction that all the machinery was rigged against him, at the bottom of his soul was a faith that he was going to outwit it, that by carefully watching the signs he was going to know when to dodge and be spared. It was fatalism with a loophole, and all you had to do to make it work was never miss a sign. Survival by coordination, as it were. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside. Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.”
—The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson

12. “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
—The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

13. “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
—Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This is a guest post from respected forum contributor kindredspirit.

Famous explorers were worshipped as fearless adventurers who roamed the world in search of distant lands, exotic spices, and golden treasures that strengthened empires. Upon their return home from successful voyages, grand feasts were thrown in their honor by the crown. They kept women in every port and lived life to the fullest, and returned home to enjoy the warm, missed embrace of the women they were truly in love with. They could once again spend time with their children and friends, regaling them with stories of new civilizations and lands. These men of the sea would receive the rest, relaxation, and comforts of home needed to nourish their weary bodies and souls.

When the domesticity of home became suffocating and the pull of the unknown frontier started tugging at their heart strings (and loins) once more, they would raise the sails for a whole new voyage filled with freedom, sex, adventure, and discovery. This sailor-explorer lifestyle modified for modern times is the best model I have found to cure the following age-long dilemma of men throughout the world:

How to balance the cozy, warm security of being in a committed relationship with the recurring need for new sexual conquests and romantic excitement? How to balance the peace, tranquility and domestic comforts offered by home with the yearning to explore new lands, meet new people, and embrace new opportunities?

I believe the key to such balanced happiness is to find the right woman to settle down with who can understand this lifestyle and give you the freedom you need when you need it. It can work if you are determined enough, worldly enough, and yes, financially well-off enough. Here’s a few upsides to this way of life:

1. You are not shitting where you eat. You are faithful to your woman within the national boundary of the country in which you reside.

2. You are not keeping long-term mistresses nearby. The negative energy and drama caused by the daily deception needed to acquire and maintain mistresses would likely kill your primary relationship. (See Tiger Woods for how things can spiral out of control.)

3. You and your primary woman will miss each other with the time spent away from one another. Any lack of longing will let you know that the relationship you have with one another is valueless.

4. Even with children, this model allows the two parent family structure to remain intact while allowing you to get release from the daily grind of stifling domestic boredom or the semi-castrating feeling of being seen as an asexual “daddy.”

5. Living abroad alone in a new country with the freedom to do what your heart desires makes one feel like a man. Taking risks, exploring new lands, conquering new women, meeting new people, and embracing new opportunities is what we were born to do and allows us to truly feel alive.

6. The time spent alone on the road allows you to better appreciate what you already have: a woman who loves you, children who care for you, and all the other comforts of family life without having to throw it all away just to be single. This is especially important for warding off the cynicism and jadedness towards women that can arise when one spends all of his time as a lone wolf constantly hunting for new pussy. For those times you do feel lonely or get rejected, the knowledge of having your primary relationship back home will sustain you and give you strength.

Sometimes, all a man wants is to experience the freedom of being single again, to have the ability to hunt freely without looking over his shoulders. For many men in their 30s and 40s, the actual fucking is not all that important as is the delight of seduction and conquest.

7. You are not proposing something weird that most women would reject, such as becoming swingers, proclaiming yourself to be polyamorous, or proposing an open relationship.

8. Three to four months by yourself in a new country can teach you a lot about how the world works, make you more confident and independent, and open new doors. Think of it as the study abroad experience you might have never had, except now with the wisdom and resources to do the things you could never do in your awkward youth.

Of course there are some downsides to this model as well:

1. It costs a lot money, especially if your primary stint takes several months.

2. A woman can generally feel when you’re straying, and she may not remain faithful if you’re away for too long. Therefore the relationship has to be something you’re willing to lose, but this is how men should approach every relationship anyway. It may hurt like hell, but you have to be willing to cut her off from your life and she has to know that you are capable of this. Understand, though, that having a child with your primary woman will make it less likely that she abandons the relationship due to your prolonged absence.

3. It may become difficult to justify spending 3-4 months every year in the capitals of the world for “business.” The ideal woman back home should have something akin to the following attitude: “Do what you need to do. I don’t really want to know all the details. I am just happy you come back home to me a better man.”

4. You may fall in love with a newer, younger, hotter—maybe even better—woman. By this time you will hopefully know what “better” really means and be wiser to the ebbs and flows of a new relationship (hot in the beginning, warm in the middle, with a fast drop off after 3-4 years once the sex gets old).

In other words, just because you’re fucking your new foreign girl night and day does not necessarily mean she is the right woman for you. However, this admittedly strays a bit too close to dangerous territory as relationships with women abroad that go beyond largely sexual, hormonal-driven flings may have a significant effect on how you view your primary home relationship.

5. Your job may not be location-independent. But if it is not, you can work towards making it happen.

6. With the internet, any new women you meet in these distant lands may want to keep in touch with you when you go back home. If this becomes daily contact in the form of e-mail, chat, and phone calls, you would be in spiritual violation of number two above (not shitting where you eat). I believe it would be important for you to have your flings and leave them as just that—romantic, passion-filled affairs that are in your past. Be the good lover or boyfriend when you are back home.

7. If you have a family, three to four months is a long time to spend away from them. Children need a steady father-figure in their lives. Though on the bright side, when you do return home, I believe the time spent away will make you appreciate your children a lot more.

One possible idea is to have a “family-oriented location” where you, your primary woman, and children can also spend time abroad together exploring and enjoying a new land. The family-oriented locale would serve as a complement to your “single-man” oriented international locales. This way, your family would not feel like they are constantly being left behind while you go on foreign adventures alone. To a certain degree they too can now enjoy the international lifestyle you have adopted.

8. You don’t want to have to start all over again with new friends, a new place, and new women every single time you hit the road. It may be worth finding a few favorite places and building up a network in each location so that you can re-visit them with greater ease and convenience. People feel psychologically reassured by routine and familiarity. You don’t want your life to be perpetual, jet-lagged chaos.

With a little tweaking, a model of old can serve as the lifestyle foundation for men of our generation. While it’s not easy to accomplish, the benefits it offers would make it far more superior than the stressful and unfulfilling lives that many men lead today.

My master plan was to live in Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina for six months each, and then evaluate which was best to live in for extended periods of time. Here are the total lengths of time I stayed in each country during my last trip:

Colombia: Six months
Brazil: Five and a half months
Argentina: One and a half months

I left Brazil a little early because of when my monthly lease in Rio ended (I didn’t have the will to mill around in hostels for two weeks).

Argentina was a different story. You know those medical experiments that end early because one condition far outperformed another? If I remember correctly they did this with an HIV study in Africa where they tested if circumcision led to lower infection rates. It proved to be such a strong benefit that they ended the experiment early to tell the uncut guys to immediately get cut. Well that’s why I left Argentina so soon—the little data I had in my hands told me that it wasn’t a place that would have brought me more happiness than Colombia or Brazil.

That said, here is my evaluation of what it’s like to live in all three countries, along with my declaration of the best.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Colombia: While there is a police presence, you can go all day without seeing a single squad car. Sometimes you only see cops on dinky motorcycles that look like dirt bikes. There is no heavy hand of the law here.

Brazil: Maybe only a decade behind the U.S. in terms of the Big Brother factor. The police are heavily armed, well financed (from an equipment standpoint), and make frequent stops. There are speed cameras and sobriety checkpoints. You don’t go long without seeing a cop car on the street. While the laws are more lax than in the U.S., Brazil is not a good place to openly fuck around. Even though Western media loves to portray favelas as lawless, police are generally on top of their shit outside of them.

Argentina: Police are positioned in street corners within rich areas of big cities. They don’t seem particularly well-trained or competent, probably because the country has been spared from narco-wars. It’s unlikely you’ll be bothered here.

Advantage: Argentina

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Colombia: Local buses are run by private companies. While cheap, the lines are confusing and the buses old and very uncomfortable. The routes are not always logical and transfers are commonly needed. Medellin’s metro line though is clean, safe, and very reliable, but often crowded. The one good thing about the buses is that they come very frequently and you can flag them down anywhere along the route.

Brazil: Buses here are slow, lumbering beasts, the big versions you see in American cities. They come often and are reliable but you generally have to walk to a designated stop instead of being able to stick your hand out wherever you please. They aren’t that cheap, starting at about 2.20 R$ for a single trip.

Argentina: They have big buses like in Brazil but are almost impossible to use without insider knowledge because of nondescript signage. In Argentina you’ll only see something like “H7,” while in the other countries they’ll be a placard detailing a dozen or so stops.

Advantage: Colombia

SUPERMARKET FOOD

Colombia: It’s hard to find lemons or lunch meats in the bird family. Most sell peanut butter at inflated rates. Boneless chicken breast is usually frozen.

Brazil: Doubly hard to find lemons, and even common vegetables like broccoli and zucchini can be MIA. Peanut butter is astronomically priced. Great selection of fruits, cheeses, and lunch meats. Boneless chicken breast is usually frozen.

Argentina: Lemons are everywhere! But limes are incredibly hard to find, as is peanut butter. Poor selection of cheese, lunch meat, and fruits, but excellent choice of wines. Boneless chicken breast is refrigerated and of good quality, though much more expensive than their famed red meat.

Advantage: Brazil

RESTAURANT FOOD

Colombia: Not much selection in local fare except for dirty diners, but you’ll find many decent fusion restaurants in tourist centers, usually run by expats. I still don’t know what typifies Colombian cuisine besides stews, arepas, and fried snacks.

Brazil: Beans, rice, and meat seem to be the Brazilian staple. Local restaurants have fixed plates that will serve bland but filling meals of rice, beans, potatoes, and meat. There is more of a food tradition with dishes like feijoada and moqueca, but convenience foods like pizza and fried bread snacks are beginning to fatten the population. Upmarket restaurants put interesting spins on typical foods.

Argentina: Great value for breakfast and lunch, especially the latter where for $5 or $6 you get a tasty three-course meal with beverage. While restaurant service here is the worst, you’ll find far more creative fare with more European influence than in Brazil and Colombia. Argentina is also a better pick for the foodie who is impressed by plate presentation.

Advantage: Argentina

WOMEN

Colombia: The hardest part of getting laid in Colombia is dealing with the language barrier (you won’t meet too many girls who speak English), but if you’re conversational in Spanish and approach during the day you shouldn’t have too many issues banging cute girls. Flakiness will be your main problem.

Brazil: Brazil has proven to be a country of streaks for me and my gringo friends. You’ll bang three girls in a couple weeks then get nothing for a while. Otherwise the country is very gringo friendly and you’ll find tons of girls who speak English. The okay girls are quite easy to get in bed, but the cuter ones take more work. Towards the end of my time in Brazil I was getting sick of all the mediocre girls throwing themselves on me and having to seemingly rely on luck and the numbers game to get anywhere with the quality ones.

Argentina: These girls have a reputation for being difficult and I find that to be the case. Not only will you work your ass off to get laid, it won’t be with one of the hotties that you went there for in the first place. My second trip to Argentina I gave up on the women and found myself a Brazilian girl.

Advantage: Brazil

NIGHTLIFE

Colombia: Tables and chairs. People prefer to sit down everywhere, even in clubs, but on the plus side nightlife is concentrated in the cities so it’s easy to stumble on a variety of places that have electronic, rock, pop, or local music. Bars are a total bust in meeting people. Clubs have decent value in terms of cover charges and drinks.

Brazil: Much more Western in that people mingle. While typical bars offer tables for socializing among friends, you can find bars where there is standing and movement. Some cities have nightlife centered in specific areas, but others like Rio can be quite spread out and hard to get around. Cover charges for the high-end clubs can be astronomical.

Argentina: It has the typical bars with tables, which people start going to around midnight, and then a progressive club scene with rotating DJs develops after 2am. The nightlife is agreeable for younger kids with energy to stay up all night and dance, but for older guys over 30 it can be quite annoying to go out so late to deal with girls who aren’t even drinking anyway. A positive is that the value is very good, and you won’t pay much for cover charges and drinks.

Advantage: Brazil

COFFEE SHOPS

Colombia: There is a cafe culture with the Juan Valdez shops where you can sit with your latte and laptop for an hour or two. Ironically one of the best cafes I’ve been to in Medellin was the McCafe.

Brazil: Brazilians love their cafezinho (espresso shot), but they don’t linger. Since all coffee shops have waiters, they don’t expect you to sit down and write the next greatest American novel. For that you need to go to the mall and find a Starbucks, which is prohibitively expensive (10 R$ for a caramel frapp).

Argentina: Hands down the best coffee shop scene. Big cities have tons of pleasant cafes with wireless internet and delicious sweets. There is a lingering culture here so feel free to camp out for a couple hours.

Advantage: Argentina

SAFETY

Colombia: Safer than I was led to believe. I never had issues walking around at night even in shady areas. It’s a shame that the stereotype of the country being a warzone persists, but in a way this is good because it keeps out a lot of gringos who visit Costa Rica or Panama instead.

Brazil: Most dangerous of the three. While I’ve never been robbed in Brazil, I keep hearing stories that tell me my Brazilian-like appearance probably helped keep me safe (though don’t think Brazilians don’t get robbed). Brazil is very unforgiving for gringos who don’t have a lot of travel experience, though the most common “robbery” is getting severely overcharged by a taxi driver. I have to dedicate more energy here to staying safe than I would like.

Argentina: I’ve never heard a gringo getting mugged here—only petty theft in bus stations. Many times in Cordoba it didn’t feel like I was in South America at all.

Advantage: Argentina

FRIENDLINESS OF THE LOCALS

Colombia: Very friendly. They are much more intrigued that you’re a gringo and will always ask about where you’re from and why you’re in their country. They’re almost thankful that you’re visiting Colombia.

Brazil: It depends. I’ve met some incredibly rude and cold Brazilians, and I’ve met some who welcomed me into their home without even wondering if I could be a ax murderer or not. I would say Brazilian people are friendlier than Americans, but their friendliness is overhyped by quite a bit. A better term to describe them is warm—within a short time you’ll feel quite at ease, like you’ve known them forever.

Argentina: Outside of clubs Argentines are friendlier than Brazil, believe it or not. Even though Brazil has a more open culture to gringos, it seemed easier to make superficial friendships in Argentina with random people. I accumulated more phone numbers of both guys and girls one month in Argentina than six months in Brazil. A lot of guys though initially mistake the friendliness of Argentine women to be that they’re easy. They learn eventually.

Advantage: Undecided

TAXIS

Colombia: Taxi drivers are usually honest, and are great to practice Spanish with. All I had to do is ask “How are you today/tonight?” and we’d get into a long conversation. Towards the end of my time here I had pretty tight taxicab game, rarely getting ripped off.

Brazil: Taxis here are the worst. It’s very rare that a taxi driver, no matter how nice to me on the surface, will not try to scam me. I’ve had to argue with so many that I dreaded taking a Brazilian cab—I began taking buses everywhere instead, even late at night. While getting ripped off rarely means more than a $5 difference, it was the principality of it.

Argentina: Mostly honest, though less friendly than the Colombians.

Advantage: Colombia

MUSIC

Colombia: You got three main choices here: salsa, reggaeton, and vallenato, all of which are danceable, in addition to your normal house clubs. Plus you got Juanes, Colombia’s Michael Jackson, and Shakira, Colombia’s Shania Twain. Rock is also popular.

Brazil: Brazil has a very rich musical culture. Each state has their own flavor of music and you can live here for years until you know them all. From traditional samba to pagode and forro (I need more triangle!) to the newfangled tecno brega, music is an important part of how Brazilians connect with each other and pass the time, but most of the music is hard to dance to for the average gringo. Expensive clubs usually have Western music (fun fact: the song “Forever Young” is huge in Brazil).

Argentina: Reggaeton is slowly making its way here in addition to mainstays like cuarteto, cumbia, rock, and house. Argentines are pretty crazy about house music, but unfortunately they have very little idea how to dance to it.

Advantage: Colombia

CELL PHONE SERVICE

Colombia: Expensive and mostly reliable, though some text messages remain in the ether for hours until delivered. You have a lot of options on the street to make cheap calls from minuto celular vendors.

Brazil: Crazy expensive at more than 50 cents a minute if calling another cell phone from your own. Your only other option is Skype as they don’t have phone vendors on the street like in Colombia. Text messages sometimes get temporarily lost here too.

Argentina: About the same as Colombia, but no minuto celular vendors.

Advantage: Colombia

LANGUAGE CLASSES

Colombia: Group classes can be found at reasonable prices, from $5-10 an hour.

Brazil: Expensive as balls. Prices starts at $20 an hour for group classes if you include “enrollment” and “material” fees. I eventually found a private tutor for $35 an hour that I used for two hours a week, but I couldn’t help but feel raped. Everyone I met reminded me that I was indeed getting raped. Unfortunately Portuguese is harder to learn on your own because of a dearth of self-study materials.

Argentina: The cheapest, which is why so many gringos come here to study Spanish. You can find freelance private tutors starting at $6 an hour.

Advantage: Argentina

VALUE

Colombia: Great value that is slowly diminishing as both the economy (and peso) get stronger.

Brazil: While I was in Brazil I felt like I was paying American prices. Besides grocery store food there is very little value to be found. It was rare that I felt like I was getting a good deal on something.

Argentina: Super great value that will only get better as the peso crashes and burns due to continued government incompetence. They say the Argentine government is so corrupt because their ancestors are Italian.

Advantage: Argentina

VIBE

Colombia: Colombia is full of good-natured, curious people who want to learn about foreigners while showing the best of what their culture has to offer. While Colombians don’t go nuts like Brazilians, they’re a sensual people who are fun to pass the time with. Edgy city life keeps you engaged and interested.

Brazil: Brazilians are constantly in celebratory moods, and it seems like there is always some type of street party or event that makes for a good excuse to start drinking early in the day. There are lots of nightlife choices and daytime activities, and the locals are always ready to party and meet others. The sexual atmosphere is very favorable to visitors of both sexes.

Argentina: You’re not going to have much fun here unless you get into a social circle or have some sort of university class or job where you can make easy friends. Argentines are diehard conformists and always worried about what other people think of them, so there is not much in way of personal flair or spontaneous excitement. But once you get to know some cool people, you’ll have a good time and maybe bang a cutie or two.

Advantage: Brazil

There is no debate in my mind that the overall winner is Brazil. While it doesn’t outperform Colombia and Argentina in all categories, and is also frighteningly expensive, it’s the one place in South America that I must return to. It’s also the best option for the single man. While Colombia is a fine choice as well, I think it’s worth saving up your money for a Brazilian adventure that I guarantee will be the first of many.

While I’ve tried my best to explain Brazil’s charm in previous writings, it’s something you have to experience yourself to understand why fans like me love it so much. I remember something a man told me many years ago: “There are two types of men—those who haven’t been to Brazil, and those who are trying to go back.” Not a week goes by that I don’t fantasize about what my third visit to the country will be like.

I’m in the dumps. It started during my final days in Rio around the time of my five year blog anniversary. My Danish roommate already left for São Paulo and I was going through some drama with a girl. My subsequent travels through the state of Minas Gerais were pleasant, especially the weekend in Belo Horizonte, but I started losing motivation to do things.

I went to Córdoba, planning to stay for at least two months, but it became apparent that I wasn’t going to last. I made an honest effort on the girls for one whole week but then gave up completely, realizing that I really didn’t like them. I didn’t care for the challenge. Eventually I dated a Brazilian girl who I met through my young landlord. She tried to drag me to clubs but I resisted, saying I rather do quieter things.

My apartment didn’t have internet so I sat and watched VH1 Classic and Style & Life for over three hours a day. I followed a four-year-old season of Project Runway and also saw a gay guy beat out all the girls on Paris Hilton’s show. I didn’t want to study Spanish, didn’t want to write, didn’t want to travel, didn’t want to hit on girls, and I didn’t want to read. I forced myself to take Spanish lessons just keep myself busy, so I could say I was doing something productive.

I came back to America and it’s been fine so far. It’s great catching up with Virgle Kent, Roissy, and The Rookie, and especially fun to watch The Rookie in action. He reminds me of my younger self when I approached not just to get laid but to experiment or have a laugh. Now I just approach to get laid. It’s a job, putting in my time to get that notch.

My two books sell on their own. I’ve already put in the grunt work for a setup that is mostly passive. I’m not rolling in money, but I do make enough to live comfortably in developing countries. If I stopped being so fucking lazy I could make more, but with a good amount of cash saved up (enough for my future travel plans that I’m thinking of this winter), I can’t get excited enough to work more than I am now.

With the blog I’ve been doing the bare minimum, three posts a week. You’d be annoyed if I did less. This isn’t because I don’t have ideas, but I’m simply too lazy to develop them. I have a file with ideas so old that I don’t remember what angle I was going to take. So I delete them, a potential nugget of knowledge lost forever because I didn’t want to work for a few minutes.

I think I’m feeling down because I’ve reached my loftiest goals. I’ve shared all that I’ve wanted to share. I’ve banged the girls I’ve wanted to bang. I’ve experienced what I’ve wanted to experience. And I have enough money in my pocket that I don’t need to steal other people’s drinks anymore, no trivial accomplishment if you’ve been there. It’s true I could dig deeper, but I’ve hit the point of diminishing return in most things I’ve set out to do. You pass the peak of something and it becomes a grind, so it’s easier to repeat the process with something new. But what new worthy goal should I set out to do? Try to write for a magazine? Get a book “professionally” published? Accumulate lots of money? Aim for fame? I wish I cared more about those things.

Lately I’m having some morbid thoughts. I do a lot of healthy things so that I can live a nice long life, but now I’m questioning that. People are running marathons twice a year so they can live until 85 instead of 70. But what are you going to do after 70? Go to Europe a couple times a year? Watch more television? Unless you’re lucky like Hugh Hefner, who’s looking pretty frail these days, old age is no joy ride, regardless of how healthy you can keep yourself. Would you trade shoes with your grandparents? Because that’s what you have to look forward to. I never believed it made much sense to plan to work your ass off now in order to make it to an age period where the grim reaper is on your doorstep, but I understand we need a lot of people to think that so society can function.

I think many people refuse to accept death. A deep fear of it then manifests itself in obsessions and compulsions with exercise and food (only grass fed and organic!), and sometimes environmental concerns (no plastic bags!). At least it keeps them busy. The reason I work out and eat right is now for mostly aesthetic reasons. I’d eat pizza and McGriddle sandwiches every day if it didn’t make me feel lousy and increase my body fat percentage. Why not otherwise? To preserve a couple years when the highlight of my day is waking up and realizing I’m not dead yet like many of my friends and relatives? I’ve read stories of the 80-year-old man lifting a piano over his head and another a few years younger building a fried chicken empire from scratch, but I’m realistic to know that those things probably won’t happen to me. And say I have children. Are they going to want to deal with an old man who can barely hear and do very little besides sit in a recliner and stare blankly off into space, reminiscing about the glory days where all his sexual perversions were satisfied? This isn’t Colombia where my kid is obligated to take care of me until I die but America where I’d be lucky if my nursing home is within 100 miles of my spawn.

I understand that while life is long, there is a window for the best years, starting in your early 20′s and ending somewhere in your late 40′s. I know I only have 30 good years at the most, and I have already used up a third of that. But right now I’m wasting my days, and I’m not sure how to get out of it.

It’s insane how beefy Brazilian men are in Rio. It seems like every guy, even those who live in a favela, are either cut or buff. I like to think of myself as confident but I couldn’t help but feel small when walking on the beach upon my most recent visit.

There are pull-up and dip bars all over the place and they’re constantly being used from men of varying socio-economic classes. There are gyms on every block, the most per capita in the world, and they’re all full at peak times. If you are a frail guy coming to Rio, relatively speaking you will look like a scrap of a man. While in the U.S. some girls like that frail hipster look (where muscles would actually rule you out from sex), in Rio that’s not the case. Puny men will have trouble competing with guys who have sexy bodies.

Looking good matched my values, so I took very easily to stepping up my workouts to four times a week. It took about two months until I was no longer among the weakest 50% of men within any club. My diet improved as well, since it’s impossible to workout that often while eating like shit. The result? I become a little cockier, I bought tighter t-shirts, and I got more looks from women. That slightly increased my make-out rate with the shallower carioca girls, who grew up in the beach culture where looks are much more important than being, say, a writer who lives in a shack.

In Rio the baseline male has muscles and there’s no excuse not to have them. How did the culture get like that? How did having muscles become normal? How about America? What’s the new normal there? Well in the States I know that there are actual organizations trying to push fat acceptance. There are trying to make being a burden to society—economically and visually—something that is normal. Feminists are playing their part too, because we know that their corps is mostly composed of dykes who could stand to lose a few dozen pounds.

Looking fat and gross doesn’t match my values, so it becomes very difficult when I did my best to look pleasant and I go inside a bar where 60% of the women are warthogs with short hair who can’t dress well. In fact it’s a serious problem.

While there is a happiness blow that comes from leaving family and friends to live abroad, I think it’s nearly compensated when you’re in a place that better matches your values. It remains a happiness wash until you get old enough where you have no remaining single friends. Then the scale tips and a permanent move abroad may be the winning choice to make. If you don’t agree with the life choices of a majority of your countrymen, then you may need to go somewhere else.