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Liberation Travel Hacks 01/2025
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It's been exactly one year since the first Liberation Travel Hacks newsletter was published on 01/2024. Since then, the newsletter has gained thousands of subscribers, which I'm pleased about. I also appreciate the positive feedback I receive each month. Even though it takes me one or two full days to create, it motivates me to continue this activity.
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My motto for many years was not to make any resolutions or face disappointment from not fulfilling them. But this year, I made an exception and made ten of them. I see it as my inner commitment to achieving something I consider essential and correct.
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1. After 18 years, I want to move my IT security company from Slovakia to the Czech Republic (employees are already there) and start a business there. The level of bureaucracy and taxation of the Slovak state has already exceeded all limits. Every sensible Slovak entrepreneur who can afford it should do the same - leave the mafia-controlled territory if the conditions are constantly deteriorating.
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2. Don't invest in anything else besides Bitcoin and immediate consumption. It doesn't make sense to me since Bitcoin has the highest return. Shorting government money will also lose much of its value this year.
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3. Launch a new startup, "All I Need," for nomads and perpetual travelers.
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4. Arrange a residency in Argentina. Argentina is a great place to live if you have an income from abroad. I already spend a few months there every year.
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5. Arrange a residency in Mexico - through regularization, which will be a slight adrenaline rush:-)
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6. Go skiing in Kyrgyzstan and open a USD bank account there. Kyrgyzstan has not signed and has no plans to sign the CRS. If it works well, it can be offered as a service to victims of CRS spying in the EU.
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7. Go by train all over Japan. Japan is now historically cheap and is the best time to visit.
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8. Enjoy a summer hacker camp in the Netherlands and European music festivals.
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9. Start using Nostr more actively.
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10. To devote myself even more to my family, parents, and children.
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Pavol Lupták, 7.1.2025, Gudauri, Georgia
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EU
What the EU should do is innovate, not regulate. Read more about the EU Acceleration Project.
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France
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Taxing an unrealized profit from crypto is a communist practice that France is currently attempting. More information is in the following video.
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There are countries where it's not good to live if you're a Bitcoiner, and France is starting to belong there.
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A question for regulators in all EU countries - how about exempting all real estate from most regulations?
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UK
The UK's Online Safety Act - a law being 'sold' to citizens as a tool to combat illegal content and protect children through measures such as 'age verification' - is nothing short of censorship. It forces platforms to scan private messages, break encryption, and control speech on a large scale. And, unfortunately, to shut them down if they fail to do all this.
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Norway
Paraguay
I will share two stories of our Paraguayan customers.
The first story is about how our client switched to Bitcoin and left the system:
The client was a long-time freelancer in Slovakia. One day, he went to the supermarket to shop and found that his credit card was not working. He called his bank, and they told him he had been foreclosed. They froze all of his cards, all of his payments, and all of his withdrawals. Utterly horrified, he asked the bank how this was possible. It said he had an outstanding health insurance balance. He contacted his healthcare insurance company and asked them how this was possible, yet he paid his health dues every month. They explained that because he had a higher monthly income, the health dues he hadn't paid had increased. He asked them in dismay why they had not informed him, sent him any letter, called, or at least sent him a text message but had gone straight to foreclosure. They replied that they had no legal obligation to inform him, that he had to sort it out himself or his accountant.
He immediately paid everything in cash, but it took another month to unblock all his bank accounts, and he couldn't get to any of his money for a whole month. He had to laboriously make all his monthly payments in cash from borrowed money.
He started desperately looking for what to do to ensure that the state didn't grab and hold all his money. He found bitcoin. And he crossed over into the Bitcoin world, from which there is no turning back. He canceled his Slovak business, and we helped him get a Paraguayan tax residency. He set up a US LLC company and went into nomadic mode with 0% taxes. He has no obligation to pay a health kickback because he pays for the best global health insurance.
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And related to that is the second story of our other Paraguayan customer, whose entire report today I'll quote straight from:
I went to Bangkok today to try out the global insurance that Liberation.Travel (William Russell's international health insurance) has been proposed, so here's my first-hand experience. I needed to see several specialists + have an MRI scan. I contacted my insurance agent and informed them of this plan, and they let me know that some hospitals in Bangkok are included in coverage. Based on this information, I suggested Vejthani Hospital and discovered they have a partnership arrangement. The insurance agent issued a letter of guarantee. I booked my appointments, all specialists, on the same day, perfectly lined up with no waiting periods. The hospital is very posh; everything is new, and the doctors speak excellent English. Everything was extremely smooth. I had planned to finish work between appointments while waiting, but I didn't even have time to open my laptop.
When everything was done, and they gave me the bill, it was all stamped PAID. I walked out of there without paying a cent. This seems unbelievable to me as a former Slovak healthcare system client. Thank you, Liberation.Travel for the price/performance guide to elite health insurance.
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Uruguay
Unlike locals, tourists do not pay VAT during the season from 15 November to 30 April in Uruguay. So when you pay with a foreign card issued outside Uruguay, everything is 22% cheaper - accommodation/hotels, restaurants, catering, car rental, property rental. The payment terminal will deduct that you have a foreign card and charge you 22% less. It's very nice that you pay almost a quarter less than the locals as a foreigner. It only begs why all Uruguayans don't already have a bank account in Georgia, which we can open for them remotely with the best VISA/Mastercard cards.
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Where there is freedom, democracy works best
Uruguay - a country where people still believe in democracy
In Uruguay, it was the left that won. What does this mean? For 90% of Uruguayans, it means nothing. The left-wing politicians here respect the right-wing voters and do not want to do anything to upset them. Similarly, right-wing politicians do not want to do anything in Uruguay to upset the voters of the left-wing parties. So, the difference between Uruguay's left and right is relatively small. I have spoken to several different Uruguayans, and I have been quite surprised by their views:
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- Left and right politicians respect each other.
- The majority of Uruguayans believe in a democratic state and democracy as such.
- Most Uruguayans trust their police and their state institutions.
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The effect of this is that there is no political extreme in Uruguay like in Argentina, for example, where there is either the ultra-left and a big socialist state or Milei, who then smashes the whole thing up because it doesn't work. There is no libertarian party, and nobody even feels the need to start one, as practically everything is legal in Uruguay. All drugs are legal (for personal consumption), LGBT marriage is legal, gay adoption of children, abortion, prostitution, and euthanasia will soon be approved, and everything that can be done has been legalized or is being legalized in Uruguay. This means left-wing voters are happy, and everything aligns with their intrinsic values.
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At the same time, there is also territorial taxation (you don't have to pay taxes on foreign income, including cryptos), and as a startup, you don't have to pay 10 years of tax here, as it is possible to apply for a 10-year tax holiday. So even right-wing voters are happy.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Uruguay was one of the few countries, along with Mexico, that did not implement a lockdown and force people to isolate themselves by force. Uruguay's official policy is 'Free but Responsible'.
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Thanks to great freedom, democracy works in Uruguay. That is why most people believe in it and do not want to change it.
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Uruguay used to be said to be the Switzerland of Latin America. There must be something to it. Uruguayans, like the Swiss, are conservative regarding political change. Both Uruguay and Switzerland are the most politically stable countries in the long term (in Uruguay, politicians respect each other, and no one wants radical changes that would hurt the other). Uruguay has long been a haven for all Argentines who wish for a stable political system, low taxes, and to protect their money from hyperinflation. Switzerland has long been a haven for Germans who go there for similar reasons.
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I am no advocate of democracy (and probably never will be). Still, Uruguay is a beautiful example of the fact that when the state gives enough personal and economic freedom to its left and right-wing constituencies, then people trust it considerably more than when it overly restricts, taxes, and regulates them, as we, unfortunately, see in the EU.
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If European politicians want to maintain confidence in democracy and themselves, they should take inspiration from Uruguay.
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Bolivia
Cochabamba is my favorite city in Bolivia. It has perfect weather, and I can imagine living the life of a digital nomad for many months. Unfortunately, it is not so free.
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Bitcoin, Monero, and cryptocurrencies
What do anti-Semitism and the persecution of the technocratic/crypto aristocracy have in common?
History of discrimination and persecution due to 'social inequality' repeats itself.
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The European Industrial Revolution kick-started technological progress, mass production, and industry and commerce flourishing. People who were smart and capable were able to make more money and come into great wealth. Although the standard of living of absolutely everyone (even the poorest) was raised across the board, the new technologies allowed the more able and clever to be even more productive and to earn more than the others were able to earn. Social inequality was not only increased but made visible (I should point out that social inequality is perfectly natural because it reflects the genetic diversity of people; failure to respect it always leads to a socialist totalitarian regime).
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Social inequality was evident between the more productive, and therefore wealthier, Jewish community and the majority non-Jewish population.
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This led to strongly anti-Semitic laws in the 1930s and tragically resulted in the brutal Holocaust. The envy and hatred of poor Slovaks towards wealthy Jews led to mass support for anti-Semitic laws in Slovakia and the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. The Slovak state was the only one to pay 500 Reichsmarks for the deportation of each Jew.
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Of course, a "social government" that reflects the views of the masses is unable to perceive that just as the Jews actively contributed to the significant economic boom of the first Czechoslovak Republic (along with the Sudeten Germans, who were also deported after the war, by the way), so the current rich people are very beneficial to Slovakia - they brought capital, business, and investment (and all of it is gradually disappearing from Slovakia).
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However, the industrial revolution continues, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies. These technologies allow smart and capable people to accelerate their productivity by orders of magnitude. And therefore increase their wealth.
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A new technocratic/crypto aristocracy is already emerging all over the world, which has gained significant wealth thanks to technology (specially AI and Bitcoin).
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Although everyone benefits from new technologies, a hundred-year-old scenario is repeating itself. The social divide between the new technocratic/crypto aristocracy and the majority population (let's call them "fiat plebs"), who are getting poorer every year thanks to the use of state inflationary money and the inability to embrace the new technologies, is visibly increasing.
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And just as anti-Semitic laws were passed to discriminate against a particular rich ethnic group, laws are now being passed all over Europe to discriminate against the new rich people and specifically against the owners of crypts.
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It was the Nazis who decided to enforce the Reich Flight Tax against their wealthy Jewish fellow citizens and imposed a tax of up to 25% on all property if they decided to leave Nazi Germany.
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Italy and Denmark have introduced a 42% capital gains tax on crypto, publicly declaring that they don't want rich crypto people; instead, they want them out of the country as soon as possible. It is very absurd to think that rich, flexible crypto people will pay these taxes, as they can choose a country where they will not pay them. In Slovakia, the total tax burden on cryptos is 40%, and the Slovak tax office collected 98% less than planned for 2023 (this is not a joke, but a tax reality).
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France goes even further - it introduces citizenship-based taxation, i.e., global tax slavery, which you will not be able to get out of even if you move from France to a country where taxes are 50% lower than in France.
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The "bull market" that is now underway will only make the fight of European bureaucrats against Bitcoin users harder and worse. It is to be expected that all EU countries will gradually introduce an exit tax. And probably also citizenship-based taxation.
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Just as Europe, with its strongly anti-Semitic laws, was hostile to the Jewish community 90 years ago, it is now hostile to the growing technocratic/crypto aristocracy.
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And just as European countries deported those hated, innovative, and productive people to concentration camps, now innovative and productive people are being deported to crypto-friendly countries like the US, UAE, and Latin America.
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In both cases, the "noble cause" was social justice, which was also used as one of the reasons for the Aryanization of Jewish property.
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Just as Jews have been yellow-starred and spied on in the past for their anti-Semitic views, crypto-owners (KYC, Travel Rule, MiCA) are also being spied on and prevented from anonymity (anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero have been removed from all European centralized exchanges). For example, owners of ordinary government cash have their anonymity assured.
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The European Union is a profoundly hypocritical organization. Outwardly, it pretends to protect the privacy of all citizens (thanks to legislation like GDPR). Still, it fights hard against cryptocurrencies that provide citizens anonymity (like Monero).
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The European Union's hostility is not only to cryptocurrencies but also to artificial intelligence, which can accelerate intelligent people's productivity (and therefore wealth) by orders of magnitude. In the EU, AI is heavily regulated; you can't even download the open-source LLM model LLama 3.2 there. The bizarre reason is to "protect the privacy of EU citizens," especially in a situation where, thanks to EU regulations like MiCA (and the resulting ban on anonymous cryptocurrencies), the EU is drastically reducing the privacy of cryptocurrency users.
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Just as it was inevitable for Jews to leave a fascist country whole of anti-Semitic laws, it is becoming unavoidable for members of the crypto community to leave countries that impose spying and massive taxation on crypto users.
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If not on a physical level by leaving the EU, then at least on a legislative level - de-register as a permanent resident and de-register from all state registers. This is important not only from a tax point of view but also from a security point of view. Not having an official address, not having a place where you are officially present most of the time, is essential not only to avoid state-sponsored extortion but any other kind of physical attack, extortion, or kidnapping, which is increasing all over the world (and it's only going to get worse as the value of Bitcoin increases).
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Bitcoin's growth will widen the social divide between the fiat plebs and the technocratic/crypto aristocracy. Attacks against it will increase from both states and individuals.
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It's good to be prepared for that and have a plan B, just like the Jews who managed to escape from anti-Semitic European countries and survived, thanks to it.
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Saifedean Ammous: Every Bitcoiner has experienced years of ridicule and insults for believing in Bitcoin. When Bitcoin hits new all-time highs, it is tempting to remember everyone who said something stupid to you and go back and rub it on their face. But you remember that gloating is not pleasant and that it is wrong to take joy in the misery of others. You also fail to remember most of the inconsequential and utterly forgettable nocoiner losers, and you can't be bothered to look them up. But this is Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is different, so I suggest you not let manners or laziness get in the way! Do not resist the urge to point out to the nocoiners they made a huge and costly mistake! They messed up and could have changed their life if they got into bitcoin. This was obvious to anyone who would take the time to see it, but they chose to be smartasses and make stupid jokes instead, and now they're enjoying the consequences. It's important to point out the consequences of their stupidity to them because most fiaters are incapable of understanding things unless repeatedly told to them by someone in a position of authority. People who say stupid things about Bitcoin are not just making their pathetic selves poorer; they are also impoverishing all the people who have the misfortune of listening to them. And they are impoverishing the whole world by delaying bitcoin adoption and allowing fiat inflationary debt slavery to continue, with all the poverty and mass murder it creates. Bitcoin needs to be rubbed in the haters' faces relentlessly until they stop saying stupid nonsense about it or until they lose all credibility and audience. No matter how lousy gloating is, fiat money is worse. Manners can wait until after the fiat is dead. So get out there and make a nocoiner cry today because they should be crying! Their stupid shitcoin has never been more pathetic or less valuable than it is today, and the sooner they cry about it, the sooner we can be done with it.
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Binary Fate (author of xmr.to) has launched a brilliant new service: You can invoice anyone in fiat (as an individual or as a company), the client pays you in fiat, and you get it in crypto to your account (all stablecoins on Tron/Ethereum/Polygon are supported), with only a 2% fee. And now a couple of cool things to do:
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- You can make a KYC to an individual on your PY cedula, so as a Paraguayan tax resident, you can invoice anyone in the world immediately in a fiat; you don't need a company or pay/declare any taxes.
- You can also use this service for your 100% crypto-only business, so you don't need a bank account as a business.
The EU is in a desperate anti-Bitcoin state - all major countries (US, Russia, China, Japan, UAE, India, El Salvador, Canada, South Africa, Saudi Africa, and others) are already buying or considering it. So, from the perspective of an anarchist who prefers a weak and powerless state, I rate it a positive that the EU continues to ignore Bitcoin and go for its digital euro cheerfully.
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Is there anyone here who realistically thinks MiCA has helped cryptos in the EU? Where are all the GDPR privacy activists fighting for Monero, which is the most GDPR-friendly since it doesn't store anything about its users?
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You don't have to like Roger Ver, but the fact that he is facing 100 years in prison for not paying his taxes smacks an actual political order against this crypto activist. And it's brutal.
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Travel Hacks
Czech O2 has launched a new Datamanie NEO flat rate. 55 GB of data across the EU per month for CZK 699 (EUR 28). 1 GB for CZK 12.7 = EUR 0.51/GB. You can buy it without KYC. However, there is a maximum speed limit of 20 Mbps.
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Chargie prevents premature battery degradation by intelligently limiting and scheduling long charges (e.g., only 80%). I haven't tried it, but it looks interesting.
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Thanks to my beloved EU, I have become a fan of the Chinese Aliexpress, where I buy things I can no longer get in the EU. For example, I've once again minimized my travel backpack and integrated it into one device:
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- universal adapter/converter for all countries
- charger for my laptop
- charger for all my USB C/USB A devices (USB C charges express fast)
How I became a cyborg
I bought new dioptric glasses. Not ordinary ones, but Meta Smart Raybans, because they were not much more expensive than other good quality analog dioptric glasses.
They have a hardware kill switch, so I can turn off their smart functionality anytime and use them like regular analog glasses.
The cool thing is that you can use them ANONYMOUSLY. You don't need a Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp account (I don't recommend one because you don't have one in the US, so Meta AI won't work for what you want).
In addition to using an anonymous account, you can also turn off the storage of any communication you have with the smart glasses.
Similarly, when they're shooting video or taking photos, a white LED lights up, and the party in question can see that I'm taking a picture or recording (of course, it goes on to patch it).
In the EU, they are practically unusable; you can take photos or videos and send them by voice to Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp, and that's about it.
Their whole smart AI functionality doesn't work in the EU.
And I admit I'm not even surprised because these smart glasses make you "superhuman" :-)
For example, you can run live video streaming straight from your glasses to a dedicated Instagram and, from there, do interactive recognition of the very people you see in front of you.
If you don't want me to reveal your identity with a glance the next time we meet, you can request to be kicked out of Face Recognition databases (you can find them here).
But suppose you run a VPN to the US and set your GPS location to, say, New York via FakeGPS, create a new Meta View account (a mobile app that interacts with smart glasses). In that case, you become a cyborg connected to the open-source Llama 3 model. But half of the crypto services won't work from a US IP address, so you're probably better off using a Canadian VPN and IP address, where Meta AI also works, similar to the crypto services.
And you can do everything!
Translate and analyze any signs you look at, explore everything around you, open QR codes, describe what music you're in the mood for, and play it straight on Spotify. Interactively, Llama 3.1 can ask any question.
The smart glasses have fabulous headphones, so you don't need extra ones to listen to either music or Meta AI answers.
What you see, you can share as a video or picture on Instagram or Facebook story.
Or you can run in utterly anonymous mode (with a Meta View account created for random data) and enjoy the best of what Llama 3.1 has to offer)
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Buying new dioptrics or sunglasses that aren't smart makes NO SENSE to me in 2025.
But suppose you want to take advantage of their great AI functionality realistically. In that case, you must be in the US/Canada or nonstop on your phone, running VPN to the US/Canada and FakeGPS routed to the US/Canada. Beware, FakeGPS doesn't work on iPhones. You must use jailbreak, or you must be physically in Canada/USA. So, the Meta AI functionality will be appreciated, especially by Android users.
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Interesting links
The new secure mobile Punkt MC02 is especially for those who don't want to install GrapheneOS and use Threema.
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FLOKI is another virtual and physical crypto card that is, unfortunately, only for EU residents.
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Events
15.1.2025 New Year's meeting of our Paraguayan friends in Asunción. Email me if you want to join, and I will make a reservation (there is a limited capacity).
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8-12.8.2025 WHY2025 is the biggest hacker camp in the Netherlands
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