My lease for the house in Newport is up on May 8th. And from there, I have no plans really, short term or long. I've been torn between keeping possessions to a minimum and traveling around, and locking in to specific area where I can grind on my 30", park my car, and in general, store my shit. Surprisingly, and fortunately, this has been the biggest of my worries lately.

I've never traveled with my family, aside from seeing my uncle in California every other summer, and the occasional trip for a cliche summer vacation. The only time I've been outside the country has been when I've seen family in California, and we've driven down to Tijuana. Not exactly a culture you're dying to experience. Additionally, I'm turning 21 in June, which will provide even more opportunities and adventures.

As of now, I plan on making doing a roadtrip back to Chicago. I'll live with my parents for a few weeks as a test run; if I'm able to grind and focus and not want to kill myself, I'll just stay until I head out to Vegas. If not, I'll leave a majority of my possessions at home and rent a place in the city for a month. I plan on doing Vegas from mid june to mid july, however, I'm not 100% set on it. Everyone comments with "you HAVE to go," so we'll see. After WSOP wraps up, I'll fly home and do a few trips with my friends. Hopefully they're not busto. Likely doing New York and some other areas in the North East. They all head back to school around mid August, pretty much leaving me with the option to go anywhere and do anything.

My priorities consist of mainly playing poker, trading, and doing a bit of REI. I'm likely to meet up with my current roommate to take care of the REI stuff, hopefully in August. He's willing to take me under his wing and walk me through the process. Trading can be done anywhere, and I do not need the luxury of multiple monitors. As for poker, it would be ideal to have a war room. I'd like to be able to have an area where I can add a bit more to my desktop, buy some speakers, stop using a chair from the kitchen table, use a real mousepad instead of a travel cover for my laptop, and not have to worry about packing things up to move every few months. I refuse to play from a laptop, and if I'm traveling around for weeks at a time, the last thing I'll want to do is grind.

If I had infinite monies, I would plunk down on an apartment in San Diego, use it as my home, live there for maybe 6 months out of the year and do a variety of traveling trips. The only problem with that is I don't like the idea of basically lighting a few thousand on fire, since 1.5k/mo rent effectively is doubled since I'm living there for about 6 months. This would allow me to setup a "home base," have a handful of material items, with the ability to start seeing the world.

Of course, I don't have infinite monies, so I'd rather not "pay" for that lifestyle. Thus, I'm left with a decision to make: where to live, and for how long? Hopefully a few of you can give me some input on what you think. There's tons of threads in the travel thread on 2p2, and there's a few people that have cozied up in an apartment close to friends and family, so there should be a variety of responses.

Matt