My Plan to Travel to Zimbabwe For Free Thanks to Bitcoin

in #zimbabwe7 years ago (edited)

Today we found out the bitcoin price topped the $6,000 dollar barrier and everyone in the crypto world is celebrating.
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I am happy for the bitcoin price too because I own a few, however, I just read Bitcoin is trading for nearly $10,000 in Zimbabwe and my mind was blown. I have to admit that I knew some places where bitcoin is slowly replacing the fiat currency due to hyperinflation, the bitcoinization of Venezuela, but I had not idea of what was happening in Zimbabwe.

So it just got into my head...

What if I can buy a Bitcoin here for $6,000 dollars, go on vacation in Africa and sell it for $10,000?

To those who don't know already, I am a Colombian software developer, I work as the CTO of an international trade company and I live in Medellín, Colombia which if you haven't visited yet, you should; I like to travel from time to time, but that's another story, let's talk about my flight to Harare.

After a quick search in Google Flights I found a roundtrip ticket from Medellin to Harare for $1,984 USD from December the 1st. to December 11th of 2017.

Everyone knows that a plane ticket is not the only thing I need to go to Zimbabwe, but it is a good start, therefore I needed a place to stay, so I searched in booking for a B&B and I found this nice hostel named Simba!

And looking at the pictures it doesn't look bad at all...

Should I book it? why not, it's only $350 for 11 nights with breakfast included.

Next steps would be finding out how much the backpacker's food and transportation budget will be and I relied on Numbeo for it, so I looked up the cost of living in Harare and I would say that with $30 dollars a day I can survive. Let's add up $330 for those 11 days to my future expenses in Zimbabwe.

That being said, it is:
$1,984 USD - Roundtrip ticket Medellin - Harare with some stops on the go.
$350 USD - 11 nights in Simba Harare Lodge, with breakfast included.
$330 USD - Assuming $30 dollars for daily expenditure on food and transportation.
$1,000 USD - Party expenses and unknowns.

It will be a total of $3,664 USD for the short trip in the heart of Africa where I might see some lions, who knows?

Alright, that sounds good Alex but how are you going to pay for it? You said it will be free thanks to Bitcoin.

I guess you haven't been paying attention because that is the reason of this post. I buy a bitcoin for $6,000 USD here in Colombia go to Zimbabwe for $3,664 USD and sell it there for $10,000!

I come back to Colombia with $336 USD in my pocket and bunch of pictures of Harare on my camera.

Yes, I know some of you got excited about me doing this, but sorry to disappoint you because for now it is just a hypothetical scenario, which you can think of doing on your own unless you are already in Zimbabwe. Enjoy!

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Interesting idea ;)

Interesting idea ;)