I'm off to Vietnam and crypto helped make it possible!

I've had this map for five years. Now I get to use it!

In a few days, I will leave for a two-and-a-half week trip to Vietnam, where I will finally get to use a map I've had for about five years.

I had picked up at a booth somewhere in either Hong Kong or Beijing -- I confess I can't remember where now -- where various Asian countries were marketing their tourism opportunities. Since then, I've been to Thailand, Malaysia and Japan, and many places in China. Now it's Vietnam's turn.

Through a combination of chance and forethought, I have enough money to afford this trip, even though I was unemployed for four months beginning last June. It is not money I had stashed away in a bank account that is making it possible, but the money I had invested in cryptocurrencies.

Bank accounts don't really pay much interest, especially when compared to the rising cost-of-living. If I had depended only on my bank savings, I'd be spending my winter holiday in China at home in my flat. (To be fair, I have to admit I was not a prudent man, and did not have a rainy day fund in my bank accounts.)

But since January 2014, when I first started in the cryptocurrency space, I've gradually built up a crypto nest egg. That nest egg has appreciated in value by quite a lot over the last four years. In fact, when I recently tallied up my financial resources, I was amazed to see my crypto-holdings were worth several times more than my other modest investments in stocks, gold, cash and bank accounts.

Am I millionaire? Hardly. I put what funds I had free from my modest teaching salary into cryptocurrencies, including ICOs, confident that over time those investments would be worth more in due time. It was a risky move, and fluctuating prices have given me a few scares, but I'm happy to say it was a good choice.

As an American working in China, I was drawn first to Bitcoin, which in December 2013 peaked to $1,000 before falling rapidly because of China's new banking regulations. Ironically, that's when I bought my first Bitcoin, on the downside of that slope. At the time, I didn't really mind, because I was using it to move some of my Chinese pay into American dollars without the hassles of bank wire transfers.

I've got a STEM background, and I'm comfortable with computers, so Bitcoin was a natural fit for me. Then I learned about other cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin, which I started to mine, Peercoin, Namecoin, and Dogecoin. I bought a little of each that first year, but was not a serious investor.

A recommendation by my son to buy Ethereum changed my perspective. When I bought 4 ETH on Coinbase a year ago, the price of ETH was $40. Now it's over $1,000. Litecoin was about $4 when I first bought some. Now it's around $200. My first Bitcoin purchases were made when Bitcoin was at $860 and rapidly falling. Now BTC is around $11,500.

Soon, I had branched out into other alt-coins, because investing in them was fun. Most of those have done very well. A few have not, but diversification in any kind of investment vehicle compensates for the losers. Overall, my crypto-portfolio has appreciated more than 1,000%, from a total investment equal to only two months' teaching pay.

My Steemit rewards are part of that investment, and I've powered down a little to take advantage of STEEM's higher value in dollars.

My crypto funds would only be "paper profits" if I left them in their wallets. Having a nest egg gives you a sense of security for the future, but another purpose of a nest egg is to have fun with it. So, I decided that I would sell off some of my crypto for fiat currency to take this little trip. It will only put a tiny dent in my savings, and if the markets continue to recover from this month's dip, my net worth will recover, too.

If I had just prudently invested in stocks and bank savings accounts, I probably would not be able to travel this holiday. Thanks to the booming crypto markets, I can. It's really quite wonderful.

I'll be posting photos and comments about my Vietnam trip here. Stay tuned. Please upvote, resteeem and leave comments below.