Bitcoin Forum

4,400 miles across the country on zero U.S. dollars.

http://www.ahametals.com/family-road-tripping-using-bitcoin/ (http://www.ahametals.com/family-road-tripping-using-bitcoin/)

Well that was stupid.  Using bitcoin to purchase gift cards denominated in US dollars is probably not what most people think when you claim to have made a trip using nothing but bitcoins. 

its the same as americans doing a Euro trip and saying they wont use Euro's.. but then buying Euro travellers cheques and a prepaid Euro debit card...................

.... totally missing the point

Exactly. That way you could just go ahead and exchange a few BTC for dollars and claim the same..

it is showing the point bitcoin is out quite clearly. In 1 year or 2 years people might be able to do this directly and this will remind us of "simpler" times in the bitcoin timeline!

I guess it does not matter, the things that need to be small and simple to introduce them to the bitcoin. and slowly but surely they will be using for something more special and valuable ;)

It's the same as selling your bitcoin for dollars on bitstamp, you are not really using your bitcoin.

Pretty cool story....but like most of what everyone has said here....very silly to purchase gift cards (aka money) and call it using only bit coins.

I think this may be a possibility in 1-2 years though!

Not to mention using up your stash for some publicity stunt. A lot of people will look back witha lot of regret if this does get as big as people think it will.

its not a bitcoin story. its not a dollar story. its just a story about living without a bank account story.

anyone holding bank notes can do this same story by buying giftcards instead of depositing bank notes into an account to then use an ATM or debit card issued from their bank, no matter what native FIAT/country they are in.

I buy everything in bitcoin too!  See, I use these green pieces of paper that merchants can use to redeem for bitcoin at coinbase.  That means i'm using bitcoin, right?

Unless you repurchase the same amount of BTC that you spend. Which further departs this from the idea of "using only Bitcoin"...
Bitcoin could be great as currency between two parties who use Bitcoin. When one (or both) of the parties is only interested in holding the fiat equivalent, though, it's hard to classify the transaction along the lines of "using only Bitcoin". Then it's just another way to transfer the fiat, which may or may not be worse than traditional transfer schemes (credit, debit, cash, etc.), depending on the buy/sell gaps and fees you're dealing with when converting BTC to/from fiat.

I don't think that they could do it any other way. I guess they could pay for hotel using expedia and when they have to get gas go thru local bitcoins and have them buy the gas and you pay them in bitcoin or get the vendors to take bitcoin on their route. It literally takes 10 minutes to get set up on coinbase or bitpay..

No matter how did they spend BTC through the entire journey and in what ways,  at least they were enthusiastic about BTC things. It was really a kind of big campaign for BTC.

wouldn't selling your bitcoin for fiat be kind of the same thing as just using fiat in the first place?

No many people really know and accept BTC. They prefer to keep fiat rather than BTC. It needs to take some while before the majority of population find BTC valuable and superior. Then one party just pays BTC for goods or services to the other party without the third party(payment processor to change BTC to fiat).

Those of us that realize it early on are the ones that will benefit most. I am glad to finally be ahead of the curve on something.

technically he is using bitcoins only to buy
but the merchants are not taking bitcoins directly, they convert to usd

He purchased everything except for a few hotel rooms with fiat cash, and gift cards denominated in US dollars (i.e., fiat cash).  That isn't "technically using bitcoins" any more than if I hand you a hundred dollar bill and say "this is bitcoins, you just need to redeem it at coinbase first". 

well, at least he's helping us to promote bitcoin, go go :D

Bingo. It can be a success for that regardless of whether you can call it "using only Bitcoin". Even the places that accept BTC online typically convert 100% of it to fiat immediately on purchase, so it's rare that you find a totally-Bitcoin transaction with a company.

It's a nice experiment that shows the current state of the Bitcoin economy as it relates to traveling the US: you can do everything you need to with Bitcoin, if you go a bit out of your way to book places and buy gift cards in advance. But the companies are usually only interested in holding the fiat, so it'll be converted sooner (when you buy the gift card) or later (when the company accepts your BTC and converts it immediately).

Too risky. What do you do when in some areas no one accepts them

Wow really?  You think the average person sees this as a success story for bitcoin?  I see it as an abject failure.  How does this show that you can do everything you need to do with bitcoin?  He didn't do hardly ANYTHING with bitcoin.  He paid for everything with fiat cash and cash equivalents. 
The average person seeing this is going to be thinking "yea, you can do anything you want with bitcoin, as long as you sell the bitcoin for cash first".  But of course you could say the same about anything.  The ONE transaction he actually made with actual bitcoin, was a failure, he lost the reservation waiting for transactions to confirm. 

the point of these types of stories is to help show the public how valuable bitcoin can be

I agree, but at the same time its showing how unreliable it is, and how it cannot replace currency at all.  I mean, they didn't even use it, it would have been absolutely awesome if they found gas stations along the way and food places that all ACCEPTED bit coin.  Basically, all they found was places that accept US dollars....big whoop!

Hopefully the time will come when a roadtrip with bitcoin is absolutely possible.

There was an article last year about how a reporter tried to survive solely on bitcoin. She did a followup a few months ago (~a year later) to try it again, and the focus of this years article(s) (it was actually a series of articles) was that it was much easier to survive on bitcoin now then it was even a year ago.

I'm guessing by this time next year it pretty much will be ;)

It is possible alredy, but you kind of need to try hard.

That would be awesome and here's hoping that's the case!

Didn't James McCarthy (Nefario of GLBSE) already do this with Bitcoin? I'm pretty sure he was the first "Bitcoin only" traveler.

I think the issue with going on a road trip solely on bitcoin is the issue of buying gas as there is not really a way you can go from bitcoin -> gas without first going to fiat. If a family were to go on a vacation then this would be possible as they could book their hotel with expedia, their flight with (I think the site that accepts bitcoin for flights is) cheapair, and find restaurants that accept bitcoin to eat at.

Oh, they decided to start an adventure time. Good job, guys!

This is the stupidest thing ever, and people get angry with me for what I've said on the board.

I suppose they obtained this legally? Or did they ask for donations and because it's a "family" people rallied behind them?

I'm not even going to bother clicking that link, this is exactly what I've been saying all along.

The story said that the father of the family has been into bitcoin for around 6 months, and it appears they somehow purchased the coins with their own resources.

It looks like they kind of cheated as they purchased a lot of gift cards with bitcoin to pay for gas.

It is rather silly to claim this is anything but using actual money. 

It will be really cool when say in 2 years, you can just go from place to place actually paying in Bitcoins(gas, food, anything you might need) 

This was just a, we took a family trip and I like bitcoins vacation.  Nothing to do with them being together...