I will spend 3-4 months in Greece, and I want to actively trade during this time. I use thinkorswim and I am not very proficient in internet issues. Any suggestions on how to do it?
What's the issue? European internet connectivity is very decent and unless you're on some very remote Greek island with a population of 50, you won't have any problems.
If you lease a AWS Windows desktop in Northern Virginia, and VPN into that desktop, you run all your trading software from there. You get a stable fast connection that does not need to travel the distance from Greece. You said you wanted to avoid internet issues. I did not say you were going to have any. However, if connection speed and quality of the connection matter to you, I gave you a solution. You can also ask Charles Schwab what they recommend. If you were my customer at Lightspeed, AWS is my solution to latency and internet issues from any other country.
AWS virtual desktop sounds really great but as usual with AWS the pricing seems ridiculous. I would probably pay $25 a month to just have my local setup in the cloud all the time. I see $25 gets you 2gb memory and 10gb of storage a month. 8gb $45 16gb $70.00 32gb $127.00 So basically charging the price of a stick of memory a month for additional memory plus the privileged of being an AWS system admin that any foolish thing you do goes right on your credit card. I would just trade a strategy that latency isn't going to matter or just trade the European markets.
I read before on this forum that TOS is not available for non-US customers. I wander if they have any restrictions connecting from outside the US?
that was my experience as well. A virtual computer is insanely expensive. cheaper to get a vpn or GoToMyPC and log into your trading PC. Issues I have had are: 1. They PC goes down (especially after a windows update) 2. Internet connection to Pc is slow. If I have the above problems I can run off a laptop with a second monitor but lose access to some of my databases. I don’t trade a lot that I need to accurate to within minutes. So it works fine for me. Greek hours will mean OP will miss all the fun evenings in Greece.
What market(s) are you trading? If it is a market in the US you have to take the time difference with Greece into account. And what do you call "actively trade"? Will you need to spend several hours each day (probably night in Greece) in front of the computer? Or only ten minutes each day? Depending on your trading style and requirements could it be sufficient to use a vpn on your laptop so that thinkorswim still believes that you're in your own state.
I travel to Greece every year and I found that there is good wifi coverage in hotels, coffee shops etc. Apart from that, you can use mobile data. The company which has the best cellphone coverage is cosmote You will need a prepaid sim and a portable wifi modem such as this. COSMOTE Pocket ALCATEL MW45 4G | COSMOTE For english click on the flag at the top right hand corner (next to the handicapped icon). The modem comes with 50Gig of data but you can add other packages as shown further down the page You can also use the same modem in other European union countries but I believe there is a limit of 14Gig per month for all of their prepaid sims, so if you intend to stay long in other countries you might need to buy a local sim card.