I have to admit I'm surprised by the dedication to Montreal as a destination. Once again, to reinforce this idea, I'm not anti-Montreal, far from it, but from an objective standpoint it's just not there when compared to many international destinations.
Here's what I see in Montreal:
- a good variety of cultures and selection of providers
- In the case of MPs a decent selection of clean, comfortable facilities
- by North American standards decent pricing
- The familiarity and comfort of the known ( I use this loosely, since not all who hobby in Montreal are locals)
- No travel or shorter travel
Here's what I see in international venues:
- A greater volume if not necessarily greater cultural variety of providers
- significantly lower pricing
- ease of finding providers, especially in places like Pattaya, Bangkok, Angeles City, Costa Rica, Cuba etc where providers are grouped together and are super easy to find
- Great ground zero locations or clusters of locations where people freely gather and interact prior to engaging
- lower hotel costs (where the monger is traveling)
- lower food costs (where the monger is traveling)
- sessions not governed by an hour long clock
- greater variety of massage options
- A not to be overlooked benefit in that you have large and public gatherings of fellow brothers with whom you can interact socially, chase girls, drink and chat without judgment
- lots of girls that will hang with you socially off the clock over drinks or dinner if you're so inclined, and in groups of like-minded people
As far as costs go it's a bit hard to measure the differences, because if you're traveling to hobby then you might session at least once every day and often twice, so it comes down to both scale and time frame. These aren't things that locals would do in Montreal typically, where your time frame would not be so compressed. Also, in Montreal there's no unpaid social time typically ( of course there are exceptions) whereas that's the norm when traveling in many locations so this needs to be considered as well. You can hang around bunches of girls all day at no or little cost if you're so inclined abroad. Not sure how to quantify that. Also, how you travel is important. While flights don't change cost beyond moving up to first class there's a huge variety in accommodations. Same for how you like to eat and drink. What I will say is that I can have anywhere from 3-6 sessions depending on where I am for the cost of a single session in Montreal, assuming average prices all around.
So, let's say for example that I would typically have 10-14 sessions in a week traveling and I will put the average price in the middle at about $60 each. I will leave out considerations such as length of session and type of service. for my purposes I'm assuming the cost of taking an indy back to my hotel room abroad versus an incall/outcall in Montreal or a high end massage, assuming girl quality as being equal looks wise. I am not considering massages abroad as they are even cheaper. OK, so for a week at $60 per sessions I'm looking at a cost $600-840 for the week. For the sake of argument I'm going to use the lower end scale of a decent indy in Montreal or a high end massage and call it $200 per session, although it could obviously run quite a bit higher here. For the same 10-14 sessions that's a cost of $2000-$2800. So, there's a difference of $1400-2000 for the same number of sessions for the same quality of girl, all other considerations aside. Try not to nitpick too much here. Of course I'm trying to generalize everything on both sides but I'm also trying to be fair. So, the question is, can you fly and get a hotel for $1400-2000 a week? Depends where you go, but there certainly options where you could not only do it easily but have cash left over at the end. From that standpoint it's cheaper to travel. Where the example breaks down is again the compression of sessions, but there's no way to get around that unless some of you guys are local serial mongers.
plal099 talked about cleanliness and hygiene, and I have never had an issue finding clean places to go, but of course some third world venues (only if you're looking at MPS) would have a majority that would fall below Montreal standards, but they would also generally have a greater selection, with many at Montreal level and quite a few that might also exceed Montreal levels. Again the variety of these might vary by locale. Cuba doesn't have MPs, for example, and in the Philippines the standard is for them to come to your hotel room, so the cleanliness is determined by the room you select for yourself.
As for having to consider new locales, languages, culture etc some are more challenging than Montreal and some are less challenging than Montreal, even if you are a native Montrealer. Some point and shoot locales are so easy you'd have to be a complete idiot not to be able to navigate it, and do it easily. All places come with some challenges, Montreal included, and the differences are what add spice and adventure to the hobby, at least for me, but of course that's subjective.
At the end of the day everyone has to decide what's right for them. For me it's a mix of Montreal and foreign locations, but while I enjoy the Montreal experiences it's the foreign ones that I really look forward too. YMMV.