Attending a conference with self funding and no publication I am a PhD student and got a workshop poster (only poster based on abstract, no paper, at one of the workshops co-located with the major CS conference) accepted at the top-most conference in my field (NIPS, Computer Science).

Since I am not a full-time student, I am supposed to fund my own travel, accommodation and other expenses. The conference venue is in Canada while I am located in Asia, so the expenses are quite large. The deadline for student travel grants for the main conference has already passed and the funding for workshop student travel grant has not been yet announced.

I have the following questions with regard to this:


Is it worth it to attend such tier-1 conferences only to present a poster which won’t be published/indexed/not included in proceedings?
I would need to attempt to publish in such conferences at least once during PhD and since I am self sponsored, expense for that too would be upon me. 
My advisor says: “Go and have some exposure, meet and network with new people.” But he is aware that I am self-sponsored so he is not too pushy but has asked me to go. Does such networking really happens when I would be only an attendee for first five days of the conference and having a poster demo during the last day of the conference. 


If my questions seems too vague, please let me know. I would try to be more clear and concise.
Firstly, congratulations on getting your poster accepted. If you don't go, I hope you are able to find someone to present the poster on your behalf (this is actually quite common). 

In terms of deciding whether or not to go: it depends on your situation. 

Some things you should consider:


Your financial situation and how much the cost will be. On top of the flights, you need to pay for registration, accommodation, meals, a travel visa (if applicable), and local transportation (e.g. to and from the airport).
Your career stage and future goals. Are you planning to stay in the field? Will you have future opportunities to attend similar conferences? This affects how valuable going would be to you. 
How much networking you will be able to do. Do you know other people attending the conference? If you don't know anyone, it can be difficult to network. But if you know someone there (e.g. your advisor) who can introduce you to people, that can make things much easier. You should also have some idea of who you want to network with. I will sometimes decide whether to go to a conference based on knowing who will be attending and who I want to network with.


Your advisor will know your situation better than I do and can give more specific advice. So, if you are uncertain, you should talk to him more about it.