Living in Thailand as a Digital Nomad - My HONEST Thoughts After 5 Months

in this video I'm going to give you an honest review on living in Thailand as a digital nomad [Music] what's going on guys welcome back to another video if you're new to the channel my name is Sean and I've built and sold a seven figure Amazon KDP business and now I'm building my second KDP account so if you're interested in making money online digital Nomad and sometimes personal finance topics then make sure to subscribe and if you want to learn more about Amazon KDP which is a very passive fully online business that I do to make money online and travel the world like this then there is a completely free training that you guys can check it out the link is in the description below alright guys so this is going to be my Thailand review after living there as a digital Nomad for five months I did a similar video like this after I left Bali I lived in Bali for 10 months and I did a review of that as well after Bali I went to Thailand and I lived there for five months in various locations so I went to Chiang Mai to start I went to Bangkok and then to Phuket and to kosamui so I basically started at the Mountainside right the north side went to the city and then to the South you know the Island size so I got pretty much the Vive for you know three different styles of Thailand and now I left Thailand and I'm in Malaysia right now so this is my official review of whether Thailand is good for digital nomadding or not and I'm also going to kind of compare you know Bali or Thailand which is better so first off the criteria that I always look for uh is convenience cost of living ease of Visa internet connection things to do Health Care Transportation weather people and the quality of life now I just want to do a quick disclaimer is that you know what I look for in terms of the criteria is different than if you're going to Thailand or anywhere else for a short-term vacation because for you you're just trying to enjoy the vacation for me I'm actually trying to live there as a digital Nomad make money so my criteria is like you know very different right it's like internet connection is super important because we're actually going to stay there long term and work convenience is super important how easy it is to communicate with people those kind of things uh will be more important for me so let's get started with convenience first I will give Tylan 5 out of 5 for convenience uh pretty much equal to Bali if not even more convenient than Bali basically because there's a app called grab and there's food Panda as well there's different apps that you can pretty much order or hire out everything right so if you want food you can just order it online and deliver it to you I never cook meals myself because oftentimes it's cheaper and it's more convenient to have someone you know just deliver food for you so laundry as well you can just you know WhatsApp or line message them and then have them pick out the laundry for you do it and then deliver it back so this is a picture of me you know you can just it's so safe in Chiang Mai that you can just leave your stuff in the lobby on the condo that you're staying nobody will steal it and then you know I'll just leave my laundry there they'll take it and then they'll just leave it over there and I pay them so super convenient also cleaning too so in terms of conveniency absolute 5 out of 5 I have no complaints cost of living as well it's actually a lot cheaper than Bali at least in you know Chiang Mai Bangkok area if you go to the island style like Phuket it's probably like even or maybe not so much it's still cheaper in Thailand but you know in terms of cost of living overall Five Stars once again food is super cheap two to three dollars per meal if you're going to like a small local restaurant uh if you want healthy meals like you know for me I'm in Fitness right so I want something like a clean chicken breast brown rice eggs you know healthy food like that or if you're more like if you want vegan food or if you want organic food obviously it's going to go up it's like eight to ten dollars per meal but you know it's still cheaper in the US the quality of food is amazing there's a lot of varieties uh wherever you were basically I never had issues in terms of food whether I was in Chiang Mai Bangkok Phuket Koh Samui there was always a fitness food option for me now for the rental side of cost of living I would also give this a five stars and this is how much I paid uh in terms of the four locations that I was in uh basically it was all one bedroom uh condo or a studio uh like this picture right here this is a studio in Chiang Mai and this is actually one of my favorite place because it was really good for YouTube recording you know the background was decent the light was amazing there was no Echo and it's really hard for me doing YouTube to find like this perfect recording setup because there's always like Echo issue like this place you know it's nice but there's a lot of audio Echo right sometimes the background isn't good there's sometimes there's construction nearby most of you guys won't have to you know like care for this but for me it was amazing it's like 550 a month to have everything clean place like a very convenient location uh so Chiang Mai is super cheap and if you go to other locations it's a little more right Bangkok I paid 1100 a month Phuket I paid 1200 a month and this is the thing about Phuket the room was the worst out of all four of this I was basically the smallest super small Studio a good location you know but nothing special in terms of the room and it was the most expensive just because it was Phuket and just because it was like the island side right but kosamui was also the island side but it's less touristy and I paid 750 dollars for this crazy place that I'm gonna show you which is this so cool summary rental was nuts it was 750 a month for one month uh rental on Airbnb and it's a literal lake house that you can see that I had my desk and I'm on the lake facing the lake it's crazy peaceful there's no one making noises right and it's just like right in nature and surprisingly not much mosquitoes too it did get a little hot but like no complaints there it was amazing and the location was amazing it was right in chiwang I think that's how you say it area super chill so anyways Koh Samui was much better for me in terms of rattle than Phuket so ease of Visa I will give this four stars so not five because it's a little confusing for me and you know basically if you do visa on arrival you get 30 days and then you can go to immigration and extend this for another 30 days right so essentially you get two months and then you know a lot of people will leave for a day or you know you do a border run and then you come back and you get another two months doing this so a lot of people keep doing this but then you know it's a little sketchy because if you do too much of that in the year when you come back they could deny entry right so preferably you do more of a long-term option uh long-term option would be something like an education Visa education Visa is you will you know will choose whether you want to volunteer whether you want to learn Thai whether you want to learn Muay Thai and there's a time commitment it's like it depends on which one you want to do but some are like 20 hours a week so you know in exchange for 20 hours a week or perhaps learning Muay Thai or learning the language you can stay for up to a year which is amazing because you know if you're into learning muay thai if you're going to do that already that's how you can stay right and solve the Visa issue for me though as an entrepreneur I do want to learn Muay Thai I don't mind learning Thai the thing is the 20 hours a week or however much time commitment even if it was just eight hours a week it's a lot you know if I'm trying to work trying to be productive that is a lot of time that you know it's going away so a lot of times it's much better to get a golden Visa which is something that you just pay and you can essentially stay for like five years uh golden Visa I forgot the prices I think it's like 5K a year or something like that but you know obviously it's so much cheaper to live in Thailand so if you're coming from the US or Canada or whatever then even if you're paying 5K for this Visa don't quote me on the price but it's like around there right it's still going to save you some money just by living in Thailand so um for that reason I'll give this a four star but it's not the easiest for sure the next one is internet and I'll give this five stars it's significantly better than Bali uh wherever you are you know you get data on your phone you can just buy a SIM card and you get unlimited data as well as you know your condo mostly have a super fast Wi-Fi so pretty much everywhere is fast and if for any reason the condo or you know the cafe Wi-Fi is slow you just hot spot it from your phone which has the unlimited data plan hopefully and then you know you have no issues so in terms of that Thailand is amazing I think that's why a lot of people love Thailand as a digital Nomad hot spot now things to do uh also five stars Chiang Mai is a great blend of city and nature I highly recommend everybody to check out Chiang Mai something about Chiang Mai really you know makes a lot of people fall in love with the city and same as meme I'm not a city guy I love nature and Chiang Mai also has more developed area but it's just like a really really nice mix of city and nature Bangkok obviously if you love the city and The Nightlife it's a great place to be a lot of my friends love Bangkok for me personally I didn't it wasn't my style but I can see that if you love the city then it'll be great Phuket personally it's more catered to tourists and I this was my least favorite place and kosamui is a slower Pace uh it's more of the island so if you're looking for an island spot you know Koh Samui for me personally I really loved it and it's much more of a slower Pace it's more for couples or you know family members compared to somewhere like kopangan which is where the the full moon party is I intentionally avoid because I don't want to be in that party scene I don't want to be surrounded by the party people because that's not the kind of people that I enjoy hanging out with you know so I intentionally went to Koh Samui and this slower Pace in the nature I really loved it so these are some activities uh this is in Chiang Mai this is a white water rafting you can see the elephants and you just like kind of rafting next to them so that was super cool and then this is the night market so you know there was some interesting food like eating scorpions and different bugs but overall the night markets there's a lot in Chiang Mai it was really cool and this is Bangkok this is just a view from the restaurant and the high rise so you know really really beautiful really really developed area and this is rawai Phuket so I was in rawai which is like the least touristy area I believe in Phuket but still like you know good digital Nomad spot there was some hype in terms of rawai being like the next changu I don't think so I don't think it's there yet but the view was pretty nice and Final this is kosamui with some cool temples and a lot of Nature and obviously nice beaches so next is Healthcare and this is absolutely five stars the Healthcare in Thailand is amazing once again I'm comparing this to Bali because you know before this I was in Bali and it's significantly better than Bali especially in Chiang Mai and Bangkok there's the Bangkok Hospital and just the facility is amazing it's Top Notch Phuket is pretty good too my friend got in an accident so you know we went to the hospital over there and I can see that it's good kosamu is a bit worse due to the island you know but still way better than Bali now the weather it's four stars so I gave a similar review to Bali just because it's hot and humid right it's the same weather as Bali but you know five stars for me is like Medellin Colombia or just Colombia in general when it's like you know Eternal spring and it feels great it's not muggy and since it's hot and humid I will give this four stars way better than the Winter though of course but Chiang Mai during November and February was actually pretty chilly we're wearing long sleeve and you know at night when you're driving it's freezing so I was surprised by that another thing is Chiang Mai There Is Burning Season from around February to April which makes it a lot of times unlivable right and you know this might be foreigners complaining because obviously locals live there you know and they do fine but it gets really bad in terms of The Burning Season and I doubt that it is something that you would want to live through so a lot of times people kind of avoid this by you know moving to somewhere in the South for this couple months and then they come back after around May or so for the rest different areas like Bangkok or you know the island side there is rainy season as well so that's why I will give this four stars in terms of weather alright so Transportation option uh five stars because there's always you know bike like motorbikes that you can rent I love the motorbike lifestyle so personally I think this is way better than Bali just because Bali is so crowded the roads are so narrow and it's so hard to drive right compared to that the roads are a lot bigger in Thailand and so it's much easier to drive much less of a traffic there is still traffic but it's not even close to how bad it is in Bali now there's I believe the accident is worse because the roads are bigger and also there's more Highway here so people are going faster so when you do get in an accident compared to Bali it's a lot worse you know in Thailand the injuries are way worse and you know there's a lot more death because you're going much faster but besides that I think driving is better in Thailand uh and also if you don't drive a motorbike you can just you know order grab and taxi and just go everywhere so that's very easy as well all right so next is people so um people I will give Thailand five stars except for Phuket Phuket I'll give them three stars and here's why mostly Thai people are very nice right very nice locals and expats except for me my experience with Phuket was not the case now don't get mad because this is just my experience and obviously this is you know just generalizing the whole area and that's not you know it doesn't do justice to some people right because no matter what race no matter which area you go there's always cool people and there's always bad people right good people and bad people everywhere you know but in general I felt a much worse vibe in Phuket and here's why you know whenever the location is a lot more touristy I noticed this happening because you know if this is so touristy so busy people just get tired right so it just kind of shows in their you know your their uh personality and their attitude too now Phuket uh basically Bali 2 and Thailand you know other areas as well but especially Phuket I felt like there was a Russian invasion happening like it seems like 90 of the population was Russian and obviously I got some Russian friends right so there were some cool Russians and there are some not so cool Russians as well but in general in Phuket I just felt like there was a lot more rude and confrontational people which is not something you typically want anywhere but you know especially in Southeast Asia it's like known to have good vibes people are smiling and that is something that I noticed in Phuket compared to other areas is a lot less friendly locals as well and I'm not quite sure why I feel like maybe because they're so tired of you know the tourists and maybe they're just like affected by that they're tired of it maybe the tourists are not that friendly so the locals see that and then they stop being friendly as well I don't know but basically compared to other locations a lot less people saying hi a lot less people smiling and just you know being friendly so that was just my experience but that's what I noticed all right going to the quality of life I give this five stars so I think it's absolute amazing value for money you also get excellent internet connection and work setup nice people in general and a health focused lifestyle so the final rating is I love Thailand and I will definitely go back you know I've met more digital Nomads and Chiang Mai than anywhere else this is a picture of a Amazon KDP Meetup that we did and we didn't even plan to go to Chiang Mai at the same time we just happen to be in the same area and the fact that there's over 10 people in the same business in the same area at the same time is is crazy to me you know because back then I was doing this in Hawaii alone and I didn't know anybody else doing this so there's a lot of digital Nomads if you want to network and connect Chiang Mai and also just Thailand in general is an amazing place there's something for everyone you know whether you love the city you can go to Bangkok if you love The Nature or the islands you can go to the island side uh like Koh Samui and if you want a mix of both then you can go to Chiang Mai so personally I don't recommend Phuket I just never had a good experience but some people do like Phuket so if you want to check it out you can go and check it out but uh personally I would not recommend it so where should you go in Thailand well once again choose Chiang Mai for the incredible value for money it's basically if you're looking for value for money it's significantly better than any other location in Thailand and also the quality of life it's so cheap and yet there's so many things to do the weather is amazing people is amazing you know the convenience is just top-notch there's literally everything you got the city and the nature so Chiang Mai absolutely amazing I would go back if you want more of a city more nightlife then you can choose Bangkok and Koh Samui or other Islands will be good if you do want the beach fives all right A lot of people ask me the difference between Thailand and Bali so this is what I noticed and obviously you know Bali is just an island compared to Thailand as a whole country so there's more options but either way this is typically how people compare the two so that's what we're doing here but Thailand has significantly better internet way better infrastructure better Healthcare personally better food a lot of people will agree that they have better food it's a lot more walkable which is important in Bali it's so hard to walk over there because there's no sidewalks in most streets right Thailand has more options for living in different areas once again you got the Mountainside you got the the island side you have the city as well and on top of that it is cheaper Bali on the other hand you know people is nicer in my opinion I noticed that people in Bali is more friendly than Thai people but this is like slightly more they're both very very friendly they're both very nice but I would give Bali a little more uh in terms of you know nicer people another thing about Bali is the language is a lot easier to learn compared to Thai because Bali uses the alphabet compared to Thai it just looks like squiggly lines to be honest right but if you use the Google Translate app on your phone it's actually very easy to communicate with people who don't speak English it's actually very easy to read you know Thai words because the Google translated app will just translate it for you so very easy to go around actually and Bali for me personally I think it's easier to stay long term because the Visa option is a little better alright guys so that is my detailed review on Thailand I definitely would go back and hopefully that was helpful for you I know that these this kind of videos not a lot of people watch it but for those who do watch it seem to like it so I wanted to do another one in Thailand as well so if you want to learn how I built a online business that allows me to travel the world what I do is I actually built a Amazon KDP business so it is a business on Amazon but we're not selling physical products like Amazon FBA we sell digital products and for me personally it is significantly better that way it's way more passive and it's way less headache so if you want to learn more about what I do then there is a free training the link is in the description below and that is it for the video so thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed it leave a like comment if you have any questions subscribe if you haven't yet and I'll see you guys in the next one [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Sean Dollwet

Views: 17,262

Keywords: self publishing, amazon kdp, how to make money online, amazon kindle publishing, amazon kdp publishing, paul marles, low content book publishing, low content books, low content books kdp, low content kdp, low content publishing, no content book publishing, no content books, kdp income report, kdp revenue, amazon income streams, dane mcbeth, mikkelsen twins, kdp niche research, kdp low content, KDP tips, Publishing Life, Audiobook Publishing, write a book with chatgpt

Id: 0ZID2HpKdvs

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023