Hi Roy,
My understanding is that Chiang Mai’s digital nomad population swells (and shrinks) greatly depending on the season.
Also you’re right about the visa situation, however as I understand it they are developing a special visa just for remote workers and digital nomads. I can’t imagine Chiang Mai will ever lose its stature as a digital nomad hub. But I’m fascinated by the dichotomy of your experiences between 2016/17 and 2019.

Hi Thomas,
On the whole I would say $4k/month is more than enough to enjoy a retirement lifestyle involving full-time travel. But there’s a caveat here: it highly depends on your anticipated quality of life, activities, ongoing expenses, and location. Even within South America there is a huge range of cost of living options.
You might enjoy this post to get you started in creating your budget: https://www.theprofessionalhobo.com/how-to-create-a-long-term-travel-budget-financially-sustainable-travel/

Hi James,
Good for you for learning to speak Thai and venturing out of the comfortable bubble that is the Nimman area. I think the motives of many DNs for living there (and many expats in general, in many countries with weaker currencies) is less about integrating with the culture, and more about getting more bang for their buck.

I don’t know if you’ve read my article about various ironies of expat communities around the world, but it goes hand in hand with this article and I suspect you’d find it interesting: https://www.theprofessionalhobo.com/the-irony-of-expat-life-pros-and-cons/

The thing about Nimman is that it’s most certainly not representative of Chiangmai as a whole, not by a long shot. It’s more expensive, touristy, and far more westernized than most other parts of the city. One would only have to wander a tiny distance to adjacent neighborhoods to find a very different experience.

Unfortunately the large majority of digital nomads congregate around Nimman and many rarely live in or explore other parts of the city in any depth. I’m routinely shocked at how little some nomads seem to know about the culture and the city they live in. This makes it far easier to sink into the bubble, spend 99% of your time with other foreigners, and miss most of the local culture entirely.

I never related to the (mostly much younger) nomad crowd, but that’s worked to my advantage. Most of my friends here are Thais and long-term expats, I speak decent Thai and I feel at least somewhat integrated.

I hope more DNs give themselves the chance to integrate even a bit more than most do. It’s made my life here infinitely more enriched and connected.

Hi Nora,

You nailed it with

“People who don’t take online careers seriously as a business are the people who fail”

Making a business successful is hard. Very hard.

This is not some, ” ‘work’ two hours a day” and then have fun and relax in the tropics doddle.

It requires more than a full time job in terms of effort and dedication.

There is no government safety net ready to catch those who don’t make it.

Hi Bob,
I agree with everything you say here, and you touch upon a number of interesting factors that have come into my own mind recently, which I’m mulling over and figuring out how to write about in a more dedicated article.
And I, like you, am very glad that I got my financial house in order (including nest eggs, retirement savings, etc) before leaving to travel and changing my career accordingly.

But I would also say that in this ever-changing work climate (I’ve been reading some studies lately that are showing how the trend towards telecommuting/freelancing is aggressively increasing), and with proper life and lifestyle planning (very important), you CAN still have kids, save for retirement, buy property, etc from the road. And, there are a number of digital nomads who are doing all of these things, very well I might add.

As more and more people embrace the digital nomad lifestyle, I for one am noticing that the “lifestyle” is taking more and more different forms.

The people who try and fail at it are the people who think it’s easy….some sort of free ticket to full-time travel. Like “Hey! I’m going to start a travel blog to pay for all my travels for as long as I want! And, I leave in two months.” People who don’t take online careers seriously as a business are the people who fail, in my opinion.

Hi Nora,

Thanks for the reply.

I am sure that there are a few thousand who support themselves in this way. A lot more try and fail. And I would indeed recommend that people should travel for a year or two.

But it is so easy to get wrapped up in this lifestyle that people do not realise the opportunity cost. There are little things like

– creating a family and having babies
– adequate pension
– building up assets such as a house
– having a well paid career job

If people swam about the globe until they are 35 plus, these become almost unattainable.

Those that make it a success, and I guess I am in that class along with you, now 18 years of no fixed abode, have already put in the work and did not head off until fairly financially secure.

However it was also alarmingly evident that after a couple of years I would no longer be able to re-enter the workforce at any reasonable level.

Hi Bob,
Judging by the comments you have left on this and another post, I would guess that you’re new to this website.

While I agree that the digital nomad lifestyle isn’t for everybody, and that it’s certainly not easy, I would argue that it’s not nearly as impossible as you seem to think.

My entire Financial Case Study series is filled with dozens (currently 66) case studies of people who are living mostly as digital nomads, and most of them are able to fully support their lifestyles with it. https://www.theprofessionalhobo.com/category/financial-case-studies/