A not so comprehensive guide on working from Chiang Mai, Thailand

A temple in the city of Chiang Mai

So you are probably one of the lucky few for whom location does not matter for the work you do and are considering Thailand as your next destination to work out of.

While Thailand has beautiful islands that you could work from, the islands are not very conducive for remote working as they are very touristy. It’s not impossible but there are better choices within Thailand that I’d urge you to consider.

The two towns I’d suggest are Koh Pahngan & Chiang Mai.

Koh Pahngan is a beautiful island in the southern part of Thailand while Chiang Mai sits in the northern part of Thailand among the hills with it having the highest point in the country Doi Inthanon.

Both these towns have an amazing remote working culture, great cafes, amazing co-working spaces, and fast internet.

Although the idea of working from a beach in Koh Pahngan sipping Piña coladas was exciting at first, I knew I couldn’t be very productive there. Full-moon parties every other week certainly wouldn’t help.

Same time, I had heard about Chiang Mai being the best place in the world to work remotely.

In July 2022, I, therefore, decided to work from Chiang Mai, to see it for myself.

After a month here, I couldn’t agree more.

Visa

Indian passport holders, get 15 days with Visa on Arrival so if you’re staying for lesser days then that, visa should not be an issue and you would get it on reaching the airports you are flying to.

Given my stay was for almost a month, I had to get a tourist visa.

I got a single-entry tourist visa that is valid for 60 days and extendable for another 30 days. The visa extension is easy and everyone mostly gets it so you could plan a work trip for 90 days on a single entry.

I applied through VFS and had to provide the onwards/return flight tickets as well as proof of accommodation (not necessarily for the entire duration of the stay).

You could, of course, stay longer but you might have to do a border run at the end of your visa validity.

I flew to Chiang Mai directly from Bangalore via a tiny layover in Bangkok although there is also a train to Chiang Mai from Bangkok that you could take that takes around 11 hours.

Stay

The best way to look for short-term accommodation (1-6 months) in Chiang Mai is to land here and then look for places, which is what I did.

I stayed at Stamps Backpackers hostel for two days and searched for an apartment nearby. Luckily, there are lots of options for staying even for short-term timelines like a month. Generally, the longer you stay the cheaper the accommodation gets.

I stayed at an apartment next to Stamps that came out to be about 2500THB + Electricity & Utilities, totally less than 5000THB overall. I thought that was a very good deal given the place had WiFi & Air Conditioning.

You could, however, take a really good serviced apartment for as low as 12000THB with way more amenities and have an enjoyable stay.

Since I knew I would be barely in the apartment and more in the co-working space working, I cheaped out on the stay and budgeted more for the co-working space, traveling, or having an occasional really nice dinner w/ drinks.

Work

A view of Punspace in the mornings

Chiang Mai has amazing co-working spaces or coffee shops that you could work out of. Every coffee shop I tried had great stable WiFi as well as incredible coffee.

After a couple of days of working out of coffee shops, I decided to work from a co-working space called Punspace where I was able to get a fixed desk for just 4000THB.

The place was incredible & accessible 24/7 and also provided a monitor for no extra cost if I needed it.

Punspace is less busy than other co-working spaces such as Yellow and is great for concentrated deep work any time of the day. It was really safe to even leave our work gear such as laptops and monitors at our desks each day so I never had to carry them around. I felt I was incredibly productive during my time there as it had fewer distractions to cater to.

The place had food as well as drinks right inside the co-working space so you could eat or drink at your desk itself.

If you’re into Web3 however, you could consider working out of Yellow for its crypto incubator and could potentially network with like-minded individuals.

Food & Expenses

Glass noodles in a local Thai restaraunt

Being a vegetarian I was a little skeptical about Chiang Mai but was pleasantly surprised. It was easy to find street food as well as restaurants that had vegetarian or vegan options every day. A surprising thing about Chiang Mai is that eating out here every meal is cheaper than cooking your own food so that’s what I did for my time here.

I would eat Thai food such as Khao Soy or Pad Thai pretty much every day. Each meal could as cost as low as 50 THB and cap out at 200 THB.

You could however eat western food every day if you wanted to which would only be slightly more expensive.

Being Indian, I did try the Indian Restaurants here once in a while. I’d totally recommend Raj Darbar if you’d like to have good Indian food sometime.

Apart from food, the other expenses I had were:

Transport: I took Grab’s wherever I needed to go and it never cost more than 50 THB on a bike. Coffee costs generally just around 50 THB. Getting laundry costs 50THB / kg of clothes. A haircut costs around 100THB. Nightlife is incredibly cheap too.

Review

Chiang Mai city on a morning run

Overall, I had a really good time in Chiang Mai. I met some really great people, made friends for life from different countries, was productive, and had a lot of fun.

Thai locals are very sweet towards tourists and most of them can speak or understand English so there is no issue in getting by generally.

Working remotely can get lonely but I always had friends from Stamps to hang out with in the evenings and did travel to nearby places like Pai & Chiang Rai on weekends to blow off some steam.

Chiang Mai has an amazing nomad & expat community who have been living here for a long time that you could mingle with. In fact, many European/American men I met had married a Thai woman and settled in Chiang Mai on a marriage visa. This place can suck you in.

I learned as much Thai as I could in my little time here and the cultural aspects of the place as well. Chiang Mai is a great place to learn the culture and I think I did my best to indulge myself in it.

Is it the best place in the world to work remotely? I don’t know.

But most certainly the best place I have worked from and I’m definitely coming back.