Practicalities
Domestic Flights Are Cheap and Almost Nobody Uses Them
Bangkok to Phuket costs more than Bangkok to London and takes eight times as long, and that one strange fact explains the whole Thai domestic aviation market.
Somchai Jaidee
Sawatdee khrap! I’m Somchai (Bank). I help travelers navigate Thai visas easily while sharing the best slow-travel secrets, hidden street food spots, and local culture. Let’s make your move to Thailand completely effortless! 🇹🇭
Practicalities
A Sea Snake in Thailand Is Almost Certainly Not Going to Bite You
The water is warm all year so everything lives in it, and almost nothing in the sea is interested in you. Here is the small number of things that are actually worth knowing.
Islands & Beaches
Koh Phangan Is Two Islands Dressed as One
A quiet northern half and a party southern tip, connected by a road that takes an hour, and a full moon event that has been under official pressure for a decade.
Temples & Culture
Ten Days in a Temple Is Harder Than Ten Days of Anything Else I Have Done
You will wake at four, you will not eat after noon, and on the last morning you will understand something and then go back to your life. Here is how the thing works.
Money & Costs
Your Bank Called to Say the Card in Thailand Was Captured, and There Is Nothing You Can Do
Thai banks are required to destroy a card the moment it is captured for a wrong PIN, and nobody can overrule your issuer from ten thousand kilometres away. Here is how to not be that person.
Street Food
Thailand Grows Some of Asia's Best Coffee and Almost Nobody Has Noticed
The royal development projects turned a subsistence crop into a speciality industry across the northern hills, and the result is genuinely good coffee in a country that drinks instant.
Money & Costs
Thai Gold Is Cheaper Than Gold and the Reason Is a Refusal to Charge You for Craftsmanship
Everything in a Thai gold shop is 96.5 percent and priced by weight, the price is published on a screen you can read before you walk in, and the markup on making is small. Here is the system.
Practicalities
The Question at Customs Is Not a Trick and the Answer Is on Your Phone
Two channels, three numbers, and a list of things that get confiscated that nobody warns you about. Customs takes ninety seconds if you know the answer in advance.
Visas & Immigration
A Weekend Trip to Laos Ends Your Thai Long Stay Visa and Nobody Warns You
The stamp that says how long you may stay and the permission to come back are two different documents, and only one of them is stamped in your passport.
Street Food
Thai Fish Sauce Is a Category, Not a Bottle, and Nam Pla O Is Not Nam Pla Nua
Southeast Asia's best seafood, sold by weight in the morning and cooked in a banana leaf by the afternoon, and a condiment aisle that is more complicated than it needs to be.
Visas & Immigration
The Six Diseases Nobody Warns You About Are From 1992 and They Are Not a Joke
A blood test, a chest X-ray and a rubber stamp, required by a ministerial regulation from 1992, and it is the requirement that most often derails an otherwise perfect long-stay application.
Practicalities
The Worst Thing That Happens in Thailand Is Not the Motorbike, It Is the Money
Some of it is organised crime and some of it is two people who ended up in a bad situation, and the advice that prevents most of it is uncomfortable and simple.