Real numbers. What a month costs, what a year costs, and what is cheaper than advertised.
Money & Costs
A legal state lottery, a criminal ban on everything else, and a year-long crackdown that took down hundreds of thousands of URLs. What it means if you are in the room.
Money & Costs
One charge is already inside your ticket, two more are being written into law, and none of the three works the way people assume. Thailand's 2026 tax stack, and who is fighting it.
Practicalities
Every Thai over a certain age does the annual blood test. Foreigners should know the packages, the real prices, and what they are actually paying for before they click book.
Money & Costs
Thai electricity is sold by the unit, the unit is a kilowatt-hour, and the building may be selling it to you at double the national rate. The numbers, and the one question to ask at signing.
Money & Costs
Thailand has a tourist VAT refund scheme, it pays 7%, and the paperwork is one form you have to ask for at the till. Here is the whole system, including who does not qualify.
Street Food
I tracked every baht for seven days in Chiang Mai eating the way a local eats: morning khao kha moo, midday curry, evening noodles. The number that surprised me was not the food. It was the coffee.
Money & Costs
Every cost-of-Thailand article quotes the same four numbers, and none of them come from anyone who paid rent. Here is a month I actually spent, broken down.
Slow Travel
Everyone tells you not to come in the rainy season. I came in June because the room was 4,000 baht instead of 9,000, and stayed for two years. The rain is not what people think it is.
Money & Costs
Every fee at a Thai ATM is in baht, printed nowhere, and charged per withdrawal rather than per transaction, which is why a 500 baht withdrawal costs you more than a 5,000 baht one.
Practicalities
The airport SIM is more expensive than the city SIM by about 40 per cent, and the difference buys you one thing: not missing a flight home because a taxi driver had the wrong number.
Visas & Immigration
The Thailand retirement visa costs about 65,000 baht a year in government fees, gives you the right to live in the country, and pays a pension you cannot claim from.
Money & Costs
There is a point at which doing the arithmetic in your head stops being useful and starts being a tax on your attention. It arrives in week two.