A few weeks ago, I informed you of our mega plan to move to Thailand in July. Well that’s only 6 short weeks away. I’m getting stuff done bit by bit in order to be nice and relaxed come July.
Up until now, I’ve just been quietly getting on with things without too much fuss.
But June 1st marks the time when the serious stuff must begin.
What I mean by serious stuff – it’s basically researching and planning for when we get over to Thailand.
No Idea
As of now, we still have no idea of where we are going to move to in Thailand! We are more than likely going to choose Phuket, but as to exactly what part – we’ve no clue.
That’s the fun part in my opinion as we really don’t need to be anywhere particular, just as long as we have internet access to work online.
The first thing that I’ll be doing is sorting out our travel insurance policies. Without travel insurance, then you are taking a huge risk. I don’t understand why some people choose not to take out insurance. It boggles the mind something shocking. I’d rather fork out a few hundred euro and have myself covered in the unfortunate circumstance of having an accident, rather than paying thousands and thousands on hospital bills.
Visas
Next is getting Visas sorted. These have been a little complicated to understand, but I think I’ve gotten the gist of them. We’ve be getting a “triple entry tourist visa” which will effectively allow us to stay in Thailand for 9 months if we needed to, before having to go and do monthly/bi-weekly visa runs.
There are various forms of visa’s that can be acquired, but the one that we are going to get is the aforementioned tourist visa. This triple entry one costs €105 per person and is great value.
I’ve spent a lot of time on a few forums in relation to Thailand. The most popular ones are Travelfish and the Thai Visa Connect forums. These provide a wealth of information for both tourists and expats.
We will use these along with other means to find a few leads for either apartments or houses for us to take a look at once we land.
Initially, we’ll just book a few nights in a hotel in Phuket or where ever and go hop on a scooter to check out a few locations. We have a local Thai friend out there, who’s also going to be helping us with miscellaneous things, which will make life a little easier.
Scootering It Up…
I mentioned that we will be using a scooter to get around. This is another thing that I want to try and figure out. Let me explain. It costs on average $50 per month to rent out a scooter.
Not bad for sure. But you also run the risk of getting scammed by a company who will try and make you pay for damages on the bike that were already there. And because they take your passport when you first rent the scooter, you’ll be left with no alternative but to pay.
Another scam is where the company will send someone to steal your bike from your hotel/accommodation, so therefore you will also have to fork out the price of a new bike.
While these are extreme cases, they do still happen. Even a small scratch on the bike could cost you a lot more than the $50 per month you’re paying in rent.
So this got us thinking, and we figure that if we could just buy a second hand scooter from a reliable source, then we could use it without fear of getting scammed, and also then be able to sell it back afterwards at a reduced price.
So I guess I’ll just have see if that method would be worth considering as opposed to renting. Personally, I think it would.
At the moment, those are my main concerns along with double checking that our online banking and ATM/Credit cards are all in working order.
I’ve been getting my gadget bag, complete with all my electronics together over the past few months. I’ll probably do up a blog post talking about that specifically nearer the time.
All in all, everything is still going as smoothly as I could have hoped for. The online business is continuing to grow, and I’m very confident that it will be able to sustain us both in Thailand.
I said in a previous post that the goal was to become location independent and to make money online. I’ve started up my own small internet business a few months ago in order to get the ball moving on this, and I also said that I will give details of this business before I leave, and I will.
There’s no reason for any big secrecy in divulging what that business is. I just want to continue to make certain that it will be profitable for us when we move away.
By the way, it’s nothing unique or that. Plenty of people are making ridiculous amounts of money doing the same, I’m just still in the early stages of it.
More on that in a future post 🙂
So there you have it. Apart from a few things here and there that will need to be ironed out, we are all set for Thailand in July.
It’s been nearly two years in the making, and it’s only 6 weeks away now – so I’m really pumped about it!
