Best place in South East Asia to live for 6+ months per year

I'm in need of a tax advisor who understands "our" typical situation. I'm all good on being legal on taxes at this point, but as I'm doing more investing and there's more compliance and KYC and such, it's getting more complicated to deal with this topic. Not living in my country of citizenship, company in another country, resident in yet another country, banking in a different country ... you know how it is, a pile of red flags.

Would be great to find a good tax advisor to sort things in a way that makes my situation as "explainable" and easily dealt with as possible. Any leads?

Hey everyone,

Looking for blogs by individuals who document their progress/business in South East Asia - ideally Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos - but also Thailand/Myanmar too.

Thank you,

Haiducci

Hello everyone,
I will come to live in Colombia for one year.
What is the best solution with the Visa?
I thought to have a Visa for tourists for 3 months and renewal the visa for 6 months. Is that hard to renewal a tourist Visa in Colombia?
Thank you for your help.
Best,
Julien

Hi! I’m still struggling to figure out how to handle health insurance.

What handy guides have you found to help figure out USA health care?

I’m struggling with:

• When it’s okay/wise to go without coverage while abroad, these days.
• What other type of insurance I want while traveling, and whether it needs to be a supplement to USA insurance or if it can be a replacement.
• Etc.

Above all, I think I want out. I wonder about success stories in moving to some other system/location, and the method you’d recommend: additional citizenship, a special visa, etc.

I have searched this topic and struggled with it, so summaries and clarity are super helpful. I appreciate any and all help with this. Thanks so much!

Hey there!

I’m planning on spending 3 months in Australia next year on a tourist visa. I’ve already gotten my working holiday visa (in 2017), but unfortunately didn’t get to take advantage of the full year (only stayed 3 months).

My boyfriend will be able to get his working holiday visa before we go, so I’m wondering if anyone knows of a way that I might be able to extend my stay (6 months would be ideal, if longer I wouldn’t complain).

I’d like to do this legally of course, so I’m wondering about a student visa. Anyone have experience getting this to extend their stay?

And other workarounds that might be worth exploring?

Might also be worth noting – I’ll be working while I’m there (for a US-based company) and I am American.

Appreciate the help!

Rose

Hi guys!

We’re leaving on Dec 1st for a 5-month DN experience with our kids, but we have second thoughts on our journey. We were supposed to do a trip in South-East Asia (Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia). We’re from Canada, and our clients are all in Canada right now (we’re digital marketing consultants).

After comparing destinations, we’re starting the think Latin America may be a better choice to make sure we keep most of our clients during these 5 months (same timezone). Also, it seems Latin America fits our needs too :

• cheap (actually often cheaper than Chiang Mai according to Numbeo)
• great weather (sunny while less hot than Asia)
• business continuity : good wifi connection, limited time difference
• learning opportunity : one single language = great opportunity to improve our Spanish
• relaxed pace of life
• kid-friendly
• relatively safe (see countries below)

So here are our 2 options ; which one would you recommend for our criteria?

A: SEA : Thailand (Chiang Mai and a couple islands in the South), Indonesia (Bali and Lombok), Malaysia (Penang)
B: Latin America : Mexico (Playa Del Carmen/Tulum), Colombia (Medellin), Peru (Lima and other TBD towns), Chile (Santiago and other TBD towns), Argentina (Buenos Aires and other TBD towns).

Thanks!

Hi everybody,

we’re a family of 4 from Canada (Quebec province) leaving to Thailand on December 1st.
Our plan is to take things slowly and live in a peaceful environment while working a little and doing homeschooling to our 6-year-old son (plus escaping Canadian-cold winter )

This is roughly what our plan would look like:

• arriving in Bangkok, staying there for about a week (air bnb probably)
• moving to Chiang Mai then Krabi (most likely Ao Nang, Ao Tha Lane, Railay) or Koh Pha Ngan (North part) or Koh Chang (2-3 months)
• then Indonesia (Bali/Gili islands) (1,5 months)
• And Malaysia (Batu Ferengi, Penang) to finish (1 month)

We’re not city dwellers, and love being surrounded by nature.
Knowing that, what would be the best places for a family who want something quiet, walkable and with reliable Internet service?

Thanks!
Magali and Guillaume

I have been a digital nomad for the last couple of years. I have always worked in tech and now run a couple of profitable online businesses that give me a reliable income and allow me to fund a nomadic lifestyle.

I recently exited one of my businesses and I am considering to invest the income from the sale in properties, mainly for 2 reasons:

a) I don’t want to keep wasting my money in renting apartments across the cities I stay

b) I believe in properties as investment and I want to diversify my investment portfolio (mainly stocks)

After years of constant wander from one place to another, now I am the type of digital nomad who sticks to few locations: I mainly rotate across 4 places each year (San Francisco, Medellin, Berlin, Bali). Buying a house in each of those location would be difficult and too expensive. Therefore, I was wondering if there was any sort of service that combines an investment opportunity with the ability to access different properties around the world (even if just for a limited time per year) ?

Imagine living in 4 cities per year and having a house in each place that you can exclusively use for 3 months and at the same time having your investment growing (this depending on the market, of course). Wouldn’t that be great? I believe it could be done via a property fund selling you a share and giving you access to some of their properties for a limited timeframe each year.

Has anyone heard of anything like that?

Thanks!

Hey all! Planning to head to Southeast Asoa later this year and I’m looking for a place that’s got a good community of people who play beach volleyball. I’m in Medellin at the moment and joined up with a community of locals and expats who play a few times a week and I’ve gotta say I’ve quickly fallen in love with the game!

I want to find a place that’s got a good community I can play and practice with somewhere down there. Mix of locals and expats are both fine, though ideally there’s at least a few expats so I can communicate with at least one person in the same language! I’m open to indoor volleyball too, though I know that’s much less common (especially amongst nomads).

Appreciate any direction ya’ll can give!

We’re researching places to use as a home base next year, and are leaning towards Mexico or Panama for 10 months (with 1 week “vacations” to explore surrounding countries)

But, I want to settle some place where the infrastructure is good enough for fast, reliable internet - fast enough to run live webinars without worrying that I’ll be S.O.L due to internet issues when it’s time to go live.

And ideally, I’d like to be on the coast… I like to have ocean/beach access without the need for a drive.

And not in a malaria zone (just saying, since Panama in particular has many areas that I’d rule out simply due to the need for malaria prevention meds)… it’s one thing to take that stuff for a few weeks long trip, but I don’t want to take it for months on end.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading all

I am trying to figure out three things. An average of how much data everyone uses per month, a low end of how little data is used, and a high end of how much data can be used? I am not interested in your methods of acquiring data. I am just interested in how much you use as a whole. This includes both work data usage and your personal data usage.

I am soon to find out one way or another as I will leave my residency to become a nomad myself. I have not found a good solution for Bali or Asian countries on the internet.

I read our existing Nomadlist posts under Money tag. Money handling and charges around accessing it seem to be a big issue for nomads, soon my issue. As a post I read said, accessing money for a Nomad can be harder than making money. I am more worried about accessing money than having some.

I’ll use Transferwise Borderless account to keep my day to day living money. I am opening a Pte Ltd corporate, that only goes for business-related expenses.
My Canadian credit card will charge me an arm and a leg in fees and currency conversion for me to get Indonesian Rupiah in Bali from Canadian dollar account. Then at some point, my credit card will complain I am not in Canad anymore.
Not knowing better, I’ll try that. If that works good and still live me short on how to go for smaller and random daily expenses.

Thanks for your help!
Enjoy your Nomad living!!

Hi there,

Glad to be part of the digital nomad community.

Originally from the Netherlands, I lived in Madrid for two years and have been living in Melbourne since July 2017. Although I am used to living abroad and working from home, the digital nomad lifestyle is new to me.

I recently decided to explore Asia starting from July/August this year, and am wondering what your thoughts and experiences are. I am thinking of staying about a month in each place. Bali, Chiang Mai and Vietnam are on my mind.

I enjoy a balance between fun and tranquility/nature. I very much enjoy socializing with people, but I prefer good talks in a chilled environment over going out in nightclubs. Any ideas which cities/environment might be suitable?

Thanks in advance for your advice

Regarding remote work in Asia/Far East, How have or could you successfully navigate the time zone and internet issue. It sounds like you really have to use a cowork space there to have adequate connection but I would be working mainly in US time zones with 12 hour difference, are there spaces open 24 hours? Is it possible to get good internet with a long term rental instead? I would need a really good connection, which it’s hard to tell if exists in some places at all. Thanks!

I am contemplating to spend some digital nomad time on Cabo Verde. But as it is not yet on the Nomad List I was wondering if anyone has been there and what it is like re: Internet speed and accommodation?

Hello! My family and I are planning to move to Europe and live nomadically for some time. I was wondering if anyone had experience registering a NON-EU spouse. I know some countries are faster than others. Spain takes 6 months vs Poland taking 1 month. I would love to hear of anyone who had this experience. Do you know of any country where the process of registering a NON-EU spouse i fast? We don’t want to wait to long in one county waiting for the temporary residency. Thanks!

Hello all,

I have a mail management service in the UK which all my mail gets sent to. This works fine 90% of the time and most can be dealt with digitally.

The other 10%, I need the mail sent on to me, which they do offer as a service. However, where I struggle is giving them an address to send it to in the Philippines, namely Manila.

I’ve used DHL for really important stuff, like bank cards, but it would be nice to have an address where I can forward certain mail. Anyone been able to set something up like this in the Philippines? Would a virtual office allow me to receive mail?

Thanks in advance

Hi everyone! I’m thinking of making the jump from being an office-bound web developer to freelancing instead. I was hoping to talk to some of you who do freelance web dev while living a nomadic lifestyle.

I’m at a bit of a loss, because when I’ve tried looking for posts about this kind of lifestyle, the majority of what I’ve found is for web designers or Wordpress developers, which are both pretty different from being a developer who likes to work with React or whatever other framework.

So for those of you who are living my dream right now:
Are you usually building Wordpress sites, or more often using a framework like React or Ruby on Rails? Or something else entirely?

What types of contracts do you take on? Ecommerce? Building blogs?
Are they on-going, or one-off projects?

How do you get clients while on the road? Is it mostly Upwork or word of mouth?

I have a ton of questions, and would greatly appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thank you!

Here’s a question (actually a bunch of related questions) that’s been a bit of a thorn in my side lately. I’ve already combed this forum as well as several others but would love some more insight from more knowledgable people.

So, here goes…

Background: I’m a perpetual traveler and haven’t stayed in a single country longer than 6 months for around 5 years now. I’m a non-US person so no IRS worries but my country of citizenship (Korea) has a residential tax system and since I haven’t claimed residency anywhere else, it seems possible for my government to claim me as a tax citizen.

Which brings me to my first question: At what point does forming a solid business structure to cover your taxable a** become worth the hassle? $100K/year? At $200K/year? I sort of feel like most governments wouldn’t bother with this because it’s relatively “small fish” - thoughts?

And that brings me to another question: If I’m not needlessly spending time worrying and I should finally pull the trigger and set something up that makes me more “legit” - even if it requires paperwork - what’s my best option? Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Set up an offshore company - I’m leaning toward RAK Offshore since it seems to have no paperwork requirements and has no taxes - and use that to hold and re-invest the income I receive while paying myself a nominal amount every month, like $3,000, which I then file Korean (income) taxes for. This makes sense in my head since that’s roughly the amount I spend every month anyway but would this qualify as tax evasion?

Last question: for all of you who are perpetual travelers and aren’t filing tax returns with your country of citizenship/last tax residency - what are you doing in terms of investing the money you’ve saved? From what I’ve read, banks will report accounts that hold over a certain amount to the country of the account holder and online brokerage accounts seem to be the same.
Oh, and is the money accrued (without being reported tax-wise) considered black money?!

Okay, I’m done for now. Apologies for writing a book - I’m not so learned on this topic. Would appreciate any insights. Thanks in advance!