Ko Samui

We have been living here for 18 months, really love it, it took a while for the island to recover from Covid but general economic activity is back to say 60-70% now and we have two groups for digital nomads (meet monthly or so at various locations) and one for tech startups (Startup Samui on fb meets weekly) plus a few small coworking spaces and friendly cafes for nomads popping up. Our living costs are about $600/month for rent two bedroom+ house near beach and about the same again for food and bike rental and going out. We cook about 40% of the time and eat out mainly. Booze is extra, local beers cheap cocktails are a little expensive 150-250+thb. Air quality and saftey are excellent except need to be careful on roads with motor bikes. Very diverse expat scene.

I stayed in Taling Ngam in a villa at a place called Le Motu for almost a month. I can't recommend it enough. It's amazing, with a very secluded beach, fast wifi, a few great restaurants nearby. If you want to party this is not the area to stay, but if you're looking for a secluded area to just relax and get work done, the southern half of the island is great.

We have been living here for 12 months and love it. Airport is very central for the region and all major hubs. Supermarkets and local markets are plentiful and generally fairly priced especially makro and local. No power outages. Some minor internet fibre outages but mobile generally great. Air quality is excellent except for rare neighbours burning leaves :-) Lots of great beaches, we like the north and west as it is more quiet/family/couples but south and east have more excitement and are arguably more beautiful. Main choice is living on beach or living in hills w view. We are beach people mainly cause it saves 20 mins a day driving up/down and you don't have to plan to run/walk/swim. Prices not that different. We use bikes, 2500thb per month for a newish honda click 125 which is what most locals ride so repairs are cheap and instant. Diving is ok but your really want to do an overnight trip to nearby Koh Phangan or Koh Toa or Koh Team or Ang Thong all of which are close by. Samui is the hub and all the benefits flow from that, choice, price, availability, capacity, information etc... Lots of very long term interested expats what have settled with family, business, local spouse etc. Food panda and lazada and online food are great (and fast) for the things that are not easy to get. I had one bad experience with an oyster (my fault frankly) but otherwise no food poisoning issues. Lots of cool cafes, restaurants etc of all nationalities as in the good years they have 50,000 locals and 2m visitors. There is also a digital nomad group and a startup samui group both with hundreds of members here, nearby koh panghan has lots of crypto. First timers will find it a little expensive but you will soon work out where the local expats go and it is nice, inexpensive, authentic and supportive community. We love climbing waterfalls after rain, exploring new beaches and nearby islands (cheap long boats, sail only too), jet skiing, new restaurants, cafes, setting up the laptop in digital cafes and meeting people and the digital coffee groups.

Samui sucks and is to be avoided by nomads. It's not a nomad hotspot, at all. And probably won't ever become one.

Pros:
- Has an airport, so you can fly in straight from Bangkok and it only takes an hour
- Has nice villas you can rent with beautiful view over the ocean and Ko Phangan in the distance
- Grab and FoodPanda delivery food works okay here, although options are quite limited compared to Bangkok
- WiFi is good and fast around the island, no problems at all
- Driving a bike/scooter here is quite do-able as traffic is not that insane as in Bali or the rest of Thailand
- Nice place to go diving but honestly you're closer to the diving spots from Ko Phangan.
- Big C and Makro supermarkets have all the international food you can wish for like steak, baguettes and camembert, although the raw meat can be dodgy
- You can ship good frozen organic meat in here from Paleo Robbie from Bangkok (just Google this)

Cons:
- There is SO much food poisoning. Me and my 8 friends would get diarrhea every few weeks. It's not about local bacteria that you have to get immunity to, that's bs. You can't get immunity to local bacteria. It's just the food is prepared with bad hygiene, the meat isn't refrigerated and transported properly (see power cuts).
- There was only a few places that we confirmed as clean and we ordered there a lot with high quality food: especially Basilicom and Falafel Factory.
- The scene in Samui is mostly weekend tourists from Bangkok, low class expats who gave up on life with zero ambition and low class neon tanktop tourists in Chaweng who will blast their shitty music on Bluetooth speakers. My friends started calling Samui the "land of losers" cause that's what it feels like. This is not a foreigner opinion either: the Thai we spoke even from Samui would agree.
- Very few hipster cafes. I can count them on one hand. Most other cafes are Thai chains like Amazon and coffee is not good. Even fewer cafes where you can work in A/C
- The young/hipster/nomad scene on the Thai islands still isn't in Ko Samui, instead they're in Ko Pha Ngang (next door) and Ko Lanta (on the other/left coast of Thailand) and Phuket.
- Restaurants are really average but really expensive (see food poisoning above too), and very touristy but more like the touristy you know from your parents going to Thailand riding elephants and buying sarongs in the tourist shop inside the restaurant
- Regular power cuts, which usually also means the water stops running, so no shower, toilet, tap water etc. Unless your house/hotel/villa has a power generator (most don't), you're stuck without. Also AC won't work so it'll quickly become boiling hot inside your place
- In many ways Ko Samui is more expensive than Bangkok, because it's a tourist island and quite small
- Samui lacks a specific identity, it's unclear for who it is, I'd describe it as "Ko Meh"

Summary:
- Samui is nice if you come with a group, book a luxury villa and cook your own food. But then it gets boring after a few weeks.

Where to go instead?
- If you want an island place with nomad scene and hipster cafes, of course Canggu in Bali. Otherwise Ko Phangan, or Ko Lanta might be better. If you want a vibrant social scene go to the south of Phuket or Chiang Mai.

I spent 21 days here. Granted it was in Feb 2021 so there were not many tourists here, that made for a very enjoyable time experiencing the beautiful beaches and viewpoints without the swarm of wailing selfie sticks. Some very nice beach bars and cafes to work from with amazing views. A little more expensive than other areas of Thailand. If you go, a day visit to Ang Thong is a must. That place is just mesmerising.

I stuck here due COVID 19 quarantine. And it's best place to be right now. There are no big diifference compare to normal life. Locals are still friendly. Goverment doesn't pushes too much if you follow 2 simple rules: no partys due carantin and wear mask. Beaches are one of the best i've ever been and now they empty and even more clean. Food delivery works fine, Internet is good if you use your own line, and it's cheap to do. Great place to be here!

Samui is Thailand's second most popular island for tourists, after Phuket. The main areas are Chaweng and Lamai. Chaweng used to be more backpacker and trashy (like Bali's Kuta) but is now rapidly developing into a real clean town. Since 2014, it now has a giant air-conditioned Central World mall, an increasing number of coffee places, good restaurants and more upscale hotels and resorts.

Lamai Beach used to be the more clean and laidback area but is now deteriorating. The beaches are still okay but the streets are now filled with sex bars and bad restaurants. Worse, prices in Lamai are often higher than in Chaweng due to less competition.

The preferrable spot to stay in Ko Samui now is the more mellow South Chaweng.