Cost of Living in Phuket, Thailand for Digital Nomads

In this Budgeteers challenge I am moving to a gorgeous tropical island in Thailand during the winter months. And I'll show you what long-term travel really looks like. And how much it actually costs! And the crazy thing is just by being here instead of at home my flights have already paid for themselves. I'll show you how. I'm Thys from The Budgeteers and I'm here back home here in Belgium and I desperately want to escape these cold winter months. Especially now because just heating your

house has become freaking expensive. So I thought why not just shut off my gas and electricity completely and try to travel somewhere where it's cheaper to work and live instead. So let's go! Escaping winter for two and a half months with not only save me enough money to fly across the globe, but my girlfriend and our baby daughter as well. Which makes this move just even crazier. And after a long 18 hours of flying we finally made it here. To this little piece of Tropical Paradise. It was a very long journey to get here but just looking at these views.

yeah already feels like it's all worth it. Far away from the cold temperatures. I cannot wait to take a dip into the ocean and check this place out and see what it's really like. This feels like proper Paradise but the challenge begins now because we're not just gonna be a tourist here. We're going to actually try and live long term here and see if I can like work remotely. But this is a good start. Let's do it. This beach is just one part of a really beautiful tropical island we chose to fly towards first called Phuket. It was one of the cheapest destinations we could find in Thailand and Asia.

Phuket Island has its own big international airport so it's really easy to get to and since rainy season in Phuket ends in December it fits our timing perfectly and although Phuket has some big tourist towns we actually found a really chill and cool area which had everything we needed Good morning, look at that amazing view and an amazing sunrise. Like who wouldn't want to look at this view in the morning and I'll show you the place that we're staying this is the first stop of our travels and we're now on the island of Phuket. Phuket

is one of the most touristy places on Earth, it receives almost 10 million visitors in a regular year. So I know what you're thinking it's kind of weird that we chose this place. But actually we're now in one of the most chill areas we're now in a region called Rawai. this area is by far the most chill. it may not be the prettiest although I love this beach it's actually still full of locals. like you can still feel the local culture over here and another reason it's quite affordable. Rawai is a really cool place it's considered the next Cangu (Bali) since it's attracting more and

more young Travelers and remote workers from all across the world. Trendy bars and restaurants are popping up all over yeah it still has a really friendly and laid back Vibe so for us it's got all the right ingredients for a chill place to live. I'll show you all over Rawai and I will actually show you the amazing place that we're staying it's actually really close to the beach. that's the beach right there and we're staying in a condo complex we have a little apartment here which is quite small. a one bedroom apartment. But the reason why we

chose this place is one it's really close to the beach and second it has a really nice garden and it has not only one but three swimming pools which are really nice so that's why we wanted to well we were willing to pay a bit more because this apartment cost us about 900 euros a month, which for us that we're on a budget is kind of on the higher end and probably our biggest expense but since we're with our daughter we're willing to pay a bit more. yeah there are lots of other parents here with kids we want to have a chill environment to set up our life here.

and yeah go for a morning swim here at the pool. so yeah for us this is a perfect setup all right so this is our apartment it's small but in my eyes it's pretty fancy look at this it's got a nice double bed and I even got to fit Nina's crib (bed) in here as well which I brought from Belgium then we have a small living room with a TV two aircons which are nice and the thing that we like the most is actually that it has a kitchen which is really handy for us and also a really nice bathroom so yeah very happy but yeah this is the room tour I actually have to go now all right

it's time to go to work what's up got my stuff and I'll show you where my office is I've actually found a really nice co-working space which is just two minutes walk not even from our Apartments it's called "Let's Work" co-working space and it's going to be a nice environment to do our jobs because without our jobs we wouldn't be able to afford all this. So it's really important that we are productive and earn some money while we're here that's the entire plan the yeah a nice walk along the beach here and we've arrived we even have seats here with the Sea View which is those are the best spots to have now the cool thing is this co-working space is filled with

people from all around the world and they're all doing a wide variety of jobs from sales programming or marketing management and even startups anything you can do remotely they're all doing it here which is inspiring to see because we've just started to get into this digital Nomad thing getting into this lifestyle isn't easy you either gotta check with your employer if you're allowed to go remote or go freelance instead so there's a realistic bargain to make I agree it's not an idyllic situation for just everyone but if it works out for you

you get to look out on an idyllic Beach during winter which to me is worth the extra hassle so I normally don't take lunch breaks but I wanted to show you all the possible food options you have in this area of your wife you have loads here if you want to go for a trendy new restaurants typical meal here would cost you about 10 to 15 including drinks but what you also have here are more local Thai restaurants and that's probably the main reason why we came to Thailand is because of the real tasty and just delicious Cuisine a meal in a

local Thai restaurant would set you back about five to six dollars which is way more affordable today we're treating ourselves to an extended lunge with this nice Sea View because we can pretty much choose when we want to work the time difference with Europe is about five to six hours that means most of our planned meetings will usually start in the afternoons anyway but they can also last up until midnight or later so your work schedule is really up to you alright it's four o'clock now and I have to go I'm gonna jump on a motorbike motorbikes are the easiest way to get around in Asia and in Thailand especially and yeah

this is the cheapest motorbike I could find I'm gonna pick up my daughter from school because that's one of the good things they have international schools here without her being in school we wouldn't be able to work and yeah she's doing well so I'm gonna go and pick her up now this is where the fun part begins because once work and school is finished you get to feel like you're on a holiday instantly that's why we came here to spend some quality time together as a family

hanging out by the pool or going to the beach there's tons of fun things to do with kids and when you don't have kids there's even more to do. With 'Let's Work"co-working we also do activities after hours like wake-surfing which is so much fun you get to go surfing behind this high-tech speed boat which is specifically engineered to create a nice wave behind it. The goal is to tow in the wave and then surf on it. Or for you to try your best to serve on. Good job

We'll see what happens And after a few tries everyone really started to get the hang of it Yeah it's really good fun and actually really worth the extra prize and it's just the best way to get to know your new co-workers better there's tons of fun stuff to do here after work besides water sports like exploring the

countless of remote islands around Phuket which you can visit by boat for 15$ total you can get your own personal boattour if you're going on the local Thai boats. But my favorite thing to do is just hop on your motorbike and explore all the beaches in the area the small and the big ones like Kata and karon Beach those are some huge pristine beaches a bit more touristy but ideal if you just want to chill and enjoy that precious Sunshine during winter my favorite Beach to end the day is less touristy and just a three minute bike ride away from real life

all right now I'm on the best beach that roway has to offer I'm now on naiharan beach this is by far the biggest beach and the beach that everyone goes to and uh yeah it's perfect especially for sunset uh but yeah if you want to chill for the afternoon play some volleyball go for a run go for a swim uh yeah it's perfect so yeah we're gonna enjoy the afternoon and uh chill out and Yeah enjoy life thank you okay the sun has set and it's time to get some dinner and you're probably wondering if you're watching this like how much are you spending each day because it looks expensive going to

restaurants doing all those activities and uh actually it's pretty alright like I have a budget tip it's actually we don't go to restaurants that often the best food option that I have is actually going to the local street food vendors which if you're a little bit scared of eating street food really give it a try those are street food vendors and they usually only sell to Thai people to the locals but actually it's really good and it's affordable okay

so while she's out preparing the food I can come here and I enjoy the beach view uh yeah guys really try street food as you can see they really stir fry it on a really hot fire so literally you have zero chance of getting infected all the bacterias just burn and yeah I've never had any problems with street food so really give it a try and it's at least four times cheaper than going to a restaurant so yeah that's saving our budget the final conclusion like I've done the math I'm spending about 1 800 Euros here a month total so that's accommodation and that's all the

expenses that I'm doing right here and that's about the same that I'm doing in Belgium a little bit more but we're doing activities we're going on boat cruises we're going wake surfing doing a lot of fun things we're going out for drinks because we want to enjoy our life here so since we're in Thailand we've come all the way here in the winter we're spending a bit more I could do it a lot cheaper I could do it I could probably do it for a thousand Euros a month or I can do it for a lot more and do even more crazy things it all depends on what you're doing uh I'm doing it now with

our baby for 1 800 Euros a month okay one last massive budget to your tip before I'm heading out for drinks with this one tip I could have saved myself hundreds of Euros which is we should have booked a whole lot of time way in advance so we just booked now one month in advance we should have done a few more months in advance and not just for one month if we would have booked for six months it would have been half as cheap so next time I'm doing that okay in The Nightlife you're in or why it's kicking off you've got bars you got restaurants over here and uh yeah

got a little bit hungry so I got some mango Roti on the way home as a dessert just to finish this night and yeah hopefully I showed you a little bit of what life you're in Thailand is really really like for anyone's coming or hoping to escape winter as I'm doing right now. Yeah if you want to see more about backpacking southeast Asia: seven years ago Paddy and I hitchhiked all around southeast Asia on a thousand dollars including our flight so that's a crazy series you gotta watch. And if you're wondering where Paddy is because he's the expert on Thailand he's lived here for years he's actually right now touring on his motorbike in Laos and Cambodia but I'm hoping to meet up with him in the next

stop that I'm going to in the next video. So hopefully that works out but if you want you can uh go and watch the Italy series that I did past summer with Lina we went to Italy with a thousand Euros and with that money we bought bikes and cycled around and took trains around entire Italy mad series probably the big biggest crazy series we've done especially because it was a real budget challenge in Europe so yeah go and watch that and if you have any other questions about traveling in Southeast Asia or in general just let me know and uh yeah thanks for watching I hope you hope to see you in the next video and yeah let me know what you think. Peace