Chiang Mai: The Digital Nomad Scene
In September 2017, I decided to go to Chiang Mai after spending 6 months in India. I’ve been here twice before, in 2013 and 2015, as a tourist. This time I came for a different reason. Chiang Mai is known as the digital nomad capital of the world, and I wanted to see what it was like. This was one of my questions I had when leaving San Francisco — what would it be like living and working in a country abroad?
Getting Settled
My first two weeks in Chiang Mai were spent settling in, a phased I call “recovering from India”. My first night at Bunk Hostel, I felt like I was in a land of luxury — I admired little details of construction and craftsmanship lacking in India. Most importantly, the mattress was soft, opposed to the thin or hard mattresses in India — I slept for 10 hours my first night.
I felt grateful for fruits and veggies — I missed having so many green vegetables, which aren’t so easy to get in India. I enjoyed having the luxury of being able to buy fruit smoothies everywhere — I even found a place that makes vegan smoothies (soy or coconut milk is used instead of cow’s milk). Also — Khao Soi!
I felt grateful for the cleaner streets and the absence of honking. I felt grateful for the moderately warm weather (India was scorching most of the time). I felt grateful for insanely fast internet (30 Mb/sec). In India I would be grateful for even 1 Mb/s in most places.
I don’t mean to bash India with the above, but Chiang Mai is more comfortable in these respects.
I left Bombay with a sore throat/cold (which usually happens to me in all big Indian cities due to the air pollution) that I was still recovering from arriving in Chiang Mai. I felt low energy, but I still managed to do apartment shopping the first two days. I found a few blogs online mentioning apartments, cost of living, etc. The price range is from $100-$400 a month for most apartments. The places most nomads live is west of the Old City in Chiang Mai — near “Nimmanhaemin Road”, which is referred to as “Nimman”.
After India, I wanted to get in shape again, as I hadn’t done any cardio or weight lifting — so I prioritized finding an apartment complex with a gym. There weren’t many complexes with gyms, so I settled quite easily on Huay Kaew Residence. My monthly rent was 5,000 baht/month, which is ~$150 USD. With gym, internet, electricity, and water, it was close to $200/mo.
This setup enabled me to exercise 6 times/week. It felt great to be running and lifting weights again. I eventually alternated my days of going to the gym or swimming.
If you’re looking for places to stay, here are two blogs I found useful in my search:
Chris the Freelancer:
http://christhefreelancer.com/finding-an-apartment-in-chiang-mai/
Chris Grabinski:
https://chrisgrabinski.com/chiang-mai-apartments-digital-nomads/
Month 1 — What’s Are Digital Nomads Doing?
After my two week period of period of being introverted and “recovering from India”, I started going to meet-ups around Chiang Mai to figure out what people were doing. These are all easily found via Facebook — there is a Digital Nomad group for Chiang Mai with +20k members.
I explored topics like:
- Dropshipping / affiliate marketing (making money by selling stuff on Amazon mostly)
- SEO consulting
- Bitcoin trading
- Teaching English online
I read the “The Four-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris, a book almost every digital nomad has read.
I went through each of the above topics, spending some time doing research on how it worked. This involved going to meet-ups around the city, and online research. When doing online research, I ended staying up late — until 4am at times — which threw off my sleeping routine. I felt a burning desire to figure this all out quickly.
Below are pictures from the most interesting talk I went to, called “Zealous Minds”. Digital nomads tend to be a “jack of all trades” types, not specialists. Many people felt they were ADD before this talk, but felt better when the speaker gave a talk about a new category of people between generalists and specialists.
Over the month, the result of all this research is that I decided I feel more passionate about my current career, User Experience, than any of the above. I explored doing freelance UX work. There were jobs on UpWork and Fiverrr for UX, but mostly it was more along graphic design, making screens for websites or apps. The problems seemed more shallow, so I didn’t find it to be interesting. Also, the pay can be lower, as you’re competing with people in Pakistan, India, Czech Republic, etc.
By the end of the September, I questioned what I was doing in Chiang Mai. With my birthday approaching in October, it exacerbated my feeling alone. I missed home, my family, and my friends. I imagined I might end up spending my birthday by myself in Chiang Mai. This quote summed up my feels.
On my actual birthday, I visited Wat Chedi Luang, my favorite wat here. Afterward I got a Thai massage. I ended the day with some new friends and dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in town (La Salsa, its legit!). It was a good bonding experience; birthdays have a nice power of bringing people together.
Over the next two days I got a lot of phone calls and love from friends back home, which I appreciated so much!
Month 2 — Learning
Over the month of October I went through three Udemy courses learning graphic design, which I’m not so proficient in. I enjoyed the artistic aspect of it, as my usual UX focus is research and interaction design, which is driven more by the logical and analytical mind.
My routine involved having breakfast, then going to the gym or pool after, having lunch, and then meeting up with friends in cafes. After dinner I would come back to my apartment, and keep working until midnight. Then I would stay up another 2 hours researching future plans or other logistical issues— what to do in November and beyond.
A few times I would have fun making videos with my friend Roman. Roman is living the digital nomad life and has no interest in going back to California. She’s making vlogs about travel and has been interviewing digital nomads in Chiang Mai. The most interesting video we made together is this one about male travelers getting hit on by Indian men.
I developed more of a social life this month — there were weekly board game nights on Mondays (Secret Hitler was a popular game, kind of like mafia). Also there is a spiritual community here, so I went to things like Brotherhood Circles (meditation circles for men), Cacao Ceremonies, Open Mic nights at Tea Tree, kirtans at Mahasiddha yoga, and vegan meet-ups!
Conclusion
What did I learn after spending two months in Chiang Mai?
One, I feel connected to my roots in California, and I love California itself. Yes, its expensive, and there’s traffic, and everyone is busy and all that. However, my family is there in Southern California, and I have many friends throughout the state, especially my special people in San Francisco/Bay area. It made me reflect on the meaning of having roots. My friend Rish observed that I was perhaps moving from a wings phase (constantly moving around as a backpacker), to wanting to be rooted. This resonated with me.
However, one advantage of being nomadic is having the freedom to move around. I’ve become comfortable living with minimal possessions, as I’ve been living out of my backpack for 8 months at this point. This led me to the idea of being nomadic in the US. If I could have a remote job, I could spend time living in different parts of California, in other US cities, and sometimes going international.
The second thing I learned is that I don’t have much ambition to learn any of the alternative careers I mentioned earlier, I’m fortunate to know and enjoy my current career as a UX Designer.
Lastly, I enjoy spending my time in areas where there is plenty of spiritual events going on. Chiang Mai has this, and California does as well. I spend more time hanging out at such events than I do going to bars and such. Actually, I didn’t go to any bars/clubs during the two months I was in Chiang Mai. A lot of my Chiang Mai friends weren’t into drinking either.
At the moment, I’m pondering whether I want to try doing freelance UX while abroad, or if I just want to go back home to California and try finding a freelance or remote job there. For now, I’ll keep pondering this. I’m heading to Koh Phagnan in Southern Thailand in November for a one-month intensive yoga course, which I’m quite excited about.
