2019 W23 - Flying to Thailand

in #nomad5 years ago (edited)

My return ticket is from Bangkok. That's why I'm heading there. I'll stay in Krung Thep for 3 weeks. I have some friends living there but else it's not a place I would recommend for digital nomads. Despite it's a nice country to visit and remote work from with a low cost of living they are some habits there that I don't really enjoy. Especially cause it's a touristic country. Let's check them out together. The main reasons why not are :

  • An excessive fee is taken for each withdrawal - It's a shame actually, how can a government living from tourism cheat tourists that much and nobody complains?
  • The shamless common SCAM you'll meet day after day - Hello my friend, this Temple is closed today! It's Buddha day. Instead, come with me and I'll show you _____ and ______ and _____ for a very cheap price or Hello my friend, are you French? Cool, I collect coins from Europe, do you mind... (to be continued next week)
  • The crowd especially the number of tourists you'll bump into...

You could say I'm very judgmental but I've been traveling since 2016 now and as you seek for a nice place to settle, I also enjoy staying in welcoming and easy to live in countries. Also, the cost of living is very important because it has to match my revenues, so adding 5,5€ or 6,8$ per withdraw will increase the cost and the city/country will automatically decrease in my grid of possible destinations.

Is there a way to avoid the withdraw fee in Thailand?

Let's be clear: NO. There is no easy way to avoid the fee in Thailand if you want to withdraw money with your foreign credit card.

https://www.dontworryjusttravel.com/asiapacific/thailand/avoid-the-150-baht-atm-fee/
https://tastythailand.com/how-to-avoid-paying-200-baht-thai-bank-atm-fee/

You can eventually reduce them with this way: Get cash from a country where you don't have to pay the fee, for example in Malaysia, and change your cash in a Foreign Currency Exchange shop (find one with good rates, compare them online). The second option is to get cash in Thailand directly but in a single withdraw. For example, if the currency exchange will cost you 1% of the total amount where the withdraw fee is a fixed amount. In other words, it will be more interesting, for you, to use an ATM if you have to withdraw more than 550 € or 680 $. The last choice is to ask a friend to open a bank account for you. This is a risky solution for both of you. Cause your friend will own your bank account with your money inside but your friend will also be responsible if any problems are caused by this card usage... But I already have 7 bank accounts and 9 debit cards so...

What do I do for a living?

Someone was asking me through the Quora platform what is my job?
https://www.quora.com/As-a-digital-nomad-what-is-your-job
Well, I don't have a job, I have many. Let's say 4 main businesses.

Digital marketing specialist

I'm a digital marketing professional with 6 years of experience in e-commerce website optimization, online services and goods promotion for brands through SEO, online advertising and growth strategy. I also managed medium-sized
development teams in three different companies in India between 2016 and 2019 and a team of five people for an SMO project which consisted of animating 10 Facebook pages. I started freelancing in 2011 and started my own
company in February 2018. That's when I became a digital nomad I would say.

Currently, I am interested in project management and marketing missions in an international environment.
PS: I strongly hate my website, a new design will be coming soon :)

Amazon business


I bet you can't find what's this :)

We run a small shop on Amazon with my two partners. My Indian partner and friend manufacture and send the product from India. He is also a web developer specialized in e-commerce websites. My French partner and also friend manage the commercial area. I take care of the marketing part and our Amazon shop.

Will give you the links later on. We currently experience 10 / 30 orders a month. Much more than what we were expecting!

Quora's and Medium's Partner Program

So you might be aware of the Quora's and Medium's Partner Program. If not, you can read this interesting space (or blog) about the Quora's Partner Program written by Jenna Ravenstone - http://jennaravenstone.quora.com/. For Medium, I'm still new so I can't really say much. Do you have any recommendations?

I was translating a lot of content in Quora FR but recently French Quora users have expressed their choice to see fewer translations. So I've been focusing on replying myself to topics I know well and translating not more than 2/3 replies per day. Replies that match my hobbies or fields of interests.

Others

Contributor on several blogs with affiliate marketing on, crypto-currencies, clothing brands... This is where I aggregate all my other jobs. I'm a former French firefighter. I eventually had to end it when I started working abroad.

It's a bit of a mess but it groups all my hobbies. I'm trying to find out if some other activities could bring me some more revenues in the future and so would there be an interest in turning these passions into an online business?

Now I mostly work on two different clothing collections and three blogs with Amazon affiliate marketing. This is not really providing money right now but creating frequent and high-quality content is taking a lot of time which I can't afford right now :). I also invested in cryptocurrencies in 2017, but after the huge crash. I will talk about my clothing (which I have to re-design soon) and why I wear only my own t-shirts' collections. I no longer see the point of advertising another brand for free, or at the end, even paying for it to advertise!

There must be other things but I do not remember!

End of my Asian nomad trip

Well, it's the end for the 18/19 season! On 26th June, I'll be flying back to France. Why? You know, I have to see my family... But also I'll read and resolve some administrative tasks and collect my orders (hammock with a mosquito net, some high tech products, buy my new camera...) done all over the year. I will also remove some stuff from my travel equipment and take a new one instead.

Next week I'll speak about :

  • One of my most important travel advice
  • The cleverest scam I have come across while traveling
  • My travel mini tank. It's something I will probably remove even though I really enjoyed traveling with it but I couldn't use it for more than 2 months.
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