Expatriate Forums in Thailand

youngs137 · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:34 pm Post subject: Looking to move to Thailand

Me and the Wife have recently decided we would like to move to Thailand . Any information and advice would be really apreciated as we both have no idea what we are letting our selfs in for. We are both 32 and my Wife is a highly qualified nurse and i,m a Uk transport manager at the moment but i,m a qualified telecomunications engineer at the moment.
We would move tomorrow and take the risk but we also have a 3 year old daughter to think of to.

Any info on jobs, accomadation , schools and any pit falls we may incure would be greatly recieved

thx
stu

joekoh · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:23 pm Post subject:

hello, i'm a property manager here on koh samui and i'd advise you to look into every expat forum/website/publication you can find in order to give you an idea of what each different part of thailand would be like for living.

between chiang mai, bkk, pattaya (wouldn't advise this one if you are married with a 3yr old), phuket and koh samui each have very active expat communities that will offer a wealth of information to help you make your decision.

personally, i'd place a very high emphasis on a 3 yr old child as they are about to begin schooling in a very foreign environment it is important that you ensure that any particular location in thailand that you may choose to live will be able to accommodate, educate and help your child grow.

here on koh samui we have the samui expats club with a web address at www.samuiexpatsclub.com and they meet once each month with up to 100 farangs and thais getting together to enjoy a night out socializing.

if possible, try narrowing down your search to two or three possible places, if you are planning on working here make sure you are familiar with the work permit and visa process. bkk, chiang mai, phuket and samui are probably the top "family" style destinations (pattaya is strictly adult entertainment regardless of any ad campaigns to the contrary) so you might find work in any of those places.

right now i would probably think that chiang mai and koh samui are probably the two best family agreeable places to live with reasonably decent costs of living.

anyway, hope that is enough to get you started. if you have any more specific questions about living here go ahead and post them i'm sure you will get more responses. good luck.