Retiring Overseas in Thailand
11 October 2006It’s been awhile since the series on retiring to Costa Rica, so I figured I’d get started with a slightly different option in another part of the world: Thailand. It’s another expatriate destination that is generally more popular with British Commonwealth citizens than Americans because of historical colonial presence in the region (although Thailand itself was never colonized, nearby countries were). There aren’t as many Americans heading out there for several reasons.
First, the language is quite a bit different from English, and can be harder to learn than Spanish or another language originating from Latin. The structure is very different from Western languages.
Second, it’s further away. It’s a little more expensive to fly back to the U.S., and you wouldn’t be able to make return trips as often.
Third, because there aren’t as many Americans there, the support network isn’t as strong. You can, however, join or associate with the British expatriate community, which has comparable organizations.
Fourth, Bangkok and the urban area in Thailand is where many foreigners live - but it’s more expensive than real estate in some other popular expat destinations, and it’s also more crowded. However, you don’t have to live in the city.
Fifth, it’s not as politically stable or democratic as some other countries. There was a recent coup there, and the government was overthrown by the military. However, it was also bloodless and there doesn’t appear to have had much effect on people as a day-to-day matter.
So that’s the bad. What’s the good?
For starters, it’s still pretty low on the expense scale compared to many other countries. If you want to live in downtown Bangkok, you’ll pay more, but not as much as if you were in New York or another major city. Prices have also come down somewhat in recent years after a real estate bubble burst in the 1990’s.
It’s also got a good racket going that can be harder to pull off in some other countries: English language teaching. You probably haven’t realized it, but this is one of your hidden assets: if you’re an American, you’re likely a native speaker of the world’s language of commerce. People want to learn it, because in many countries learning English is necessary to advance in business. You already know all you need to know to teach it - many foreign language programs are “immersion” based, and you don’t even need to speak Thai to do it. You’re probably thinking that this is mostly something kids do right out of college for a year for a free vacation. That’s true. But working at Wal-Mart or Home Depot used to be something people did in high school, too - and now those stores often hire retirees, either to be friendly or for years of knowledge about home improvement projects. If you’re going to have to be working in retirement, I can think of worse things to be doing than teaching English for extra money in an exotic country. I’ll get into this in more detail in a future post, but for now there’s a great article on the basics of teaching language abroad here. Not every country has demand for English teachers or for Americans, but Thailand has more spots than teachers.
There’s also the benefits of the country itself. It’s a popular tourist destination, both because of the culture, history, and various sites you can visit as well as for other less savory reasons. I’ll assume you’ll stick to the more traditional reasons people go there, such as eco-tourism and the like.
Another big benefit, particularly for the kind of person who would move to another country, is that it’s in the center of Asia geographically. If your retirement dream involved seeing the world, you will have access to cheaper vacations to see a pretty big chunk of it. Australia, India, China, and Japan are all within a reasonable flying distance, and there’s some pretty good tourist destinations all over Asia. It’s a lot cheaper to fly within the region than to do trans-Pacific flights from the U.S.
The country is also pretty laid back, with low crime rates and a generally friendly attitude.
That’s it for the basics. I’ll get into the details over the next few weeks in future posts.
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