Retirement

I retired here on ret visa over 8 years ago. What do you want to know?

For starters, get your visa issued before you move here, especially if you're going to ship anything - it's easy to get your visa delayed, your shipment may get seized as it did with me, and you'll have to pay some heavy fines, or payoffs or whatever you call it. You need to have a retirement income of 800,000 baht or more per year, or post a bank account with 800,000 baht in a Thai bank for three months prior to your visa appointment. Talk to immigration or Thai consulate to get the right forms. You'll also have to get a brief medical and sign a few forms saying that you're in good health and no criminal record, but this shouldn't be hard. That's about it. I wouldn't retire to southern Thailand, Chiang Mai area is good except that it's awful smokey Jan-Mar each year.

HI Neville,

For what I learn for Chiangmai is top 1 city for retirement and living in Thailand. It's quiet, beautiful, safe, inclusive, friendly, I can use everything good word I know for describing here, even though I'm Chinese and retirement life is far away from me.

The suggestion I could give you is don't rush to decide retire here, take your time for at least 1 month or 2 to live here first. Pick up a city you like, you may stay in Puket or south city and come to north (Chiangmai) by renting a service apartment room or a condo, just get into the city and environment, relax. Meanwhile you may search for how to applying retirement visa, you could do it by yourself or hire a agency for you since you need rent a long-term/buy a condo/house (look for a agent could do both visa and property for you).

My job in Chiangmai is to take care of people need a property for living and investing, and to apply Visa for foreigners living in Thailand. So if you need my help just let me know. My email address: janejzy@gmail.com

Hope above is helpful for you!!

Jane

nevster wrote:

Hi ,

My name is Neville i am British (from Leicester) but have been living in Australia for the last 20 Years.  am currently staying at thr tropical Garden resort Hotel in Kata Phuket on holiday with my Girlfriend and i am thinking about retirement in Thailand and would love to talk with someone who may have already retired here to get some tips etc. I am only here for 2 more days so i hope there  may be time left to talk to someone.

thank you, kind regards,

Neville.

Hi Nevillie,

I just moved to Thailand (for work purposes I'm n my thirties), but my Uncle retired to Nai Harn Phuket a while ago - so I've got some point of reference.

In terms of living and visas they're all straight forward, the government websites are easy and if you want to avoid fuss - there are a lot of agents. If you're concerned about bringing money in / keeping it safe and maintaining your pension whilst retiring overseas, I'd be wary. Thailand is full of con artists, but my uncle luckily found somebody who offered good advice (and had a list of UK references) who turned out to be a the only good guy of the bunch! Probably because he still owned a UK based company so had UK regulation.

Hi Neville
My husband & I are Retiring to Thailand in April. We'll be staying in Patong for the first 6 months doing a Thai Language course & then travelling around a bit probably.
Cheers
Virginia

Hey
welcome
You'll love Thailand. Best place in the world to live. Not sure what tips I can give ya there are so many subjects... be more specific if ya can. Oh I'm Mike and I just (finaly) got my retirement visa.. Came here in Sept of 13....
If this will print
mk163rd@gmail.com  is my email....
would love to be of help
Later   

Just retired to Chiangmai last summer (August/13) and loving it. Sure beats the -30 Celsius weather back in Canada!  I am on a retirement visa, which was very simple to obtain. Have been blogging about my adventures at thaicanuck.com.

Hi Mike


Thanks for your response to our post on the Expat.com!


We see you live in Chiang Mai. We've visited there a couple of times &  really liked it. That was of course from a Tourist aspect though!

Is there a good Expat community there? e were wondering if we would be at a loose end or if there is enough to do etc.


The scary part of this for us is whether we are condemning ourselves to a life of isolation or whether there is a community to fit in with!


Cheers



Virginia

There are many great churches for born again Christians in Chiang Mai, meaning the real thing. One in particular is a tremendous church, 200-300 wonderful Christian people, called COC (Church of Christ) or HOP (House Of Praise). You can google it and easily find the COC web page and directions I would think. It's close to the Grand Hotel just off the superhighway approaching Nimmenhaimen Road.

COC has two services, one English and one Thai. The largest is English with 200-300 attending, some Thais, but mostly WASPs.