By Mike Fook
Thailand has been my home for six years now, and one thing that I've found to be true is that many things change, but overall - things remain the same. I'll try to explain that further to you below.
The basic truths about living in Thailand stay the same year after year - so, living here is not so much a question of whether or not you can. It's more a question of whether or not you want to continue to play the game and go through all the motions required to stay because they change frequently.
Foreigners can move to Thailand under one of the visa options and live for 3-12 months at a time before needing to consider renewing them. Unless you have a year-long visa to stay, it's rather bothersome to keep figuring out where you will go for a visa run out of the country, or which visa you will try to get that will enable you to remain living in the country. If you are retired and you have a few hundred thousand Thai Baht, or you can prove 40,000 Thai Baht income per month that originates from outside the country - then, at the moment, you can stay and get a non-immigrant visa based on that situation.
The details of getting visas - the amounts you must have for retirement visas, the location you must go to get double entry visas rather than single entry visas, and many other variables change all the time. What doesn't change is that foreigners can consistently come to Thailand and live for basically as long as they want as long as they jump through the visa hoops immigration gives us.
Another issue that changes fast and often for foreigners considering retiring here, is that of safety in Thailand. Bangkok has recently been under fire as political parties joust for supremacy and control of the country since the ex- prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra fled the country. Bullets flew in Bangkok, grenades went off, and fires were set. Bangkok routinely goes through these unsafe periods, but they always calm down - until the next time.
Thailand is basically safe, and remains safe, but there are times when those in Bangkok will need to play it very safe and avoid the areas under fire.
The teaching situation for retired foreigners that teach English has changed rather drastically lately. Foreigners are now required to be licensed by the Ministry of Education in Thailand. This is a major change, and has prompted vast numbers of barely qualified English teachers to flee the country for greener grass. The pay has not gone up for teachers in Thailand in years, and many of us are left wondering if Thailand really wants to educate their students - the next generations, to a high degree.
Yet, teaching is always available in the country, and those teachers that come from abroad and jump through the hoops can teach just like they always have. "Same-same, but different" is a saying here in Thailand, and it applies in many situations.
If you are considering retiring in Thailand or moving and trying it out before deciding to retire you should live for a while in both Bangkok and in another city, perhaps in the south or northeast to get a well-rounded picture of what life is like in both locations. Life is vastly different in parts outside Bangkok, and I myself find it worlds better away from the capital.
Mike Fook writes ebooks and articles about Thailand to help visitors understand the country better. Currently Mike is ghostwriting parts of Thai Black Book (.com) - a Thailand guide book that is to help foreign retirees and other visitors adapt to Thailand's unique cultural environment. If you are considering moving to Thailand you will want to grab a copy of this groundbreaking Thailand guide book.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Is-Thailand-a-Viable-Place-to-Retire?&id=4984494] Is Thailand a Viable Place to Retire?
