I’ve been procrastinating on this topic mostly since there’s so much potential detail and so little space on the Internet to explain everything. But I’ll do the best I can and getting to the crux of the matter. (As a treat there is a monthly budget at the end. Gotta learn inserting Numbers data with WordPress.)
In terms of per day expenses The really big ones with traveling tend to be in getting there and back. Most of us know during the COVID-19 crisis traveling expenses to and from places can be horrendously expensive and I won’t go into those. But domestic travel is definitely a very important part of getting from one area to another especially if you don’t wanna spend too much time in one place. In Thailand the domestic flights are not really overpriced and are becoming much more frequent as is less expensive bus travel and other local forms of transportation as the country continues to “open up“. Air travel is really not too expensive in Thailand, bus travel is extremely reasonable but that depends upon the type of bus you travel in. You can get anything from the luxury bus or what they call the VIP bus for long-distance trips which make stops when necessary for food and rest, to what I call the chicken buses. Those buses are mostly for domestic local travelers who need to put their chicken cages on top of the bus. The cages of course don’t carry their children, they carry chickens. Maybe the chickens are going to market, maybe they’re going as a gift to someone else but you can be 100% assured chickens carried on buses in Thailand are not comfort pets (those things Americans take on planes with them because they’re afraid of people or some other issue). You can see from my comments I think these emotionally retained pets on planes are really bad idea.
It used to be possible to get private cars which would load up with as many people as they could accommodate uncomfortably that would take you from city to city in 1 to 3 hour trips. I don’t know if those are still available and after a few experiences I’m not really interested. They tend to put three people in the back of a very small car. And it wasn’t seemingly forbidden for the driver to drink while driving.
Taxis are much more expensive but you can get cheaper prices if you negotiate and can take them on one hour trips if you find it financially the way to go. I had to do that when escaping from Sratthani when they closed all the hotels. It cost me about 2,000 baht to get where I needed to go in a one and a half hour ride. (32 Baht=US$1). BUS and motorcycles are the best way to get around town if the destinations are too far to walk. If you’re taking a motorcycle it’s best to see the drivers have a jacket with a number on it indicating they are an approved public transport motorcycle driver.
As for my transportation around Khanom the explanation fits in the general expense discussion. I’m using a small 100 cc motorcycle provided by the hotel owner without charge since I was the only customer. they wanted to make sure I was happy so I would stay a long time, which i’m doing currently, more than two months now. I think it’s interesting here to note the typical motorcycle in Thailand Has a 100 cc engine which is good enough to go pretty much anywhere you want. It is basically what they sell in the US and Japan as a 50 cc motorcycle. They put a larger engine in those frames in Thailand because they tend to be the family car. Families Put up to 6 members on the small frame depending upon the size of the kids. Very often you see a two-year-old kid in a position that looks like they are the driver. While the motorcycle is free and normal charge per day for rent would be about 150 to 200 baht. I pay for gasoline of course which is about 35 baht per week and that will take me about 80 km (multiply by 0.6 to get the equivalence in miles). So I get about 115 miles per gallon.
The hotel room itself is normally about 900 baht per day but since I was the only customer in a smaller room and I needed more space the owner agreed to let me use the large suite room with a private patio for 600 baht per day. Again, divide by 32 to get the US dollar equivalent. It’s about US$18 per day.
As for food, I spend an average of about 250 baht per day but that might partly be because I am on a fairly strict diet of one meal per day. That’s just over 8 US dollars per day. I buy food from the local food carts and sometimes from restaurants. I bring the food back here an hour or two before I eat and then heat up in the microwave just before eating. My daily consumption is coffee in the morning with some yogurt or fresh fruit and then a fairly significant dinner in the evening with snacks afterwards and maybe an alcoholic drink, one glass a day. But when I say a significant dinner I really mean something in a medium-size bowl whether it’s mostly liquid or not. So probably a couple scoops of rice (ice cream scoops) and a little bit of meat and vegetables in small quantities. If you go to my Photos page you can see some of the meals I’ve had here. What I eat is more than sufficient for my energy usage and age. As for going out to eat in a restaurant, which is still a little bit of a problem here due to the COVID-19 crisis, you might expect paying a little bit more. If you want to eat extravagant food, maybe some German or Italian food which is fairly prevalent in many parts of Thailand, expect to pay much more. As for myself, if I want German food I go to Germany if I want Italian food I go to Italy or to my Sicilian friends’ restaurant in Gila Bend Arizona. You’ll see a link to the restaurant in my “recommended“ page on this website. It’s under the “about“ main menu item. If you visit, ask for Nino or Antonella and tell them “Bill from Japan“ sent you. But if I said something rude to them the day before they might kick you out. Joking aside, it is really excellent Italian food. And their fresh bread and gourmet pizza are about the best you could find even in Italy. That speaking from one months traveling experience in Italy.
OK, back to finances. Necessities. You don’t really need that much. Make sure you have some suntan lotion, some after sun skin aloe gel and whatever else you think you need.
If you want to get a cell phone Sim card or data sim they are very inexpensive, anywhere between 60 and 600 baht per month. That all depends upon the plan you decide to purchase. You can reload them online or download an app to do that. You can also go into one of the very many mobile phone shops and let them manage it for you. You can set up those domestic phone numbers to call internationally as well but I have never done that. I use the data part to use one of the telecommunication apps on my iPhone or iPad. You can get Internet to landline or mobile phone plans on applications like Skype for about three dollars per month, an unlimited plan.
You don’t need much in the way of clothes in this warm climate so if you don’t bring very much don’t worry, go out and buy what you need, clothes here are not very expensive.
If you need any medical treatment it’s not expensive here so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. There are pharmacies everywhere with inexpensive medications of all kinds, also not expensive.
Before I conclude this I want to add …. my website is for retirees and budget travelers. If you want more luxurious accommodations or travel you can spend as much money as you want to spend. I will say I live in very good comfort, Wi-Fi and everything else I need every day.
Oh, I forgot one thing. I didn’t mention massage. There’s a blog post on massage so you might want to go look at that if you’re interested. Expect to spend about 150 to 400 baht per hour depending upon the type of massage, relax massage or medical massage.
Most tourists are going to go to tourist sites and some of them will charge something to get in. I don’t go to tourist sites anymore since I’ve seen most of Thailand having spent a month driving around the whole place and visiting what I hadn’t seen before so I’m not really into the traveling tourist things. Also, I lived here for seven years and I find the most interesting part of Thailand is being able to go to the beach every day, good Thai food and relaxation; and of course work on this website.
Oh, I should probably also mention getting money. You can use credit cards here and many larger companies don’t charge the 3% credit card fee anymore but some might. The ATM machines have a 220 baht ATM fee and I think I want to have a separate blog about that issue as well as something about credit cards. MasterCard and Visa and a few others are accepted pretty much everywhere. You can also take cash advances from your credit card in the ATM machines. ATM machines are literally everywhere. Not in the ocean of course. And they don’t yet put them on the tops of coconut trees. But besides those two places you can find them wherever you need them.
| Total Monthly | THB 31,440 |
| Transportation | THB 140 |
| Hotel | THB 16,800 |
| Food | THB 7,500 |
| Massage | THB 4,000 |
| Incidentals | THB 3,000 |
| $US MONTHLY | $983 |