We have long term travel plans, so the question came up. Is Bangkok the best spot for long term travellers to live? It’s popular with digital nomads, plenty of them call it home. But why? What is it about the capital of Thailand that pulls travellers and content creators in?
Bangkok mixes old and new everywhere you look. Towering buildings like Mahanakhon sit a few streets from street food stalls on every corner. It’s hot and humid, sweat on your forehead within minutes of stepping outside, but that heat comes with cheap prices and a pace of life that grows on you fast.
We spent 10 days exploring Bangkok. We saw the sights, met people living and working there, ate, drank and loved every minute of it. We were scouting it as a potential base for us to spend a few months down the track when we do some long term travel.
We left thinking Bangkok has a lot going for it, whether you’re a traveller passing through or a digital nomad setting up for months at a time. Here’s what stood out to us.
Could we live in Bangkok?
Bangkok pulls in people from everywhere. Different cultures, backgrounds and nationalities all mixed into one city, which is part of what makes it an exciting destination for digital nomads.
Buddhism is a part of daily life here. Around 90% of Thais practice it and you notice it everywhere, from the small shrines outside shops to the temples themselves. We visited Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Arun and Wat Pho and watched locals leave offerings of food and flowers as part of their day. Buddism gives a sort of calming fell in mad busy city that is Bangkok. If your there at the right time you might catch Songkran, Loy Krathong or Chinese New Year, all worth planning a trip around.
Affordable living
The cost of living is one of the biggest reasons people end up staying in Bangkok. We met a fellow Australian at a bar while we were there. Not a digital nomad, just a guy on a defence force pension. He’d moved from Brisbane to Bangkok because he couldn’t afford to live in Australia anymore. That says a lot about the price gap.
You can rent an apartment in a high-rise for just under $200AUD a week. Street food will cost you $3-4AUD a meal, though dining in tourist strips like Khao San Road can run triple that. We found a place called Max Value with fresh meals made daily and ready to grab, Spaghetti Bolognese for 35 Baht, crispy pork and rice for 55 Baht. Getting around on the MRT or BTS costs around $1 a trip, and if you’re staying longer you can buy a 30 or 60 day pass preloaded with up to 35 trips at a decent discount.
What I love is the range. You can walk into a Starbucks and pay Western prices for average coffee, then walk 10 metres up the street and get a much better coffee for $1-2 from a stall. Same with food. Fried chicken off the street, or a fresh meal from a supermarket for a few dollars. Eating, staying and getting around Bangkok costs next to nothing if you know where to look.
Getting around Bangkok
Bangkok’s public transport makes it easy to get anywhere without a car and in reality as a foreigner you would not want to drive in Bangkok. Trains above and below ground, buses, ferries, and Grab if you’d rather just order a ride from your phone.
The MRT is the underground line and it’s simple to use, just tap on and off with a credit card. The BTS is the elevated Skyrail and gives you a good view of the city, though you’ll sometimes need to line up for tickets. If you head down to Sapan Taksin on the BTS line you can pick up river boats that connect to most parts of the city.
We were staying near Phra Khanong and used the BTS and MRT daily to get into Asok, Siam and other parts of downtown. Grab and tuk-tuks got us between markets, and we jumped on the hop on hop off boat along the Chao Phraya River more than once.
A good base for travel around Asia
Bangkok works as a hub for a lot of Asian air travel. Plenty of flights between Europe and Asia, or Europe and Australia, stop through here.
We flew in from Guangzhou in China, only 2.5 hours away, then onto Australia, about 8 hours from Bangkok. Malaysia and Vietnam are an hour away. From Bangkok you can connect to almost anywhere without much fuss, and flights across Asia tend to be cheap.
Content creation and digital nomad life
If you’re creating content while based in Bangkok, the city gives you plenty to work with. Modern skylines, traditional temples, markets, all within a short ride of each other. Internet is solid too, Bangkok recorded the fastest speeds in Thailand at 121 Mbps download and 27.6 Mbps upload on average. Mobile data is cheap as well. AIS is the top provider and was clocking around 25 Mbps down and 11 Mbps up in 2024.
For co-working, the Work Loft near Lumphini Park and Common Ground Central World near Siam BTS Station are both worth checking out. If you want to meet other people living this lifestyle, the Bangkok Digital Nomads group on Meetup.com runs weekly and monthly meetups.
Bangkok isn’t just somewhere you pass through as a tourist. It moves at its own pace and once you’re in it for a week or two, that pace starts to make sense. Affordable living, culture everywhere you look, and transport that actually works. It’s easy to see why so many people end up staying longer than they planned.
It’s somewhere we’ll be spending time in the future once our digital nomad travel kicks off in 2027. I can’t put my finger on exactly what the draw is. It’s not one big thing, it’s a lot of small things that add up to somewhere worth living.
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