When you are dreaming about your location independent adventures, do you ever wonder about the real cost of living somewhere like, for example, Thailand? Well so many people have asked me this over the last year, so I’m going to give you in this video the real inside scoop on the real actual cost of what it was like for us to live in Ko Samui, Thailand.
Listen to audio:
Of course, you know that travel is a massive part of my lifestyle brand, and I’m very transparent about this and of course the costs can vary. You can spend much more and you can also spend much less. So this in an average of what it was like for us.
1. Cost of housing to enjoy location independence in Thailand
So for a really nice two bedroom villa, two story, two bedroom villa with a swimming pool, all looked after, modern on the inside, beautiful furniture, gardener, all of the stuff with it, that cost us approximately $1,666 USD per month. For an apartment, you’re looking at around $760 USD per month. Of course, you can also have beach huts, which I absolutely love. I love my luxury; I also love my camping in my beach huts. The reason we didn’t go for that is because we have a toddler and I work from home, so it would be difficult, for example, in the evening when I had European clients, to be in the same hut as her with the noise going on and trying to have my calls or do any kind of recordings. So we wanted a house where I would have a separate office space.
2. Car rental cost to make the most of your freedom based lifestyle
A car per month will cost you about $700 USD, just for a basic smallish family car. Then, of course, it goes up from that, or you can rent scooters if that’s what you’d prefer.
3. Cost of eating out on location independence in Thailand
For food, we spent about $700 USD a month because prices are so, so cheap over there you can really, if you’re into street food, which we totally are, you can eat as much street food as you like and a meal will definitely be less than $5-10. Because prices are so low, we ended up going to the really nice organic, raw restaurants, beachfront restaurants that we loved, and other really nice restaurants in the evening. So we ended up spending quite a bit more money because all of these luxury, the food that we really want to be eating when we go out that perhaps in Europe or Australia, for example, might cost more, in Thailand is very affordable. So you end up doing that a lot more than you probably would back at home.
The total to cover all of our basics was about $2,000-$3,000 USD per month, and on top of that you, you need to factor in your flights and insurance and everything else. But just the cost of living over there. And of course, if you want childcare when you’re over there or schooling, or something like that, you need to factor that on top of it as well.
So if a big trip is part of your travel dream, and location independence that your business can actually allow for, start looking into the numbers. Start finding out your ideal location, what your flight will cost, what your housing would cost, what your general living would cost, make sure there’s a good internet connection, of course, and start looking at what you need per month to make it happen, what you want.
For example, if you do want a more luxurious experience, look into those prices. And then start looking into what you need to do to make it happen. For example, are you earning enough already in your business already to make that dream happen? Sometimes we can think we need a lot more money to make it happen when we don’t. Or perhaps you can rent your house out back home and that will cover your expenses or at least half of your expenses. Or maybe you need to start saving up. So really once you’ve got a very clear idea of the costs, you can actually start making that happen.
So I hope this helps towards helping you to see how your travel dream can become a reality. This is Caroline from CarolineCain.com, and if you’d like some help growing your online business, if you’re a coach or a consultant, to give you the income that you need to have that level of freedom or to have an experience like this, you can contact me at CarolineCain.com/discoverycall and we’ll get back to you right away to set up a call to discuss how I can help you.
And we’d love to hear in the comments below what your big travel dream is. Where do you really dream of going, which country, for how long, and what does that look like. It’s always really exciting to hear what other people’s travel dreams are!
