In January 2025, my girlfriend and I left Poland, where we lived for the past five years, to explore a new life in Asia.
Our first stop was Bangkok — the most visited city in the world, and very popular amongst digital nomads.
It’s still very early in our journey, but we’ve had some pretty big realizations that will drive our future decisions.
Your plans can do a complete 180
When moving to Bangkok, we were strongly considering the new DTV visa (aka Digital Nomad visa) that Thailand had introduced, allowing nomads or remote workers to apply for up to 5 years residency in the country.
The idea was to have a cheap apartment in Bangkok that could function as a base where we could leave some of our stuff and return to often, or stay when tired of life on the road.
Well, that idea went out the window within the first week, as we realized that we didn’t enjoy Thailand as much as we expected to, and didn’t want to create a base here.
Instead, we decided to fully embrace a nomadic life — being constantly on the road — unless we found another country where the 'base' idea could work.
Thank god I have a passive income
For the first 3 weeks as a digital nomad, I barely did any work.
A lot of time was taken up adjusting to life in Thailand — figuring out where to eat, where to shop for groceries, how to get around, and getting comfortable in our Airbnb. We also both got sick for a week.
Additionally, if you have a creative job it can be very difficult to stay on track with your mind so full of new experiences and challenges.
These may just be excuses, but they made me realize how extremely fortunate I am to have a passive income because despite not working through most of January, my income was pretty stable.
My earnings in January
My Youtube channel did great — it earned $1.3k in Adsense revenue in January without me making a single video (my last video was in November).
I also had consistent traffic and sales for my digital products, and my affiliate partnerships paid steadily as usual.
In total, I made $4,751 in January, without really working.
Being a digital nomad while freelancing?
If I were still freelancing, I don’t think I would have made much money.
To succeed as a digital nomad and freelancer, you would need to either be extremely disciplined, or very talented and passionate about your work.
Anyone who has trouble focusing normally, won't be able to do it while travelling.
Freelancing is also extremely risky. If you get sick or something bad happens, like losing your passport, wallet and laptop, then you won’t be able to work for a while.
My experience leads me to believe that most long-term digital nomads must have some form of financial stability, either:
- passive income from a business
- a rental property or Airbnb
- at least $500k in the stock market
Otherwise, as a regular working person, the digital nomad lifestyle would be more stress than it’s worth.
Access to nature is a priority
As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t like Bangkok much.
One major reason for this is the lack of parks and footpaths and poor walkability. Every inch of space here is either taken up by buildings or cars and motorcycles.
It’s a stark contrast from the cities we’ve lived in all our lives.
Average Krakow street VS above-average Bangkok street (it even has a footpath)
Our previous homes - Krakow, Sydney, and Minsk - are all walkable and have plenty of green outdoor spaces to hang out.
It is easy to live a healthy lifestyle in these places. It's easy to walk out of your door and relax near the river, or go for a jog and do some pushups in the park.
Here in Bangkok, we’ve understood how important this is for us. For us, it's more important than food or shopping or entertainment.
So we will be prioritizing more nature-friendly cities in future. Usually these are smaller cities with a population of around 2 million.
They also have added benefits like being easier to get around, less crowded, cheaper, and less touristy, meaning a more authentic experience.
Our next destination is Fukuoka, Japan. We chose it rather than Tokyo because of its proximity to nature and smaller size.
Don’t trust Internet opinions
I trust the internet most of the time. For example, when buying a new camera, I will usually just check Amazon reviews and Reddit to find the most popular option.
With this strategy, I’m satisfied 90% of the time, and even if it isn’t the best choice, I will at least have the same problems as hundreds of others, and it will be easy to find solutions.
However, when it comes to travel, opinions differ too much. A city we call beautiful and clean, some might call boring. What some may call “great nightlife”, others might call trashy and loud.
For example, we went to some ‘must-visit’ streets here in Bangkok that were listed in various tourist guides. We hated them - they smelled like booze and urine.
There is also the effect of exaggeration caused by social media. People are too good at editing these days! Lots of places we saw on social media were quite disappointing in reality.
In future, we will not be relying so much on social media for travel advice.
Other mistakes
Besides these realizations, we made several minor mistakes that are quite common for digital nomads:
We packed way too many clothes.
It is much easier to just buy more suitable clothing on the spot. You will have better options for the local climate, and you will blend-in more in terms of fashion.
Kristina also purchased and packed way too many cosmetics from Poland. Again, it's easier to buy it in Thailand - there is an even wider choice in Asia than in European countries.
Getting a larger Airbnb to work from was a mistake.
Even though we worked from home in Poland, it's only because our setup was ideal.
Working from an Airbnb, even a spacious one, isn't comfortable and we preferred to visit co-working spaces and cafes instead.
Next time, we will prioritize living in areas closer to co-working spaces.
We chose an 'expat area'.
The Airbnb we chose was in On Nut - a popular area for foreigners that offered a more 'relaxed' atmosphere while still having convenient access to the city.
It turned out to be too far for us. You see expats are already tired of the city - they have been there for many years, and they don't care about being near the centre. Many of them have also customized their homes enough that they don't need or want to go out much (e.g. for co-working spaces).
Nomads are not the same as expats. The short-term nature of our stay means different requirements, and it's much better to stay closer to the city centre and various facilities.
One month in, and this lifestyle already feels very different from what we expected. We’re learning fast — what works, what doesn’t, and what really matters to us.
Bangkok wasn’t the base we imagined, but it helped clarify what we actually want.
On to the next stop — Fukuoka.
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