From my blog:
Some favorable playgrounds which have lower cost of living are:
1) Thailand
2) China
3) Malaysia
4) Indonesia
5) India
6) Philippines
7) Vietnam
8) Cambodia
9) Laos
10) South and Central American countries

If you leave the #10 out, the rest are:
a) big enough for you to explore a lifetime
b) near to one another so not costly to travel from another

If you like this group of countries (#1 to 9), then you could survive on US$10,000/y as of 2009. With 9 countries to choose from, you can plan your time in a calendar year to easily to fit into the VISA rules’ constraints. Averagely, you need only a 1-month VISA from each country ONCE each year if you plan to visit each ONCE only. But you could visit many of these countries more than once each year, after some months away. So, theoretically, with these 9 countries to choose from, you should always be able to get a VISA from one of these at any time in a year.

Even better for nomads is this region also has the best of everything the West can offer. If you want world-class financial services, HK and Singapore have it. If you want state-of-the-art medical services, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore have it. So, you could conveniently do your banking, investment, annual health screening, vaccination, and medical treatment in one of these countries.

For Indonesia you would need a Social Budaya Visa, which is valid up to 6 months, but not without bureaucratic hassles.

Thailand changed their cumbersome visa rules again somewhat and let’s you now stay up to 3 months in the country, then you have to do a Visa run to a neighboring country and apply again. Coming here via the land-way, as suggested above, would only earn you a 14-days stamp, so not preferable or only if you acquired a longer-stay visa in a Thai embassy abroad already.

Other countries like Vietnam or Cambodia might be easier again, but then they lack infrastructure or internet access. India was nice with 6 months straight visa, but I wrote a few articles about its disadvantages also.

For for info about Visas, simply click on the choice ‘visa’ in the upper-left topic cloud.

Oh, anyway, may I know how you manage to obtain VISA for 6-12m for these countries. How much do you pay? Isn’t it better to stay only up to 90-180 days in each country in a year since most countries consider one a tax resident once he is physically present there for longer than this period? Is it more expensive to apply for a long term VISA?

Wouldn’t it be better if you could travel by land transport from one border of a country slowly—over 3m—to another border then move to the next country and revisit it again the following year? Eg. China (3m) —-> Thailand (3m)—-> Malaysia (3m)—> Indonesia (3m)

As you can see, the comments for the Bali articles are quite interesting with experiences of readers. As I only travel every 6-12 months to a different country, my resources to cover the whole region are naturally limited. But I’m open to guest writers, if somebody would like to add his/her experiences in other Asian countries, which aren’t currently covered here.

Nowadays, smart phones are becoming very affordable. With a data SIM card plugged into one of these gadgets, one could be logged into Skype, MSN & ICQ 24/7, connecting him to the world all the time. He could communicate in text or voice with his contacts via his smart phone. It would be a dream to fellow nomads, backpackers and businessmen alike.

Important facts include:
1) The service providers
2) The pricing and packages available for short-term users
3) The geographical coverage
4) The speed and reliability of the service on smart phones and for supporting Skype, MSN and surfing the WWW
5) Where to buy the services. For example are they available in 7-11 stores?
6) Recommended smart phones and laptops

I think the above facts deserve a full section. You can try out the services while you travel around, and your readers who are either locals or travelers who have had experience could also drop a message to report new information.

I will publish an article about the status quo of 3G Internet Access in the Philippines soon, but for the rest, it would be easier for you guys to google that, as it will be more uo2date than I can ever be. So far I still use my unlocked 3G Card (from Sierra Wireless), which works everywhere I go, so no need to buy the proprietary solutions of the providers, just buy a prepaid card and it usually works (at least in Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines).

Do they have a wireless modem that could be plugged into a laptop anywhere in the country and connect you to the internet?

Do they sell pre-paid bandwidth? Is there any contractual period of subscription?

How much can this be had for?

Is connection limited by bandwidth, hours or months?

Does it work nation-wide?

Where can one buy these? Any identification or registration?

Have you tried using them, and is the connection stable and fast?

I traveled with and with out a laptop for many years. Without makes it harder in many respects to do with security. An updated virus and firewall protected laptop will beat out most malicious threats out there.

That along with falling costs of netbooks is great. It’s just a shame WIFI is not always available!

In this case I use portable apps on a usb.