nomad4ever

Hi there Visitor! nomad4ever.com is an Asia-centric, established Travel Resource for World Travelers, Nomads and early Retirees. You can find here Trip Reports, Tips about Money Matters, RTW Travel, Travel Gadgets, Medical Travel and Retiring early. If you are new here, you may want to subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever. Thanks for visiting! ;-)

Over the last few years, some countries in Asia made it more and more difficult for long-term tourists (or none-working Expats) to stay longer than just a few months in country. Thailand only recently made their Visa Rules more difficult and complicated; before that monthly Visa Runs to the neighbouring countries were quite common.

Indonesia introduced a Visa-On Arrival (VOA) for maximum 30 days with respective fees only back in 2004 - before you could get a 3 months stamp for free. The bureaucratic processes to attain and extend a Social Visa are legendary. Although there were some rumours of longer VOA (up to 120 days) a few months back, those have yet to materialize.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

There are some rumours lately that the current Visa-On-Arrival scheme, which was put in place in 02/2004 will soon be eased in an effort to boost tourism in Indonesia.

Sounds too good to be true?

Currently citizens from most countries receive a Visa for a maximum stay of 30 days, when you arrive at any airport or port. Of course you have to pay USD 25 for it. When your 30 days are over, you have to leave the country and come back in to get a new Visa, which can be quite stressy in a country consisting of more than 17.000 islands covering an area bigger than Europe and Australia.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

I was asked by Lizza from expatinterviews.com, if I could fill out their questionaire about people living abroad from their home country. While surfing their website, it’s really interesting to compare the different interviews of other people, who are in similar situations but have different experiences and encounters in countries around our globe.

On further thought, I felt it could be interesting for my own site as well, so here are the questions and answers I provided:

Where were you born?

I was born in Germany, in a small town which has no more than 20.000 souls and is located not far from Berlin in the eastern part of Germany.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

If you are coming to Indonesia on a Visa-on-arrival procedure, you have no choice but to travel out and back in to Indonesia to re-new your visa. This usually after 3 days (USD 10) or maximum 30 days (USD 25), depending on how long a visa you paid your US Dollars for.

Visa on-arrival or extendable visa?

That’s something similar I used to do when still living in Phuket/Thailand. Every month you just travel to one of the surrounding countries, cross the border, the officers at the checkpoint stamp you out, you enjoy a few hours in Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia or Laos - and back you travel to Thailand. New stamp, new visa. Now it’s a bit more difficult, as Thailand recently changed their visa regulations.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

What is a PT?
PT - The Perpetual Traveler
Permanent Tourist, Prior Taxpayer = Perfect Thing!

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

After 8 months Thailand, mainly around Phuket, but with short visits to Koh Phi Phi, Bangkok and Chiang Mai, we are restless again.

Nomads have to travel, so we decided to move on -> direction Indonesia.

This sunday evening we will depart, with a 1-week stopover at our old home turf Singapore, to secure my Social Budaya Visa for Indonesia - thus avoiding having to leave the country every month.

The good thing about Bali is, besides being a (mainly) peaceful Hindu island, that it’s in the middle of Indonesia’s 17.000 islands, with Lombok, Komodo, Flores and Java in its closest proximity.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris

Just came back from a 12-hours trip from Phuket to Ranong/Kaw Thaung. It’s about 350km from Phuket and some companies are specialized to take you there and back in 1 day - to renew your Visa for Thailand.

Of course you can go to Malaysia as well, but currently there is a bit of civil unrest in the south of Thailand close to the Malaysian border, so I’ve heard. ;-/ Flying out every month is too expensive as well, so what else to do? Did I mention that the airport departure tax in Thailand was increased from 500 Baht to 700 Baht? Did I mention that overstaying your visa costs now 500 Baht instead of 200 Baht per day? Ah yes. We ‘farangs’ are the walking ATMs here.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed of nomad4ever!

written by Chris