Thailand
Long stays here settle into an easy loop of street food, fast wifi, and cheap comfort, with Bangkok and Chiang Mai offering the deepest expat infrastructure in Southeast Asia. The catch is the calendar: burning season smoke blankets the north from roughly February to April, so plan your base around it.
- Currency
- THB
- Capital
- Bangkok
- Language
- Thai
- Timezone
- UTC+7
- Best months
- Nov-Feb (cool, dry season)
When to go
The window that works: Nov-Feb (cool, dry season). See how Thailand lines up against every other destination month by month on the seasonal planner.
Getting in
US citizens
60 days visa-free (confidence: high)
Nomad route: Destination Thailand Visa (DTV), 180 days per stay.
Full visa guide, sourced and confidence-flagged →Figures come from the sourced rules dataset; each guide shows the official source and a confidence flag per path.
Setting up
The three things worth arranging before the flight, and the search tools for the rest:
- SafetyWing - nomad travel medical insurance (several visas above require proof of coverage)
- Wise - multi-currency account for Thai baht and proof-of-funds statements
- Airalo - eSIM data on arrival, before you find a local SIM