It took me almost a month to start networking and making friends with the Digital nomad community. Johnny FD helped the community by organizing a regular Facebook meeting every Friday at 4:30pm at Healthy B café Soi 5 in Nimmanhamen (Nimman). Johnny deserves a lot of credit for getting the ball rolling and making this a self-sustaining forum for new and existing nomads to get away from their laptops to meet new friends and learn some business. I met some friends from this group and also co-hosted a Video summit. In my apartment at the PT residence literally my whole wing were digital nomads. You will also meet people at the co-work spaces that you can exchange knowledge with and make friends. I learned a lot about on-line marketing and other business models like Amazon FBA by living here. Nimmanhamen is still the area that the Digital nomads choose to live in and offers a unique community for working and socializing. Some nomads are starting to settle just north of Nimman in the area of Santitham. I’ve travelled to many places and the benefit of the international community and meeting like-minded people makes this one of the top draws of Chiang Mai.

If you live in the Nimman area you can easily get around on foot to everything you need from workspaces, restaurants, parks, malls, and gyms. Nimman is a small area, but most locals get a bit lazy and ride their scooters instead of a 3-minute walk.

I do recommend getting out of the Nimman bubble. One option is you can take the Red Trucks or Tuk Tuks, which are the public transport options within the city. They will end up costing more and I find it annoying negotiating with the red truck drivers. If you are planning to live here for a month or longer you are better off getting a scooter. With a scooter you’ll have plenty of freedom to zip around Chiang Mai quickly between the old city and Nimman. You can take a trip up to the mountains for fresh air, visit the night-life of zoey yellow, or try one of the best burgers (Rock me burger) on Loi Kroh road.

I blogged before about Chiang Mai's many travel opportunities in South East Asia. Destinations like Siem Riep, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Taipei are very close. The Chiang Mai airport is very close to Nimman and taxi’s are cheap and trustworthy making Chiang Mai a nomad paradise.

Okay this is specific to Video creators, but this is what this site is about. The majority of nomads just require a desk and wifi. Digital nomad creators have additional needs if they want to take their game to the next level. The next step would be to offer soundproofed rooms with microphones and lighting. Digital nomads should be able to have a space to record podcasts and create videos for courses. At the moment most nomads are just recording from their apartments, but it would be great to have a public resource similar to the inspiration labs in Vancouver

In Nimman there are not that many areas for pedestrians to walk . They often have to share the small roads (soi’s) with cars and scooters. I’m surprised that the main roads like Huay Kaew, Siri Mangkalajarn, and Nimmanhamen road don’t have proper crosswalk lights. I see buildings going up quickly so I’m sure the city is capable of fixing this quickly too. This is one of the things that can Nimman can do to bring it close to developed city status.

Thailand's visa offerings in general have been a bit more confusing and shorter in comparison to other Asia countries like Taiwan or Japan. Visa runs are part of the common conversation with digital nomads. Thailand has recently introduced a 6 month tourist visa multiple entry visa introduced in November 2015. Even with this visa you cannot just stay 6 month consecutively. You will need to extend it every 60 days locally. After 90 days you will need to do another Visa run. If only they could make a simpler visa process. On the positive side there are great travel opportunities near Chiang Mai