Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand • Hacker News Board

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#181

Post by rockyleal » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 3:49 AM UTC

ashconnor wrote: post #87

znq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you stated you were working Noticed the smiley? Nevertheless, how do you differentiate between holidays and work and where to draw the line? If you're responding to a work emails while being on holidays, does that count towards the taxable income in that country you're visiting? > Did you file a tax statement and did you pay any taxes on income earned while you were residing in Thailand? Absolutely. We're not e…

>In European countries for example you only become a tax resident if you spend more than 183 days there. Pity Thais cannot easily come to Spain and work illegally. Despite what you've said it's blatant public abuse of the tourist visa system in Thailand. Honestly when I see blog posts like this my opinion of the author and company goes down considerably. Breaking the rules and publishing the fact that you are makes m…

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#182

Post by geomark » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 4:21 AM UTC

zingar wrote: post #125

500 EUR per room seems like a lot, and not just for Thailand. I'm planning a holiday in France, I have a two bedroom place booked for more or less the same price near the beach in Marseille (monthly rate on AirBnB, not the cheapest option either). I'll also be visiting Prague where I see places for half that. My home in Cape Town is a very well situated two bedroom flat, also half that price.

That IS a lot of money in Thailand. But the truth is that nice stuff in Thailand costs a lot more than what most foreigners think. Sure, you can rent a one-room condo in a cheap part of Bangkok for less than 100 EUR a month, and eat cheap street food for 1 EUR a meal. But that gets old fast. Resort destinations that are popular with foreigners are pricey. The photos in the article show a nice looking house in a popular destination so I'm not surprised at the cost. Cheap food is cheap but when you want a nice steak be prepared to pay 3X what you would in the US (local beef is horrid so imported is the only reasonable choice). Nice bottle of wine 5X what you pay in France. At least seafood is about the same as western prices, which is to say a little pricey. And if you decide to stop being a tourist working on your holiday (which is all that digital nomads really are) and stay longer you will want to buy larger ticket items. You will find that electronics are higher priced and vehicles are 2X to 3X the price compared to the west.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#183

Post by alazar » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 4:38 AM UTC

Are there spiders?

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#184

Post by needaremotegig » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 5:23 AM UTC

hughstephens wrote: post #179

needaremotegig wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from. I've been working with my current client for the last 3 months. He brought me on at $150 per hour after he had to fire his previous contractors, and I've been cleaning up their mess ever since. I've heard of quite a few situations like this, but I'm sure that there are cheaper developers out there who are doing great work. Demand for part-time + remote jobs seems to be pretty lo…

As someone hiring some people* remote, your rate is at the way way top end of the scale. Even for people with core experience in Node (where I'm hiring). I get what you're saying, but as an employer, the "non negotiable" and inflexible attitude is a point-blank no for me. Your OS contributions (caveat: spent 2 minutes looking) are hardly much (lists on github are not 'valuable programming', to me it's just content ma…

Thanks for your feedback! For what it's worth, that's not my GitHub account. I just posted that list of remote working resources.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#185

Post by stephenr » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 7:46 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #168

hackerboos wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply not true. Doing work for any employer in Thailand, paid or unpaid is illegal on a tourist visa. Lets quote the act you link to: "To be able to legally work in Thailand the foreigner must have a valid non-immigrant visa and a work permit issued in his name allowing him to perform a specific job at a specific location for a specific company in Thailand." Now a naive look at this paragraph might leave you…

Actually, there was an episode of the "Travel Like A Boss" podcast, which is about digital nomadism, where the host and others were taken downtown by the Thai police after a raid on a co-working space. After the police found out that they were paying to do work at the co-working space on unrelated businesses and weren't being paid by the co-working space they let them go without charges [1]. 1. http://www.travellikea…

By that logic, I was once let off on a speeding ticket, so speeding is therefor not illegal and no one should obey speed limits.. right?

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#186

Post by stephenr » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 7:50 AM UTC

lubos wrote: post #162

wila wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about how hard it is for Thai immigration officers to prove you are working without a permit. I was just pointing out that it is illegal. Making it hard to prove doesn't make it OK. You really would not want to end up in a debate with Thai immigration on this topic either, no matter if they have proof or not.

Digital nomads are huge benefit to local economy. I can't imagine country would start enforcing some outdated piece of legislation against them. In other words, even if it's illegal, it's not enforceable. Outdated legislation which is no longer enforced is common everywhere. For example Alabama has a homophobic law which says this must be included in every sex education program: "homosexuality is not a lifestyle acce…

A Digital nomad paying no income tax, quite likely claiming back the VAT on purchases (because they're ostensibly on tourist visas), and often specifically in the country because its very cheap, are not having a huge effect on the economy.

REAL tourists have a HUGE effect on the economy.

REAL businesses that make the effort to operate legally, employ local staff, pay taxes, etc, have an effect on the economy.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#187

Post by stephenr » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 8:00 AM UTC

geomark wrote: post #182

zingar wrote: post #125

500 EUR per room seems like a lot, and not just for Thailand. I'm planning a holiday in France, I have a two bedroom place booked for more or less the same price near the beach in Marseille (monthly rate on AirBnB, not the cheapest option either). I'll also be visiting Prague where I see places for half that. My home in Cape Town is a very well situated two bedroom flat, also half that price.

That IS a lot of money in Thailand. But the truth is that nice stuff in Thailand costs a lot more than what most foreigners think. Sure, you can rent a one-room condo in a cheap part of Bangkok for less than 100 EUR a month, and eat cheap street food for 1 EUR a meal. But that gets old fast. Resort destinations that are popular with foreigners are pricey. The photos in the article show a nice looking house in a popul…

If you come to Thailand and try to live a western lifestyle of course it's going to be expensive.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#188

Post by stephenr » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 8:09 AM UTC

socialist_coder wrote: post #153

This is great. My startup is really similar. We also value people over profits (and we're profitable!), we all work remotely, and we all meetup in random places for a few weeks so we can get a vacation plus some face-to-face working time in. So far, it's been awesome. We've only done 1 meetup so far, at a ski chalet in the Alps, and it was great. The significant others & kids came for 1 week, and then we had 2 weeks…

Why would you assume SE Asia has worse internet connectivity options than other countries? the vast majority of people here use just a smartphone or maybe a tablet to access the internet. 3G is fairly ubiquitous, 4G is in major locations, and data is relatively cheap. (I don't bother with a local Sim when I go back to Australia - it's literally cheaper to roam and use data via my Thai SIM than to pay for Telstra prepaid)

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#189

Post by MortenK » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 8:27 AM UTC

needaremotegig wrote: post #129

hajrice wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> So I'm in a bit of a jam at the moment, and would like to ask for your help with finding a one-off or part-time gig to stay afloat. I've already tried most of the remote job sites [1]. >> My rate is $150 per hour, and is not negotiable. I can usually commit to 20 hours per week, but I will be available for full-time work (60 hours per week) over the next few weeks. So you're stuck in Thailand, turn to help on Hack…

I'm hoping to attract serious clients who value high-quality work. I do have a little bit of a buffer. My client's site is also profitable, so they'll be able to pay me in the next few weeks. But I'll have to ease back the hours with them, so am looking for some more projects.

The serious clients who have the money you are looking for, are not going to hire a random guy in Thailand based on a forum comment.

At your suggested rate, these clients will be able to get an on-location contractor with significantly more experience (think 10-15 years). I.e. No hassle with international payments, timezones and what not.

Compare that to what you are suggesting: A very high cost (150 USD an hour) at a very high risk (completely unknown resource). This makes it a highly unappealing business proposal.

For you to get that rate while being remote, you need to have already established yourself with such clients, i.e. You need to have worked for them before and built a lot of trust.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#190

Post by 72deluxe » Fri, Apr 10, 2015, 8:43 AM UTC

Svenstaro wrote: post #120

72deluxe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not in my 20s and I do have a family, but that's a feeling I get here too! There also appears to be a strong dislike of older proven languages (don't ever mention the word C++) and a faddish obsession with newer younger languages. Perhaps it goes with the crowd? Or are my conclusions inaccurate?

Eh frankly I think we all pretty much like modern C++ here judging by the posts that get upvoted.

Must be my inaccurate conclusions then! I must just be seeing the hatred for C++, typically with 1998 examples attached to illustrate how "dangerous" the language is.