How I looked for a place to live in Thailand: my experience, mistakes and unexpected finds

When I first decided to stay in Thailand not for a couple of days in a hotel, but at least for a few weeks, I was sure that I would figure out the accommodation in one evening. I open the website, choose a beautiful apartment with a swimming pool, look at photos, read a couple of reviews and book, which is difficult here. In my head, it looked something like this: an hour later, I was sitting on the balcony, drinking coffee, looking at palm trees and feeling like a man who had finally learned how to travel properly.

In practice, after a couple of hours, I realized that a photo of an Olympic-sized pool sometimes means a small pool in the courtyard, and the word "cozy studio" can very much depend on how friendly the person who wrote the ad is with a sense of humor. I reviewed so many housing options that at some point I began to distinguish Thai areas better than my own city, although I hadn't managed to get there yet.

At first, I wanted to book everything in advance.

My first thought was to rent a place before the trip, so that I could fly to Thailand and immediately go to my beautiful apartment. It seemed to me that this was the most relaxed option, because after a long flight, the last thing I want to do is walk around in the heat with a suitcase and look for a place to spend the night.

I started looking at apartments online and pretty quickly realized that there were too many options. There are hotels, apartments, condominiums, small guest houses, and short-term apartments, as well as offers from private owners who for some reason consider a photo of a ten-year-old room to be a perfectly suitable way to introduce a future tenant to real estate.

At first, I saved almost everything I liked, but after a while I had a folder of several dozen options. One was more beautiful than the other, each had a pool, some also had a gym, and in the photos the balconies looked like they were the beginning of my new luxurious life in Thailand.

Then I realized that the neighborhood is more important than a beautiful apartment.

This is where the most interesting part of the search began, because at first I chose housing based on the principle of "like an apartment", and then I came to a simple thought: I would have to live not inside the photo from the ad, but in the real area.

I started looking at what was around the chosen house, how far away the shops were, where the nearest cafe was, how convenient it was to get to the beach, whether there was public transport nearby, and generally how comfortable it would be to return home in the evening. It quickly became clear that an apartment with a luxury swimming pool could end up in a place from where it would take so long to get to the nearest store that buying a bottle of water turned into a small sporting event.

As a result, I began to choose an area first, and only then to look for specific housing. It turned out to be much more convenient for me, because a huge number of beautiful, but completely unsuitable options immediately disappeared.

I decided to watch the accommodation live.

At some point, I realized that I couldn't take the photos anymore, and decided to look at several options already in place. I liked the idea of coming, renting something simple for a few days, exploring the areas calmly, and only then making a decision.

And this was probably one of the smartest decisions of the entire trip. Because it's one thing to see a photo of a room with a neatly made bed, a clean table and a beautiful view from the window, and it's quite another to go inside and realize that the window does not look out on palm trees, but on the wall of a neighboring building, the photographer just took a very good angle.

In addition, you immediately notice things on the spot that no one writes about in the ad. For example, how noisy the house is, how the air conditioner works, whether there is normal hot water, how fast the Internet catches, and whether it is convenient to be in the apartment at all. In the photo, the outlet looks like an outlet, and when you have three phones, a laptop, a power bank, and a headphone charger, the number of outlets suddenly becomes the most important characteristic of real estate.

What I checked in the apartment

After several views, I had my own list of questions, which I mentally went through every time I entered a new apartment. First of all, I checked the air conditioner, because in Thailand it is not a luxury or a pleasant addition to an apartment, but a thing without which you can very quickly begin to reconsider your life decisions.

Then I looked at the bed, the shower, the water, the Internet, and the kitchen, if I needed it. I paid special attention to the windows and doors, because beautiful photos sometimes do not convey the noise level at all, but I still wanted to sleep at night, and not participate in the life of the whole area until the morning.

I also started asking about paying for electricity and water, because the cost of the lease itself is not always the entire amount. I wanted to know in advance how much I would actually pay per month, so that I wouldn't get a bill later that would make me think about returning to the tent.

I became especially careful with the air conditioner.

After one viewing, I left the apartment with the feeling that I had finally found the perfect option. A nice area, a normal room, a pleasant interior, a swimming pool in the complex, shops nearby, and the beach can be reached without any problems. I was already mentally putting things in the cupboards and imagining how I would go out for coffee in the morning.

Then I asked if the air conditioner had been serviced for a long time. The man who showed me the apartment looked at me with an expression on his face, as if I had asked a philosophical question about the meaning of life. As a result, it turned out that the air conditioner was working, but it was better not to discuss its condition in too much detail. After that, I started turning on the air conditioner right while watching and listening carefully for a few minutes to exactly what he was doing there.

It turned out that a good air conditioner in Thailand is capable of making so many different sounds that, if desired, it can record a separate music album.

I didn't take a place just because it looks nice.

This is probably the main conclusion I came to during my search. When traveling, we often choose with our eyes, especially when we look at photos on the Internet, and at first I did exactly the same thing myself.

But gradually I realized that convenience is much more important to me than a perfect picture. Even if the room doesn't have the most fashionable sofa or the same interior from the magazine, the air conditioner works fine, there is a good Internet connection, a comfortable bed, a store nearby, and you don't have to spend half a day on the road every time.

After all, I didn't come to Thailand to take pictures of my own bedside table. I wanted to live, walk, travel to different areas, taste local food and generally enjoy the trip, and not spend my evenings trying to figure out why I was paying more for beautiful photos in the apartment than I intended.

Where did I end up looking for a place to live

I used several methods at once and quickly realized that it was better not to limit myself to one site. Online search is convenient in order to understand prices and areas in advance, look at photos and get a rough idea of the market, but I tried to make a final decision only after a personal inspection.

I also liked the option with condominiums, where you can view several apartments in almost one place. In some complexes, you can find different options in terms of area and price, and sometimes the apartment in the next entrance is noticeably more interesting than the one you were just going to book.

I also started paying attention to ads directly in the areas where I wanted to live. Sometimes a good option can be found not among perfectly designed online ads, but through local contacts or recommendations. However, here you already need to understand the rental conditions more carefully and do not hesitate to ask questions.

The biggest mistake is to rush

When you come to Thailand for the first time, especially after a long flight, it's very easy to think, "Okay, I'll take this, just to put my suitcase down." I've been close to this myself several times, because after several hours of browsing, I just want to choose something and finally stop looking.

But I forced myself to take my time. If you like the place, I checked the area again, the payment terms, the additional costs, and how convenient it would be to get to where I really need to go. Sometimes, after such a check, an apartment that seemed beautiful disappeared from the list in just five minutes.

But when I finally found the right option, I didn't feel like I'd won the lottery and now I had to pray that everything would turn out okay. I already knew where I was going to live, how much to pay, what was nearby, and what conditions awaited me.

What would I do now

If I had to look for a place to live in Thailand again, I would not immediately book an apartment for the whole month, or even more so for several months. I would first choose an area, book accommodation for a few days, and then calmly look at several options on the spot.

I would definitely check the air conditioner, internet, water, noise, mattress, windows, household appliances, and terms of payment for utilities. And I would check all this not out of a desire to find fault, but because then it's these little things that determine how comfortable you will feel every day.

And I would also leave myself some freedom for surprises. Thailand generally teaches this principle well: you can leave home in the morning with one plan, and in the evening find yourself in a completely different area, with a bag of food in your hands and with the idea that it was for such moments that you came here.

As a result, finding a place to live turned out to be a separate adventure for me, although at first I thought it would be the most boring part of the trip. I reviewed a bunch of apartments, almost made a mistake with the area several times, learned to look suspiciously at photos with a very wide–angle lens, and finally realized a simple thing: good housing is not necessarily the most beautiful and expensive, but the one in which you really feel comfortable living.

And, perhaps, that is why I now feel much more relaxed about the choice of housing. First the area, then the real conditions, then the price, and only after that beautiful photos of the pool. Because the pool in the photo may look like a dream resort, but you still have to live in the very room where the air conditioner decides to play a drum solo at night.