Destination Report: Chiang Mai – Part Two: Cost of Nomad Living

Last week we shared everything we did, ate and saw in Chiang Mai in our Part I. In this week’s blog post, we are now taking a deep dive into our budget and how the two of us spent $1,445 USD during our 34 day stay in Chiang Mai, Thailand in the fall. We picked Chiang Mai as our first stop in our 6 month journey to South East Asia for the food, the festivals, the weather, the culture, the large digital nomad community and of course we knew it was also very affordable. Are you ready to see our numbers and find out what surprised us the most in Chiang Mai?

We stayed in Chiang Mai for 34 days and the two of us spent $21.25 per person per day, or $1,445 in total.

Where We Traveled Chiang Mai, Thailand

What did we do, see, eat? Check out our destination guide of Chiang Mai

Number of Days 34 days (from October 11, 2019 to November 13, 2019)

Type of Travel Married Couple, Slow Travel/Nomadic, Price Conscious

Total living cost $1,445 (for 2 people for 34 days) – or $15,512 per year (for 2 people) – or $1,292 per month (for 2 people) – or 42.5 per per day (for 2 people) – or $21.25 per day and per person

Note: Unless specified otherwise, prices are in USD and were converted from the local currency (THB or Thai Baht) to USD using a 1:30 ratio. (so 1 THB = 0.033 USD).  

With our previous trips to Montreal, Quebec City, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, Oaxaca City, San Miguel de Allende, Aruba, Porto, Lisbon & Kotor our average monthly spend per person was around $36 / person / day (Excluding cost of getting in & out). Chiang Mai was well below this average with a daily budget of $21.25 / person / day. This actually makes Chiang Mai the cheapest city we’ve been living in since we started our nomadic journey!

Here is a breakdown of our living expenses for this trip:

Our accommodation topped our budget category (representing 44.9% of our living expenses), followed by our dining out budget (representing 18.4% of our living expenses), entertainment (representing 12.8% of our living expenses) and then our groceries budget (representing 10.5% of our living expenses).  

For this budget, we ate out at least once a day, attended a 1 day + 2 days meditation retreat, took a wonderful cooking class, watch a movie, enjoyed endless hour long massages, got our teeth cleaned, got Mr. NN a haircut and much more. We did all of this while staying in a modern and well equipped apartment condo that came with a gym and a swimming pool that was extremely well located in Chiang Mai (Nimman area). What did we spend on within this budget? Well let’s look into each main budget category in more detail. 

For more details about what to do, eat, see & avoid, please check out Part I of our destination guide about Chiang Mai

If you want to know every single expense we had, fill-out out the form below to download our itemized budget spreadsheet.

How much did we spend? 

Note: If you are curious about how we generally decide to spend our money, check out this article where we explain our decision making process.

Accommodation: $9.53 / person / day

(Or $290 / person / month).

Accommodation in Chiang Mai is really cheap! We got a great bright and modern 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom apartment in a condominium that came with A/C, a gym, and a swimming pool for $580 USD / month.

👉 You can check out our Airbnb rental listing here.

This area is quite trendy while being far enough from the touristy path that we got to enjoy a local atmosphere. We were also able to walk to the Old City when we felt like it. Although this monthly rent felt like great value to us, there are regulars to Chiang Mai that spend far less – especially when staying for multiple months. Mrs. NN met a nomad that was renting a basic studio in the Nimman area for only $150 USD / month!

Our apartment was very clean, minimalistic, and very modern. It had all the amenities you would expect for a newer building (AC, washing machine, fast internet, cable TV, gym, swimming pool, etc.). Internet was strong. We were able to walk everywhere easily and get to all major sights (in the old city), grocery shopping, and restaurants. The check-in was really easy and we did not have any issues communicating with our host during our month-long stay. The only challenge was the kitchen as we were lacking basic utensils (such as a large cooking knife and an extra frying pan) but our host was able to provide them to us at no additional cost. That being said, since the kitchen is small, you need to be patient when cooking your food.

If you want to know how we score great deals with Airbnb, check out our own Airbnb tips.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $650 on this apartment for a total of 33 nights.

Local Transportation: $0.63 / person / day

(Or $19 / person / month)

Public transportation was not useful to us in Chiang Mai. You can get a taxi or tuk-tuk but that is a hassle as you always need to negotiate your rate. Our recommendation is to sign-up for Grab and use your credit card to pay for the ride. Grab is the Uber of SouthEast Asia and after using it for a few months already, it’s awesome. In Chiang Mai, you will get a lot of weekly promo codes directly from the app that let you get a nice discount on rides which are already inexpensive! 

If you need to get from/to the airport, Grab is a good option.

⇒ In total, for the length of our stay, the 2 of us spent $43.10 on local transportation.

Groceries: $2.24 / person / day

(Or $68 / person / month)

We went grocery shopping mostly at the Siri Wattana (Thanin) Market and made weekly stops at the JingJai Farmer’s Market for their great organic selection. Even with a small kitchen, we managed to put together some great dishes for either lunch or dinner.

We went to Rimping (located in the MAYA Shopping center) for their health section (to get things like olive/coconut oils, flour, honey). And to get our drinking water, we skipped the refill station (too risky) and went to our nearby 7-Eleven to get 6L jug about twice a week.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $152.05 on groceries. This covered 63/99 meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) which is about $1.21 / meal.

Eating Out: $5.01 / person / day

(Or $152 / person / month)

We generally don’t eat out much for both health and cost reasons but also because we really like to cook. However, that changed in Chiang Mai! Our kitchen was just really tiny so we ate out one meal every day and it was mind-blowing to see how much a dollar can get you for some delicious Thai food. Our average meal was somewhere between $1.5 – $4 USD per person. Chaing Mai has amazing food and you don’t need to go to the fanciest restaurant to experience it. Food stalls and local restaurants are probably the best way to experience some authentic Thai cuisine.

We also snacked a bit on ice cream, roti and some of the thai specialties during our stay,

⇒ In total, for the length of our stay, the 2 of us spent $265.81 on restaurants + $74.61 on snacks for a total of $340.42. Our restaurant budget covered 36/99 meals (mostly lunch/dinner). The average cost of our meals was $3.67 which is about 2.5 times more expensive than eating at home (by doing the ratio between what a full day of eating out would cost vs a full day of eating at home as per our budget). 

Activities: $2.73 / person / day

(Or $83 / person / month)

We did quite a lot in terms of activities in Chiang Mai and got plenty of Thai massages which cost as low as $5 USD for an hour long massage! This also included visiting a few temples, to practicing meditation and more awesomeness. Chiang Mai is a good place to get pampered and experience the local culture.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $185.73 on activities. 

Health Care: $0.77 / person / day

(Or $23 / person / month)

This basically covers our dental cleaning and some ear drops that Mr. NN needed after too much swimming at the pool 🙂 

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $52.14 on health care expenses. 

Miscellaneous: $0.35 / person / day

(Or $11 / person / month)

Some gifts and living expenses not worth calling out.

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $23.43 on miscellaneous living expenses. 

Our Money Savings Tips

How did we save money for this trip?

• Avoid visiting during peak season (Mid-November to late December). We made this mistake in Porto & Lisbon and paid a premium for our accommodation! Chiang Mai was lovely during the fall. The air quality was pretty good and while it was really hot when we arrived, it started to cool down on our second week.
• Book accommodation when you arrive (if staying for more than a month). We noticed that a lot of regulars did this. Stay in a hotel for a few days and schedule condo tours to see a bunch of options and then book directly with the building. This tends to save a lot of money and you’ll get to see the options in person.
• Stay outside of the Old City. Again, because housing is the biggest expense, you can save a lot of money if you don’t mind walking a bit to get into town or get a Grab. We found the Nimman area to be much better value on so many levels and did not mind the occasional walk when we wanted to visit the Old City.
• Use Grab instead of taking a taxi or tuk-tuk. Grab (the equivalent of Uber in South East Asia) is super affordable and available anywhere in the city. A ride from within Chiang Mai will cost you between 40-120 THB (or 1.2-3.6 USD).  
• Stay away from the “touristy” restaurants in the Old City. While they could provide some authentic cuisine, they will charge you much more than any restaurant outside of the Old City. We do recommend a few that are worth the splurge though in our destination guide of Chiang Mai.
• Use your two feet every day! This helped us reduce our public transportation footprint while increasing our exercise activity. Double win! 
• Use travel credit cards with sign-on bonuses to maximize free miles that you can apply towards your trip so you can travel for (almost) free. 
• Use this amazing debit card to avoid hefty ATM fees. In Chiang Mai alone this saved us 30 USD in ATM fee during our stay and as you’ve noticed 30 USD is a lot of money in this city.
• Use AirBnB (if staying one month or less). AirBnB is a website that allows homeowners, in destinations all over the world, the ability to rent private spaces (or entire apartments) for a fee. As nomadic long term travelers, we like to call AirBnB our home as it has helped us save a lot of money and provides us with really great places managed by wonderful hosts! Pro tip: If you sign up for AirBnB using our referral link, you will get a 45 USD credit, which should give you a pretty nice discount on your first night.

So that’s it folks! What do you think about our budget in Chiang Mai? Is it as affordable as you thought it was? Feel free to share your experience and ask questions by leaving a comment below.