HERE’S WHAT I’M COVERING IN THIS POST:

1. Where to work from in Chiang Mai?
2. Which co-working space should I choose?
3. Where to live?
4. How to look for an apartment in Chiang Mai?
5. Which mobile company I should sign up with in Chiang Mai?
6. How to find a nursery, kindergarten, nanny or a babysitter for your kids or babies?

Camp co-working space

Another co-working space is CAMP. This one is located inside MAYA mall in Nimman area. It’s about 15 minutes walk from Punspace in Nimman. The nice thing about CAMP is that it’s free to use.

But hold on, there are a few conditions to get the free access…

You can use the space if you buy over 50 Bhat worth of food at the coffee shop inside the space. It’s not too hard ro get to that sum as their coffee costs 69 Bhat. That will give you 4 hours of free internet.

There is another way to get free access to CAMP and this is if you have AIS mobile plan which has AIS super WIFI included.

AIS is a mobile provider who has partnerships around the city and gives you free WIFI in some locations. They are actually scattered around town and it’s a nice surprise to discover you don’t have to use your data plan even when being outside.

To get access to the AIS super Wifi, you just walk in (if it’s in CAMP), put in your username and password you got on a text message when joining the plan and voila , you’re online!

However, you only get a single connection when joining, so you’d have to choose to be connected on your computer or your phone. If you arrive to Chiang Mai with family just as we do, we have two users so when my wife and I are not working at the same time we connect with each of the user names on a different device.

Camp get VERY busy after noon time. So you’d want to get there early and get a table. Sitting here now at 9:39AM, there are about 20 people sitting around and an hour ago there were only a handful of them. When I came here at the afternoon time a few days ago, it was hard finding a place to sit.

BTW, both Punspace and CAMP are open 24/7 which makes it very convenient, especially if you are a night owl.

Here is a map where all 4 co-working spaces are located.

3. WHERE TO LIVE?

So, where most entrepreneurs are hanging out would be in the old city and even more in Nimman area which is the business area of town.

Note that NImman is more expensive than other areas. So, it really depends on what’s your budget for renting a place nearby. As both Punspace and CAMP are in Nimman as well as many of the entrepreneurs meetups, it’s most convenient to live in that area.

We had a budget of 10000 Bhat/month (about $281 USD/month) to spend on a 1 bedroom apartment which got us an old apartment in Nimman area and even then it was really hard to find.

We then decided we would want a walkable place from Nimman, which we have found within our budget. Our condo even has a small gym and a swimming pool.

Take into account that when living in Nimman it’s not only the rent that you pay is higher but everything around would be more expensive.

Our place is in a local neighborhood behind Suan Dog temple (Wat Suan Dok, if you want to google this). It has lots of local restaurants and shops, so we don’t really need to cook anything. We love the area and like that it’s all local. Everything is very authentic and welcoming.

It’s also within a walking distance to Nimman area or a short red taxi ride (20 Bhat / 0.56 USD) max.

Must say Nimman area can be pricey if you are on a low budget. We’ve met others who just chose to live further away and got a scooter to move around town which makes it fast and easy. Renting a scooter would cost around $100/month.

4. HOW TO LOOK FOR AN APARTMENT IN CHIANG MAI?

This is what everybody we spoke with are doing in Chiang Mai: “Walk down the street at the area you’d want to live in. Walk into different condos and ask at the office if they have an apartment”

We did this for 1-2 days and then decided to use an agency as well.

We spoke with two agencies:

Perfect Homes – Perfect homes have a good website with a map and details of the properties. We called them, but they had nothing within our budget.

Chiang Mai properties – These guys were the ones we found the apartment through. They were very helpful and nice. They also have a website with a list of properties but it’s not as friendly as Perfect Homes

Regarding the agency fees, just don’t worry about them. The owner of the place or the condo management(if these are service apartments) are paying them.

And last tip, always negotiate! We managed to get the price down from 14000 to 10000 Bhat/month. Not Bad!

WHICH MOBILE COMPANY I SHOULD SIGN UP WITHIN CHIANG MAI?

By far the best one in Chiang Mai is AIS. They have good reception and free WIFI around town, as well is in CAMP co-working space which I mentioned.

What you need to do to sign up with them is go to MAYA mall to the 3rd floor, where their store is located. Choose your plan according to how much data you plan to use and that’s it. You are all set.

CAMP Coworking space BTW is in the same mall on the 5th floor. Just step in!

6. HOW TO FIND A NURSERY, KINDERGARTEN, NANNY OR A BABYSITTER FOR YOUR KIDS OR BABIES?

Must say this was the hardest part so far. We’ve spent 3-4 days of leg work to find something suitable.

Let’s start with saying that the info online is very limited. I had no idea where to start looking except of googling.

I’ll go through the different options and what we’ve found eventually.

Intentional schools and nurseries

This option is the one we didn’t want. These schools are usually much more expensive and also have yearly programs or a semester program. We however, needed something on a monthly basis for 2 months. International schools usually have the best online info as well, so it’s pretty straight forward how to go about with this.

Finding a nanny

Going with a nanny part time was our preferred option and frankly we thought it will be easy to find. But it wasn’t. The concept of a babysitter in Thai families is not a common thing. searching online brought up nothing.

BTW, as we found out full-time nanny would cost 8000-15000/Bhat/ each month. There are also options for live in nannies.

After asking around, there are a few main online sources we found:

Bliss Mae Baan Network – This one is actually a training center for women who work as house helpers on general. We tried to get in touch but had no luck searching through there. I’m still posting it here as it was recommended by a local living here for the past 7 years.

Chiangmai Nanny เชียงใหม่แนนนี่ – This one is a Thai Facebook page for nannies. We did get some response there so worth trying. Get your Google translate skills ready as everything is in Thai on this page.

Chiang Mai education Facebook group – While asking around (Yes, that was a random foreigner at the supermarket shopping for diapers) I was added to a relevant Facebook group called Chiang Mai education. There are ads there for people who look for nannies in town. This group didn’t come up on my searches, so you’d need to know about it in order to find it.

Finding a nursery

There are two main kinds of nurseries/daycares. Some have bilingual programs and catered towards the international crowd while there are local nurseries where it’s Thai only. This means that the staff will probably not speak English or very limited English.

• International oriented

When you search online you find some kindergartens that have monthly programs. Compared to the local options they are more expensive and you need to pay a hefty registration fee in addition to the monthly fees (That will sometimes cost as much as an extra month)

You can check out:

• Egg Tots House – We spoke with them. I’ve been told the pricing on the website is outdated. I didn’t write down exactly how much it was, but you can call (082- 421 – 5009 For Thai, 087 – 817 – 0032  For English) . They have an English speaking staff. They are also the only ones we found in Nimman area.
• Kido Educare center – This one was recommended for us to check by a local who has been living here for a while. We didn’t speak with them but worth trying.
• This post from Nicole Bowden of Hello World gives a recommendation for Little Star nursery. It’s a bit further than where we live (and much more expensive than the option we found). She also has a list of international nurseries and schools in Chiang Mai
• Chiangmai Kiddee has a special program for drop in travelers if you are here for a short term of a few days. They also have a monthly program (6000 Bhat/month for half-day, 9500 Bhat/month full day).
• Local nurseries

Local Nurseries has no online presence whatsoever. So finding out about those required literally walking on the street from one nursery to another (where each is pointing you to the next one). Many of them had no available space or didn’t take 1-year-old pre-walking stage. For many the official acceptance age is 18 months, but if your baby can walk they will consider this.

We found out Chiang Mai university has 3 nurseries which were an option, but all 3 didn’t have a vacancy at the time. If you’d want to go with one of those you’d need to contact by phone and find somebody who speaks Thai as all of them knew only very basic English.

• Nursing Faculty & Medicine Faculty – These two nurseries are literally 50 meters away from each other. The Nursing school has a person who speaks English which is the education counselor of the nursery. The tuition is 3500 Bhat/month for the nursing school nursery is 3500 Bhat / month.  They are both located in the university area across from Suan Dok area.