why i regret leaving Thailand

So as some of you may know, I was living

in Thailand for a few years from about

2022 until 2024 recently,

and I left Thailand last year around June.

And at the time I felt like I wasn't very

happy living in Thailand and I wanted to

come back to the UK because I, I thought

there would be more opportunities for me

here in the UK with things like getting a

job and getting a car and getting my own

place to live in. But now I've been living

that life for about half a year, I would

say. I kind of feel like I regret leaving

Thailand, and I'm now seriously looking

into ways to get back to Thailand and

exploring different visa options. And I

kind of want to explore why I feel this

way. So when I was in Thailand, I felt

very limited with my YouTube channel. So

obviously my YouTube channel isn't doing

very well. It probably won't ever do very

well. I'm probably stuck at this kind of

level. I just don't have what it takes. I

don't know how to figure out how to take

my YouTube level channel to the next level

and make more money. So in the UK, with

the amount of money I'm making off of my

YouTube, unfortunately it's just not

enough on its own to be able to sustain my

lifestyle in this country unless I do

other things like getting a part-time job

or doing other activities. And I don't

really want to do those other activities

like getting a job because I just don't

really It's not that I don't want to get a

job, it's just that I don't find it

reliable. I always seem to get banned or

fired, or I fall out with people at the

job, or I don't do the job very well and

then people start moaning at me, and then

I get depressed and then quit the job. So

for me, getting a job is not really ideal.

It's not really something I want to do. I

want to focus on my YouTube channel. And

even though I know that my YouTube channel

is never going to be the next PewDiePie or

whatever, never going to be a millionaire,

I have to start looking at ways that I can

survive off of YouTube and which country I

can live in to be able to afford it based

on my YouTube earnings. And Thailand is a

great, great option. I've got experience

living there. It's extremely cheap. The

people are very friendly. Bangkok's a very

nice modern city. You know, it's actually

so strange because I was living in

Thailand and I wasn't happy at the time

because all I could do was YouTube

because, you know, obviously I can't speak

Thai good enough to be able to get a job.

And also the wages there wouldn't be very

good, so it wouldn't be worth doing. But I

felt like Yeah, this sucks. I can't really

seem to make more than $1,000 a month.

I'm stuck doing YouTube even though I'm

finding it kind of miserable. I want to go

back to the UK and try and get a job to

make some better money. And now I have had

the ability to do that, I realize I don't

want to do that. I don't want to have a

car. I don't want to get a job. Actually,

all I want to do now is what I was already

doing in Thailand, which was living off

YouTube in a country where it's affordable

to be able to live off $1,000 a month.

And even though my money earnings weren't

very good on YouTube when I was in

Thailand, it was actually plenty to be

able to live in Thailand because the rent

is so cheap. It's like 11,000 baht for my

condo, which is not even $300 nearly. And

then food, probably like $150 or pounds.

So expenses is like £500 or £600 a month.

That's about half of what I was making on

YouTube. So living off YouTube is

extremely completely doable with my

current channel numbers. And I feel pretty

confident that I can sustain these

numbers. It's not exactly hard if people

are enjoying what I'm putting out now.

Then, I mean, I don't think it's going to

get much more boring than it's going to

get at the moment. And yes, it does feel a

little bit silly that I've done this whole

round trip of coming home and getting a

car, getting a house to stay in, getting

all this furniture, setting myself up a

life here, and now I feel like I don't

want it anymore and I want to dismantle it

and go back to Thailand. Now, the reasons

for that is, is is like I explained

earlier, it's just too expensive to stay

here. Monthly costs are about the same or

slightly more than what I'm making on

YouTube, and I just don't really want to

get a job. People say, why don't you get a

job? It's because if I go to Thailand, I

wouldn't have to get a job, and I can

carry on living this lifestyle at the same

quality of living standards because I get

a nice condo in Bangkok, and then I can

just do what I do in the condo for a third

of the price that I'm doing now. And it's

also very frustrating because I could have

just— if I knew this in hindsight, if I

knew this, I could have just skipped the

whole messing about getting a car and a

house and moving here, getting furniture

and stuff. I could have skipped all that

and focused on using my money to acquire a

visa. So they got this new visa, it's

called the DTV visa, I think it's called

something Thailand visa. And basically

it's 5 years and I've done a lot of

research into it. All you need is £11,000

in your bank account. You don't have to

spend the £11,000 or the 500,000 baht,

have it. And then the actual visa only

costs a couple hundred pounds. And all you

need to do to get the visa is prove that

you are a digital nomad and you make money

online. And then you get 5 years and you

get 180 days per entry, and you

can extend the 180 days to 360 days per

entry. And then you've got to leave

Thailand for like a week or two, a month,

and then come back, and then you get

another 180 days, which you can then

extend again another 360 days. So you can

do this as many times as you want during

the 5 years. So theoretically, you can

just stay continuously for 5 years whilst

having to leave the country for a week or

2 or a month for every 12-month

interval. And I'm so glad that they've

introduced this visa, but also a bit

frustrated that I didn't know about this

visa and they didn't have this visa when I

was already in Thailand. Because if I knew

about this visa when I was there It would

have been very tempting to just get that

visa and not bother about coming back to

the UK because the visa is so affordable,

it's so flexible, and so nice. So there's

2 visas I'm considering now: the DTV visa

and the Thai Elite visa. I've already

applied for the Thai Elite visa. They're

doing a background check right now. So

once that's approved, all I gotta do is

pay the money, which is about £14,700.

So the difference is right With the Thai

Elite Visa, you get a bunch of perks like

VIP access. They do the, um,

they do the bureaucracy paperwork stuff

for you so you don't have to go into

immigration yourself. You don't have to

keep leaving and entering Thailand over

and over again. You can just extend it

whilst you're there and continue to live

in Thailand for 5 years straight with the

Thai Elite Visa. But it's expensive,

£14,000. The DTV Visa is only £300.

And you just need 11K in savings, but you

don't need to give that 11K to them. But

the difference is you've got to prove a

bunch of stuff, like you've got to prove

your earnings, you've got to prove your

bank statements, you've got to prove that

you're a digital nomad. So there's more

steps to overcome, but it's much cheaper.

I feel like I want the Thai Elite Visa

mainly because you get VIP limo pickup

from the airport. You get to just give

them your documents and they'll go to

immigration and do it all for you instead

of you having to queue up at immigration,

which in my experience going to

immigration, it usually takes all day.

You get there nice and early at 9 AM,

start queuing up, you queue for hours,

and then it's lunchtime, and then they

close for lunch, and then you've got to

lose your place in the queue, wait for

them to finish having lunch, and then

queue up again. And then by the time

you're called, it's like 3 or 4 PM. It

takes all day. By the time you finish,

it's like 5 PM. It takes all day to do

this immigration stuff. I wouldn't mind

just paying the extra money for them to do

it for me because that would save me a lot

of time that I could be using towards,

you know, making content for my channel

and doing money-making activities. And I

think a lot of you guys know me from when

I was living in Japan, when I was married

in Japan, and that was back when I was

really obsessed with Japan. I used to love

Japan and I never even considered going to

Thailand. And you might be wondering, why

do I now like Thailand more than Japan?

There's many reasons. Number one, Japan

doesn't have these generous visa options

like a DTV visa or a Thai Elite. Like,

where's the Japan Elite visa for 5 years?

Nowhere. The only way to live in Japan is

if you have a bachelor's degree and you

get a job and you teach English and get a

work visa, or you go as a student and now

you got to pay money to go to a Japanese

school, and then you just get one year and

then you gotta leave. Or you do what I did

and you get married to a Japanese woman

and you get a spouse visa, but now you

have to have a wife and you have to be

loyal and not cheat on her, which it's a

very hard thing to do. So it's kind of

hard to go to Japan, live in Japan if you

don't want to get married and you don't

want to work, which are the two things I

don't want to— I don't want to get married

again unless the woman is extremely hot

and sexy. I don't want to go and get a

job. That's the whole— if I'm going to get

a job, I might as well stay in the UK.

The whole point of leaving the UK is so I

don't have to get a job. If I get a job in

Japan, defeats the purpose. Also, I can't

get one anyway because I never went to

university. Because I didn't want to get a

student loan and I'm lazy. So I don't have

a bachelor's degree. Imagine me teaching

English in a school. I can't even order

McDonald's without getting all nervous.

There's no way I can stand in front of a

classroom of 30 kids trying to teach

English. I would wet myself. So it's just

not really an option to teach English in

Japan for me. I can't do it. I won't do

it. I don't want to do it. So I don't want

to go as a student again. Also, I just

don't care about Japan anymore, to be

honest. I've been going to Japan for 15

years since 2010. I've lived there, I've

studied there, I fucked there. I don't

want to go there anymore. It's boring.

It's not cheap. Getting an apartment in

Thailand is so cheap. Even if you just

book it as a serviced apartment, it's like

£400, £500 for a nice condo in Bangkok.

If you look in Tokyo, the capital city of

Japan, and you try and get a similar

thing, it's like £2,000, £3,000 a month,

£1,000 maybe for a crappy, ugly old

apartment in the middle of nowhere with

brown vanilla creamy looking old walls

with brown tatami mats. It all looks brown

and dreary and surrounded by old people.

And I just don't really find that very

appealing and I can't afford it anyway. I

also find Japanese people kind of rude.

I've been doing a lot of live streaming

outside in Japan, just minding my own

business. I did it last year and 2 years

ago. And I came across some extremely rude

people very often. Old men, old men

telling me to get out of the way or move.

Young teenage guys just like screaming in

my ear. Or coming up to me with fists

curled because they thought I was creeping

on them with my camera when I was just

streaming. I've encountered a lot of rude,

intimidating, and not very nice people on

the streets of Japan. And I get annoyed

when everyone thinks Japanese people are

so nice and polite and considerate.

They're not. The only time they're

extremely polite is when you're a customer

and you're going into a store or a

restaurant. You get that great customer

service. But when you're not a customer,

the people on the street are very rude and

sometimes hostile. I have never

encountered this in Thailand. Don't say I

just stayed inside my apartment all day

long. I didn't. I went to school in

Thailand Monday to Friday. Every morning I

got on the train during rush hour. I never

encountered rude people at all. And if

they bumped into you, they would say sorry

or excuse me. I never had rude people. I

never had an experience with rude people

in Thailand ever. So the Thai people were

way nicer, way friendlier, much better

hygiene manners. Japanese people spit on

the floor and make that horrible sound

because there's so many smokers in Japan.

They're just not very pleasant. I also

prefer Bangkok over any Japanese city.

There's Tokyo and there's Osaka. Bangkok

is way bigger, way more modern and

interesting and built up than Osaka. And

okay, it's smaller than Tokyo, but I find

it much nicer than Tokyo. Tokyo is just

very— the streets are too wide, the

buildings are too big. It makes you feel

like a tiny little ant. It makes you feel

like you're in a city that was built by

giant robots for giant robots. It's a very

heartless, soulless, robotic city.

Okay, it looks clean, looks very clean and

organized, but it just feels very sterile

and dull. And I felt very bored in Tokyo.

I didn't like Tokyo at all. And there's

only a few parts in Tokyo that are famous,

like Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya,

and they're just boring. And I didn't

really like it. Bangkok, on the other

hand, very cheap, looks very cool,

cyberpunk with a bit of grittiness. It's

not sterile and overly clean, and you

don't feel like a tiny little ant because

it's not overly massively big, and it just

has a more welcoming, warm,

upbeat atmosphere. And you're not

surrounded by loads of miserable Japanese

salarymen marching off to work looking

like they hate their lives. So I felt like

Bangkok just had a much nicer vibe. Going

to school and getting the Skytrain and

being in that air-conditioned train and

stepping out and it's warm and nice.

Everything just feels nice, and I never

felt scared or intimidated by horrible

people. So I just feel like I liked it a

lot more in Bangkok with the prices and

the way it feels, and it looks kind of

cool. And then that leads me on to the

biggest thing that I love about Thailand,

and it has to be the condo apartment. So

as you might be able to tell from the

YouTube channel name Hiding in My Room, I

really like being inside. I spend most of

my life inside. I like to have a nice

place to live that's comfy, that's

spacious, that's modern looking, and

that's cheap. Unfortunately, in Japan it's

very hard to get that unless you actually

have a visa or a wife and she can get a

modern cheap apartment for you. If you

don't have that, then you're stuck to

really ugly old-looking buildings that are

too expensive with very dated fittings and

furniture. In Thailand, they have built

some of the most amazing condo apartments

I've ever seen. Really nice modern big

buildings. They've got these really nice

modern big buildings with infinity pools

on the rooftop of every one, gyms in every

building. My previous condo in Thailand

had a gym and it was so nice with all the

weights and the machines. And then you can

go swimming and they had a sauna and a

ping pong table room and it just felt

like a luxury hotel, like you're living in

a luxury hotel with a concierge and

reception. It didn't feel like these

Japanese apartments where they've got

nothing. It's just an apartment. There's

no entrance bit with the concierge,

there's no facilities, there's nothing.

It's just you go in there, you go up to

your room, and you sit in there. And if

it's a modern building, yeah, okay, it's

nice, but you can't really get that very

easily, like I said before. And in

Thailand, it's like £400-£500 a month as a

tourist or foreigner, way cheaper if

you've got a Thai girlfriend and they can

get you the Thai prices. So I really love

the condos in Bangkok with the features

and facilities, and also the interior of

the Thai condos, so nice, modern looking

tiles, big bathrooms with a nice shower

with a glass wall, and amazing views of

the city with a balcony. And all for such

a cheap price of just a couple hundred

pounds a month. You can't beat that. The

value for it without any sacrifices or

compromises, it's just hard to beat. You

can't really get that in Japan anywhere.

So yeah, in conclusion, I kind of regret

trying to set up a life in the UK It was a

mistake. I admit it was a mistake and I

shouldn't have even bothered. And I'm

putting all my effort right now into

researching visas, trying to find the best

visas, trying to apply, trying to find how

to fund it. And I'm going to try and set

up a new life in Thailand for not just a

few months as a tourist. I'm going to try

and get a long-term visa. I'm going to try

and set myself up a life there because I

just think it seems to beat the UK in

almost every single way.