Chiang Mai

I don't get why anyone comes here. It's a semi-rural town with poor walkability and few sources of shade. There's way better places to go in SEA.

Chiang Mai has had a deep Buddhist influence running over the last 1,000 years and this can be felt in the helpfulness, patience and generosity of the Thai and long-term transplants you come across. The city has an active community scene (nomads, spiritual seekers, hikers, creatives), several mountains with hiking spots and waterfalls surrounding the city, over 20 water bodies inside the city -- many have cafes and walks around, several public parks, and over 13 national parks with campgrounds within a 2hr drive. New cafes / art spaces are opening up every other week. Also, many temples that disseminate Buddhist teachings and run mindfulness retreats near and around the city. The nervous system of Chiang Mai is a relaxing one - the city often feels as an open space without walls.

Burning season ( Feb - Apr) sees an AQI of 200+ and either requires you to stay indoors or travel elsewhere. May/June are on the hotter side, and July - Sep sees an average rainfall of an hour a day. Oct to Jan is a cool season with Dec to early Feb being the blooming season. While each season brings a different flavor with it, Chiang Mai is a paradise throughout excepting the burning season period.

Other notes: English proficiency of the local population is basic. Old city is walking friendly and has many quiet spots, Nimman is the westerner friendly spot and also sees high traffic, Pong Noi is more artsy / hippie.

If you're physically active, CM is paradise 9 months out the year. Like many, I live here, but fly to Phuket from Mid Feb to Mid May to escape the burning season. The rest of the year, the weather is fine: about 1h of strong rain a day from May to September, then September to December is awesome with cold air in the morning and evenings, and just right warm during the day.

In CM, you have unlimited landscape for: Trekking, Mountain Biking, Cycling, Road Trips on scooter or motorcycle (some of the best roads in the world!), white water rafting, and the list goes on. If you love coffee: I met aussies from Melbourne who were amazed by the coffee culture here. Lots of yoga and sports clubs of all levels (including Virgin Active).

CM is down to earth, relaxed pace of life. Most people love CM but can't figure out why: because it's not visual: it's a feeling of stability and peace of mind around this area. It's a university city with 100k+ students. There is no business district of any form of high quality professional services firm (brain drain to Bangkok), so you won't feel the energy of ambition here. That said if you've already made lots of cash and want a place to chill and calm down, reconnect with yourself and discover more of nature, it's the right spot.

True you need a scooter. You can't walk this city, sadly. True the local english level is low, but google translate works very well for me. Feel like you need some proper city vibe and chaos? 1h flight to Bkk for 30$. Need some beach vibes? Flight to Phuket in 1h. The airport is litterally inside the city, it's just so easy to commute domestically.

Again, it's true it's polluted because of the burning, but it's only 3 first month of the year. The rest of the time, it's one of the cleanest air of all southeast asia!

I really liked Chiang Mai but I can't put my finger on why. I'll try to remain unbiased so here goes. Chiang Mai is a dirty place with horrible pollution levels. English speaking is okay. I did really enjoy a balance of simple, risk-free living at low cost and acceptable quality of living. Many places only accept cash but plenty accept card. There's lots to do and it's fun exploring on a moped/motorbike. It feels as easy as Canggu with more modern appointments to get by as a westerner a bit easier.

Best cafes I have seen in my 35 years of traveling. It is not unusual for coffee to be grown, roasted, and poured locally by people who grew up dreaming of nothing other than coffee. The cafes range from mid-century modern dreamscapes to open bamboo spaces. There is something for everyone. Great cycling, too. The big downside is air quality.

I love Chiang Mai for obvious reasons: Cheap, culture, food, and great people. Love it! :) My only con: It's super hot and humid. I can't deal with that amount of humidity personally. Maybe something to look out for people who can't do well with high humidity level. For me: Great for 1-3 months but not the whole year.

Chiang Mai used to be N.1 for the digital nomad life.
It is still great and you can find really cheap apartments (300-400$) and restaurants (2-3$ for a main).
Wouldn't recommend staying there during the burning season.
The best area is Nimman, but it's also the most expensive. You can stay in the old city that's very nice but that gets noisy during the weekend for the night markets.
Last but not least, very safe city.
All in all would go back in a heartbeat.

A solid spot to live and work remotely. Plenty of things to do and relaxed quality of life. Many places to work from. Downsides are the lack of sidewalks makes walking around town uncomfortable. Also the traffic is very bad.

It’s the cheapest digital nomad friendly spot in the world, that is also nice and convenient. Although the earlier reviews do point out the issue of air quality and transportation. the local food is great plus there’s a variety of world class restaurants, there’s nature and lots of places to see that aren’t tourist spots, loads of coworking spots and cafes, .. but it’s also just boring enough to be a good spot to settle down and focus on work.. plus month to month rentals are super common here, can show up at many places and rent a room for a month

I have to agree with previous review from 6 days ago. Its definitely not like before- the vibe has definitely changed. I have lived here on/off for the past 2 years on METV visa, 60 Day visa, and now its not worth staying and dealing with the hassels. Infrastructure is terrible with dirty roads, definitely not a walkable city which is a shame since the Nimman area could have been a walking street, but cars and scooters dominate this city. Just try to cross and walk the streets and you will see what i mean- no mercy! I no longer feel CM is a good digital nomad city, its gotten way too inconvenient with visa's, dirty polluted air, smokey season as of Jan, just not a nomad paradise. If you're traveling alone single ladies- dating pool is terrible- Vietnam could be the better choice or Eastern Europe as a base. Good Luck.

Chiang Mai has THE WORST AIR QUALITY of any city in the world for >= ~2 months every year (Google "burning season"). So impossible to ever live here permanently, even if you like the place. Also, Thailand is now cracking down on people using back-to-back visas or visa free entries to stay as well (just Google for it on the forums). It was getting harder and harder to stay (before I left) and the vibe wasn't as good as it used to be. Most people have moved onto Vietnam, which is much easier to stay in, much more up-and-coming, and where the authorities are much friendlier towards digital nomads.

I have been told it's the vanilla of digital nomads : easy, cheap, risk free. I loved it so much I want to move there ! Great food, great places to see and awesomely polite and nice people.

Can't recommend it enough. Been a nomad now for 2 years and this ticks a lot of boxes. Great quality people you meet here compared to the rest of Thailand.

Great place. You can avoid the dropshipper, FBA and MLM webinar course people who have infested the coworkings here for years, by, well, just not visiting the coworking spaces here.

Great place. Very easy to live here.

Every self confessed "Digital Nomad" in Chiang Mai is borderline psychotic/delusional. Luckily, they're easy to avoid. Stick with the expats, locals, and tourists and you'll meet some great people.

My second digital nomad pick after Saigon.

I really can't see what's cool here. The air is highly toxic, the old city is charming but outside of it there is so much traffic it's so noisy and you can never cross the streets. If you don't have a sccoter it's super annoying to go from a point to another quickly. No real transports. The coworking places or made of unfriendly western people.

Why Chiang Mai? Because it's the easiest place to live of anywhere IMO. You can afford everything, you can do everything, you can access everything, and everything is available. It's very very low stress place compared to everywhere else, which is one of:

- expensive (north america)
- cold (europe)
- terrible food (most places)
- terrible airbnb/apartments (most places)
- no modern amenities available like apple store, mall, normal shops (bali)
- awful local transport (bali)
- not easy to get around with just english (europe)

Chiang mai is just the "everything is easy" nomad capital which means I can focus on work and not be stressed out about everything

actually my only complaints about Chiang Mai are:

1. bit boring, not THAT much to do

2. hard to find normal humans to hang out with who aren't delusional dropship scammers trying to escape real life

Spent a little over 2 months in CM. Loved it.
A little bit annoyed with the hippy western backpackers who suddenly becomes more Thai than the Thai's themselves with their ridiculous elephant pants, but you can easily look past that.
Still way too many dodgy dropshippers and FBA bros hanging out at the coworking spaces, but with the abundance of hipster cafe's serving great coffee for 80 baht you don't even need to go to a coworking space to get stuff done.
Regardless, I'm definitely going back. It's a fantastic place to be productive, meet cool people and enjoy Khao Soi.

Chiang Mai is a gas chamber. The smokey season starts beginning of January and goes on till end of May. But apart of that: the air is bad year around. The city has grown too fast. Pity because Chiang Mai is a fantastic place!

I just got back here in late 2018 and it's better than ever. People who say "Chiang Mai is overrun by nomads" are really mistaken. I hardly saw them. I did see lots of Chinese and some Korean tourists, but they were all quite nice and mostly around Nimman. There's also the few American vegan midlifer's in the Old City center, but that's about it. Chiang Mai is cool and breezy, there's now public bicycles literally everywhere that you can rent for 250 THB or $6 (per month!) with the MoBike app. The red buses (or Songthaew's) are now legit and don't rip tourists off anymore, so you can drive everywhere for 30 THB or $1. People are nice. It's still super safe, even late a night. The food is better than ever. And thanks to the nomad wave of 2014 in Chiang Mai, there's now lots of hip cafes that allow coworking too. It's a great city.

It's no surprise that Chiang Mai is currently the top city for digital nomads to live and work in. It has the far lowest cost of living in comparison to other cities, including low rent for decent apartments. With a variety of great co-working spaces on the rise, not to mention the number of coffee shops with decent Wi-Fi, you'll be spoilt for choice.

The city where digital nomadism essentially started. There's no other place where you can walk out of the airplane, get a cheap place to rent, find a boutique cafe to work, and then meet locals and nomads in the same day. Some people say it's overrun by nomads, which is fair. But it still remains one of the best places to start out.