After taking lots of small trips around the world as vacations, weโve fallen in love with Southeast Asia and have decided to go there to teach English. Well, sort of - my wife is certified and will be teaching. I plan to use the time to develop an app that I have been trying to work on during nights and weekends up to this point. I figure I can live modestly and work on it full time for a year and see if I can get it โdoneโ enough to actually launch after a yearโs work!
I donโt plan to make any money while there, and I donโt want to get a job (poor meโฆ) just to enable me to stay - I just want to work on my app (unpaid) full time. I plan to try to get a TT visa (http://immigrationservices.com.vn/visas-tt-vr/), and she will hopefully be on the Lฤ visa (https://visa.mofa.gov.vn/NewsDetail.aspx?type=Info&id=28#sec1).
Hereโs the wrinkle: most advice I find online (admittedly geared toward those travelling solo) tends to recommend going on a tourist Visa and finding a job, housing, neighborhood that you like in person, and then getting your employer to sponsor your work permit, then using that to get the business (Lฤ) visa. Indeed, a lot of resources say it can be hard to find a reputable language school to hire you and sponsor your visa before entering the country.
If we both went on tourist visas, and she found work and was able to get a work permit, could I then convert my tourist visa to a TT (dependent spouse) visa? Is there any way to be sure that this is going to work besides just going and hoping?
As a follow up if that plan sounds too sketchy, should I get certified to teach English just in case I need to get my own job? Iโd like to avoid it if I can, the certification and training is pretty expensive.
Worst case scenario, how many times can I do a visa run and stay on a DL (tourist) visa? Maybe Iโm just bad at researching, but I canโt find a really good resource for this kind of information.
I hope this isnโt asking too much. Even a link to some more in-depth resources online would be greatly appreciated - I canโt seem to find any definitive information on people using the TT visa in Vietnam.
Thanks in advance!