Transcript of the above video:

So the question posed, what we are talking about here in this video is, "Is Thailand the best place to retire in Asia?" now I can give you my personal opinion on this and I give it number one with a bullet, Thailand is definitely the best place to retire in Asia.

As I have discussed in other videos on this channel, Thailand really is not given and this goes for the Government too is not given the credit it deserves with respect to the efforts made to keep Thailand open in terms of a tourist destination and in terms of a retiree destination. Thailand went in my opinion, above and beyond especially when compared to the other jurisdictions here in Southeast Asia. I mean when comparing to Vietnam who basically is a country that just locked folks out; Malaysia was rather difficult to get into and maintain status in to my understanding or at least relatively more difficult than Thailand; Cambodia just basically locked up; Laos. Yes there was a time when Thailand went to a full lockdown, there is no doubt about that and as I noted at the time and since, those were the protocols associated with a true quarantine. I always kind of found the "quarantine" in the USA rather strange insofar as it didn't lock up the country, not let anyone in that is so-called Prince Prospero method of just “close it all down”. Now I would argue especially in retrospect maybe that was a good thing for those jurisdictions on a certain level and maybe it was a bit of an overreaction on Thailand's part, whatever you want to call it, Thailand did what the protocols dictated and insofar as that and when we didn't know what this was, I think it was probably called for. Now Thailand did, the summer of 2020 and onward, Thailand did put protocols in place to allow foreign nationals into the country. Other countries, again Vietnam, Philippines, some of these other places in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia as well, didn't really take the same approach and it was relatively difficult if not impossible for foreign nationals to get into those countries. So along those lines, yeah I do think Thailand has proven itself for a lot of different reasons which I will get into here in a minute, but just in terms of how it handled all of this stuff and dealt with balancing, getting people in; allowing retirees access to the country if they were out, Thailand did better than a lot of jurisdictions and it really should get credit for that. I really do believe credit where credit is due. The Government and the policy makers here in Thailand did take that into account and they acted accordingly. 

More to the point with this video, a recent article from thainews.prd.go.th, basically the National News Bureau of Thailand, and the article is titled: Thailand named # 1 Destination in Asia for Global Retirees. Quoting directly: "Internationalliving.com has ranked Thailand the best destination in Asia and the 11th best in the world in its 2022 Global Retirement Index." Quoting further: "According to the website, the rankings and indices are based on various factors including cost of living, food, medical costs, Visa convenience, weather, things to do tradition and culture." I do know there are some folks in the comment section of these videos that might take a little bit of issue with the notion of “visa convenience”. Believe me you we do have I do have staff to kind of monitor the comment section, we can't monitor every little thing frankly but I do occasionally, your annoyance in the comments is noted. Now that being said Visa convenience I would say again relative to the rest of Asia, Thailand has been one of if not the most Visa convenient countries to deal with. Again yes I am not saying in all cases and I am sure the comments will explode "well in my situation it was terrible!" and this, that and the other thing, I do understand. This has not been a perfect set of circumstances and certainly my criticism has been voiced many times. 

That being stated, I do think Thailand is about the best place for retirees in Asia regardless of what this survey notes for a lot of different reasons as they did note in there. Things like cost of living, medical; medical infrastructure, I can't stress that enough. There is really no place else in Southeast Asia at the same level as Thailand with respect to Medical infrastructure. I have been critical on this channel and I will be critical from time to time if I think it is warranted but I even have to kind of check myself a little bit and remind myself that "hey, compared to other jurisdictions out there especially in Asia, Thailand has done what it could and done its best to go ahead and try to accommodate retirees in Thailand as well as is best it can, try to accommodate tourists here in the Kingdom.