Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the issue of so-called "beg-packing" in Thailand. I haven't done a video on this in some years. Covid really for lack of a better term, saw this phenomenon completely go away, but in the last 18 months, I have actually personally seen an incident or two of this a couple of times. Thai Police are very quick, especially at the street level to deal with this, but what is "beg-packing"?

Well basically, there's backpacking and then there's “beg-packing” which as we know, backpackers they are on limited budgets; they are not travelling in luxury, in First class accommodations; they travel on the cheap for lack of a better term. But there is a difference between travelling economically, which each to their own, I  completely respect all of that, and going to another country and sitting on the side of the road begging, especially in a place where the socioeconomic stratification is completely different from these people's home countries, and it's almost just an insult on its face to be doing this in a place that sees substantially less or has seen in the past, substantially less economic opportunities than the places where these people hail from. But long story short, it's exactly as the name implies; it's backpacking and begging one's way through it. It's not well loved amongst the Thais I'm here to tell you.

That said, I initially thought of making this video after reading an article from The Chiang Rai Times, chiangraitimes.com, the article is titled: Thailand Changes Travel Rules for 2026. And there is a small excerpt I'm going to take out of this. Budget Backpackers: "Costs are rising, but careful planning can keep trips affordable. For repeat visits, the MEV may work out cheaper than arranging several separate visas." The MEV they are talking about there is the Multi-entry Tourist Visa it's a 6-month Visa that can be utilized over the course of 6 months, and you can even, if you play it right, you can even get as much as almost 9 months of lawful status in Thailand out of it and that's the Visa they are talking about. But going back over here to a recent posting on X, from Pulse Today, that's @pulse_today over on X. Quoting directly: "As tourist arrivals increase in Sri Lanka," - so they are talking about Sri Lanka here - "concerns have resurfaced over the growing trend of "beg-packing" -- foreign travellers asking the public to fund their trips."

I also discussed in a recent video I made contemporaneously with this one, recent comments from a former Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Agency - he was also an officer within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - commenting on the fact that Thailand needed to start focusing on "quality" tourists and security and less on volume tourists and less on; basically his point was we don't want to bring in undesirable aliens in effect into Thailand. And again this may have ramifications for those who are looking to travel in Thailand, looking to be tourists, backpacker or otherwise. 

The thing to take away from this video though is in the past - I've done videos on this before - it's not going to be a great outcome. You are going to have a bad time if you will if you come to Thailand and expect to be able to just beg your way through, coming here, operating, I don't even know what the right word is - staying here - because again especially immigration authorities and now even higher circles in the policy making apparatus here in Thailand are showing increasing concern over the "quality" of tourists. 

So, hopefully we are not going to see in Thailand what seems to be playing out in Sri Lanka. But that said, the message to the would-be beg-packer community if you will, maybe don't do that here because it could end up with a situation where not only you could end up being detained, which believe me when I say this, being detained in Immigration lockup is not a pleasant experience, and not only being detained but possibly deported and effectively precluded from returning to the Kingdom of Thailand.