Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Digital Nomad visas. In a recent article from the Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com came to my attention. The article is titled: Phuket pushes to pilot Digital Nomad Visa. Quoting directly: "Rewat Areerob, President of Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (PPAO or OrBorJor) has submitted a formal request to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to create a "Digital Nomad" Visa for international visitors traveling to Phuket." For those who would say "yeah well that has already been proposed, I have been talking about this for almost a year now", I would say yeah it does seem a little odd, but quoting directly: "Under the proposed Visa, applicants must live in Phuket for 6 months to 1 year; they will be issued a Work Permit automatically; be able to open a savings account and own up to three vehicles and purchase health insurance while traveling in Thailand."

I don't exactly know what exactly is going on here. I will say, for those who are unaware Phuket always been a little different. They have sort of their own, they don't have their own but they march to the beat of a little bit different drummer when it comes to immigration policy which makes sense. I mean they are a big island; they are in a different part of Thailand geographically so obviously there is going to be some license taken with respect to what is going on on the ground basically. But as we have discussed in other videos there has already been Digital Nomad visas which have been discussed already. Quite frankly I kind of wonder if all of these different Digital Nomad visas are really doing much because going back, we had a similar program as we have discussed for the "Smart Visa" system. Now they are bringing on board these new long-term residence visas which as I have discussed and really residents because but they are of a long-term nature and they made up one category specifically for "Digital Nomads". Meanwhile we have also kind of discussed the paradox of trying to lure digital nomads permanently because digital nomads by the definition and their name, they move around, they kind of want to keep going. I have been in contact with a number of these folks over the years and they do have a very nomadic nature; they like to keep moving; they like to keep going to different countries for the most part. Some I think, they get their feel for places and they decide they like Thailand and come back but I am starting to wonder if maybe we are like spinning our wheels a little bit by trying to attract all these digital nomads.