Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Cambodian Golden Visas; we have discussed this before. Every once in a while I will do a video kind of about some of the regional, the countries that abut Thailand because look a lot of expats that end up down in Thailand, they will kind of bounce around and over time some of them drift into another country and kind of become an expat in that country. Cambodia is a really good example of that. You will see a lot of Thailand expats overtime. Some of them become enamoured with Cambodia, I can totally understand why, it is a great place. Phnom Penh is real fun, I have been over there many times. I have been out to the border out at Poi Pet, interesting place to go out there. Sihanoukville as well, at least it was a few years back. These days it is very, very in my opinion overly developed but whatever. Then of course Angkor Wat up there, you have got Some Reap. Cambodia is a captivating place no doubt but occasionally I will do a video where I will talk about a country that is not necessarily Thailand.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Both the Cambodian and the Thai 10-year Golden Visas have fallen flat. The thrust of this is going to concentrate on the Cambodian side but there is a lot of good analysis on the Thai side of this issue. I urge those who are watching this video, go read that article in detail. Quoting directly: "Expectations that rich and talented foreigners would rush to take advantage of 10-year permissions of stay have failed to gain traction. Neither the Thai nor the Cambodian authorities have published meaningful data on completed applications and little has been heard of either scheme since the launchings last year." Quoting directly: "The Cambodian variant is actually run by the Khmer Home Charity Association and requires cash investment in an approved property complex. Neither scheme promises a second passport although the Cambodian Visa holds out the maybe "five years down the line". 

So that kind of sums it up. Again much like the LTR, I think to begin with this was always going to be a Visa category that was only ever going to apply to a very narrow subset of individuals. It is pretty highly priced and on top of that it also, it is interesting because this was billed as something for Digital Nomads, and as I have done videos on in the past, it is almost the antithesis of being a Digital Nomad to offer a Digital Nomad a Visa that gives him like 10 years to live in a place because Digital Nomads by definition like to move around. Now I have often said that my opinion the best way to do any of this if you want to be a so-called Digital Nomad especially regionally, set up a small business, use that as a vehicle to maintain for example Work Permit and Business Visa status here in Thailand and then use this as a regional hub to kind of do what you want; wander around the whole region; wander around the whole world quite frankly but you always know you have a place to come back to in the form of some place where you have a Long-Term Visa status, where you have work authorization and where you have a place where you have your banking facilities etc. I think that is the most optimal way to deal with this stuff. Again, these long Visas for so-called Digital Nomads it kind of runs counter to the whole paradigm associated with Digital Nomadism.