Hey Steemians! Back for more of my story, this is where things get a little interesting. If you haven't already checked out the first two articles in my series, have a look down below to catch up!

Embarking on a New Adventure

In August of 2016, I made a decision. I wasn't cut out for a normal life, I simply didn't have the patience to live out my life the way I had always thought was the right way. I moved around a fair bit when I first left home. I never spent more than 12 months in one place until I was 21 and even then it was only a year and a half before I was looking for new digs again. By far the biggest move of my life was to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

This was right as the whole digital nomad craze was in full swing and to be honest, I knew very little about it. We had heard a few things here and there about why Thailand is a great place to work remote but I had no idea it was as popular as it was in that whole scene. Instead, we wanted to move somewhere with a good cost of living to bring a bit more adventure into my life. I wasn't making a huge amount from my writing at this point but it was enough to pay the bills and with all our stuff and the car sold, we had plenty of savings to fall back on.

We packed our bags, stayed with friends for the last two nights in Australia and then it was off to the airport for the trip of a lifetime. I had mixed emotions at the time. I was extremely excited but also a bit sad to give up our little apartment and especially the car, I loved that car!

Either way, it was time to start a new life and when would I have an opportunity like this again? Our flight was sometime in the afternoon, arriving in Thailand at around 8:30pm. Fortunately, we were staying at an airBnB in Bangkok before our flight the next morning and our host just so happened to offer to drive us from the airport, how kind!

Some Complications

The flight there was just over nine hours and pretty uneventful. I caught up on some good movies and since it was during the day, I didn’t have to force myself to sleep. Arriving in Bangkok though was not the greatest. Somehow I ended up losing my wallet between Brisbane Airport and the plane. I still to this day have no idea how this happened but it never did return. I had my license, a little bit of money and most importantly our travel debit cards. These were literally the things that were going to provide us with money while overseas and both of them, I had stupidly left in my wallet, which was now gone.

This definitely killed my mood. I freaked out a bit, swore and cursed, turn my plane seat upside down looking for it but it was no use. I had to accept that was it. Once at the airport, we were picked up by our AirBnB host and driven to the apartment which was just around the corner from the airport.

New Beginnings

The place we were dropped off at had everything we needed and was nicely furnished. Our host also mentioned he was happy to take us to the airport at 5 in the morning since he worked for Thai Airways which helped us out a bunch. Both me and my girlfriend were extremely exhausted by this point so we we pretty much hit the bed in an instant. Tomorrow we would be up early and on our way to our new home for the next three months.

In the morning, we were taken off to the airport by our wonderful host and had a few hours to spare before the flight. I used this time to get some work done for one of my regular clients. This was writing health articles for $30 a piece. You know the ones you see on health blogs like 10 Symptoms of this and 12 cures for this. Yeah I was the guy writing them at this point in my career. The pay wasn’t great but I was happy to have regular work and it was a far cry away from my old work so I loved every minute of it.

We grabbed breakfast at the Coffee Club at the airport. I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. Being unfamiliar with the pricing I discovered it was a complete rip off for a coffee and toasted sandwich. This was likely a combination of foreign franchise and airport pricing, either way the food was pretty bland and the coffee was nothing remarkable and the price was essentially the same as back home.

I finished up the work just before we boarded the plane, getting the last of it done and stowing away the macbook in the overhead compartment. We were finally on our way. I think we left around 7 in the morning due to arrive in Chiang Mai around 8:30.

Arriving at My New City

When we had arrived at the airport, we found it to be a lot more laid back than Bangkok. We weren’t solicited by hundreds of taxi drivers looking to make easy money of gullible tourists, instead it was quite easy to move around and make sense of what was going on.

We decided to use a taxi service to get to the next AirBnB which we were staying in for two nights before settling into our new apartment. After a bit of searching, our taxi driver finally found the place and we found our way to our small room. This was place was nowhere near as nice as our Bangkok AirBnB, instead it was very small, air conditioner barely worked and the bathroom was pretty sad to look at.

I started to get a bit sick by this point. Nothing Thailand related, it was just a common cold and staying in the room didn’t exactly help. By the second night, we had pretty much had enough of it and decided to get the hell out of there to find our new apartment.

The New Home

The apartment was just a short walk away and it was one of the nice places in Chiang Mai. Having only recently been built that year, everything was still new and fresh plus they were only just starting to fill up the rooms.

We had a bit of miscommunication when it came to inspecting the place. The man at reception told us to come back at 10pm which we had thought very strange and we even asked “At night?” to which he had replied, “yes”. We turned up at 10pm only to be told by security that the office was closed until tomorrow. We thought as much so we marched back to our sad AirBnB for one more night.

Heading back the next morning we were finally able to settle in. The room was incredible. We were the first residents on the 4th floor and everything was so new and shiny (and smelled of peppermint!). The view from the window was incredible, overlooking the lush jungle just next door. This apartment was one of the more expensive places in Chiang Mai but compared to Australia, we were now saving money on rent. Plus we had access to a pool, gym and sauna.

Once we had everything moved in, we were able to sit back and enjoy our new home. The next step was to find some cool places to work from and get my business into gear. I will break this story down into a few more parts otherwise it might end up being too long. Stay tuned tomorrow for how my first week went down now that I was living as a full time, freelance writer in Thailand.

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PART 1: I Went From an Office Job to Being Paid to Write for a Living

PART 2: Where Do You Start If You Want to be Paid as a Writer?