Leaving everything for your dream
Posted by Emergency_Ad7808@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 42 comments
I’m 30 years old and live in Germany but it’s always been my dream to live on Koh Phangan in Thailand.
I do have a very nice life in Germany. Stable relationship with my girlfriend, same with my parents. One very good friend here, one good friend in a different city and one good friend in Austria. I’m not very outgoing, so that’s perfect to me. I have a very very good job, that is mostly fun, pays very good and is not very demanding. Lots of free time. 2 cats that I love and an awesome apartment. I’m not unhappy here, I like my life a lot and so I actually forgot about Thailand.
But now something has changed. I learned that there is some money waiting for me. Quite a lot actually. Might be in a year, might be in ten. But this made me think about Thailand again. In Germany I could have a nicer house and work less. In Thailand I might not have to work at all. Plus I could have all the things I love so so much about the place. The fruits, the weather, the people and so on.
But that would mean leaving everything. My girlfriend would not wanna come with me. So I’d lose her, I’d lose the cats, I’d see my parents maybe twice a year, my friends probably even less. But I guess i would make new friends there quickly.
I’m not sure what to do.
I don’t know if I’m ready to leave everything I know and love for my dream. Plus there is a chance that i actually don’t like it there after some time, I can’t know that. Then I’d come back, probably lose everything I left just to be here again. I would probably never find such a good job again, it really is a rare gem. The money is not enough to support me forever in Germany, so I might have to get back to some job I don’t like again, like I did for many years. Maybe only part time at least, but still.
Did anyone here have a similar situation? What’s your take?
Rabkaohalla@reddit
You can have many girlfriends in Thailand! Follow your heart. You Only Live Once! Auf gehts!
Friendly_Kick_7199@reddit
Don’t quit everything just yet try a long term visit or sabbatical in Thailand first. That way you can test the dream without losing your relationships, cats, and amazing job. It lets you see if it’s truly what you want before making a permanent leap.
Aggravating_Ring_714@reddit
Living longterm in Koh Phangan might not be that feasible. Accommodation can be fairly expensive, tons of hippy tourists and weird Russians and Israelis with sketchy businesses. Phuket or Samui are much better for living longterm.
Puzzleheaded-Lake947@reddit
How about you take long-term leave from your organisation. Say 3-5 months and go and live there for that time. Pretend you live there in the same conditions you would ir you moved there, see how you feel after. Journal your experience, rate how you feel about the move. At the end of the experiment youll have a record of your experience and an overall sense of things. Just an idea
One-Promise2495@reddit
Do NOT do it...you will always be a Farang....visit short term like one year. but you decide. visa runs gets old but its the best...putting your money in a foreign bank? ok. if you do. just say goodbye to it if it gets lost in the system. Just Visit. your young. huge life decisions is unneccessary for young man like yourself. Just visit short term...one year....step by step is best.
Capital-Rush-6058@reddit
i think you should tell your girlfriend you're ready to leave her for tropical fruits any time, don't waste her time.
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
That’s what this is about, I’m not
ArgumentZestyclose62@reddit
It doesn't matter that you are nor ready, what matters here is that she is probably a similar age than you and you might be robbing her time to meet somebody else and build a family (lots of assumptions here, I know)
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
She doesn’t want children
garethwi@reddit
You have three friends (plus a Girlfriend) in an area that speaks your language. Why do you expect to make new friends quickly in a country where just about no-one does?
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
Because the island is small, everybody speaks English and there are more like minded people there
ArgumentZestyclose62@reddit
It might seem like you connect with people very well when you are all travelling, but then one by one they start to leave the place and the connections back home are the only ones that seem to stick around for long
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
That is true, yes! But KP does have a big expat community
BGOOCHY@reddit
I hope you figure it out and it's something that fulfills you. My wife and I want to live at least part time on Samui in retirement. One thing to consider socially is that Phangan is heavily inhabited by Israelis nowadays. They've kind of got their own thing going on and it can be insular from what I've heard.
Tigweg@reddit
It's unclear what you are going to do for money in the long term, is it a big enough sign to never work again, even a low cost of living country? It sounds like you would be leaving a life that most people would love, for the dream of a holiday destination. I'm pretty sure that KPG could easily become tedious, especially for the one week a month around the Full Moon Party, I know it pretty well, having visited about 20 times between 09 and 13, when I lived in nearby Surat Thani. Yes, I took the choice you're facing in 2006, but the life I left didn't have all the benefits you currently enjoy. Don't do it. Take as long holidays as is possible in your current position. Please think of your long term future
Philanthrax@reddit
I'm just curious. What's the job that's not very demanding and pays good?
Important_Coach9717@reddit
Living the people you love sounds like a really really stupid plan man...
DifficultTerm-20@reddit
Honestly, I wouldn’t blow up a genuinely good life for a fantasy version of Thailand. A lot of places feel magical when you visit them because you’re relaxed, free, and disconnected from normal responsibilities. Living there permanently is different. Eventually it also becomes normal life with routines, frustrations, loneliness, bureaucracy, health issues, visa stress, etc.
What stands out to me is that you already have things many people spend their whole lives trying to build: a good relationship, family nearby, close friends, meaningful work, financial stability, and peace. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the dream though. If I were you, I’d test it first instead of making it all-or-nothing. Spend 2–3 months there. Maybe longer. See how it feels once the vacation feeling fades. You don’t seem unhappy in Germany. You seem curious about another possible life. Those are very different things.
Miss_Dark_Splatoon@reddit
Yeah fruits and weather as arguments to leave everything behind sounds quite immature, what about health care, road safety, corruption etc
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
I’m not traveling for healthcare, so I don’t count all these things as my reasons. I did my research and I know that it’s good enough for me there
Both__@reddit
Stay put in Germany until you’ve successfully transitioned yourself into a fully remote job or started a successful business that you can do from anywhere. Once you’ve achieved that, take long trips to Thailand - I’m talking months at a time. Winter there, that sort of thing. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds. Living full-time in Thailand is a very different reality than visiting.
winewitheau@reddit
Go on a long trip with some unpaid leave or something. It sounds very romantic but a good stable life is not something to just leave behind. The newness of living in Thailand will wear off pretty fast and you might come to miss Germany. Go on a two month trip or something and stay in Germany is what I’d say. You can always move abroad later in life if it’s still something you really want.
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
It’s not just the new thing for me. I just don’t like Germany. I hate the winter, I hate the summer. There are like 2 months in total that I like here. Spring and the end of summer. Fruit is also very important to me, and it’s very very frustrating here for me a lot of the times to get no good fruit at all sometimes. I hate driving the car or taking long train rides everywhere, everything is so far away. All these problems don’t exist on Koh Phangan
winewitheau@reddit
I get it! I live in the Netherlands and also find it a shame sometimes that the weather is not great and the nature is not as impressive as in other countries. But the Netherlands also has a lot of upsides! My point is more that, while the weather will be nice and the transmute will be shorter, other problems will arise anywhere you live. Maybe meeting friends won’t be as easy as you think, or you get a medical problem and have to deal with a medical system that is less nicely aranged than in Germany. Problems are everywhere and every place has its up- and downsides. Just don’t think moving will get rid of your problems. That only lasts a short time.
fresasfrescasalfinal@reddit
I moved and left a relationship once and regretted it for years. It just wasn't fun for me to do everything by myself after the first year. Now I've done the opposite, moved abroad to be with someone. To a country worse than where I was before. But I moved to be with my soon to be husband and it's been so fulfilling to be building a life with someone, regardless of where it is. But, everyone is different. I'd test living there first though.
raffwriter@reddit
Check your visa eligibility; Thailand has recently tightened up.
NoIGnoTwitsNOtktk@reddit
Read up on Culture shock. It’s universal and can be extremely difficult. Even if you have zero regrets it will be hard to adjust. I made my move six months ago after 15+ years of planning. I can’t believe the way they do bureaucracy here. The food is much more limited, even if it’s healthier. I don’t speak the language yet, and wish I’d started studying well before the move. We had a house built, and it cost twice what we’d planned. Everyone sees us coming and believes we’re “rich Americans” and doubles or triples the prices.
I’m still glad I made the move. It’s hard but it will get easier. I try to relax and not take things personally or to heart. Every morning I look out my big window and sigh with happiness.
Sufficient-Job7098@reddit
What I noticed.
Some people say that moving abroad was their dream. So they move abroad. Unpack, explore what is there to explore… and in a year or 5 they come on this sub and ask other immigrants to help them to figure out what they should do next with their life, now when they’d achieved their dream.
It is impossible to offer any meaningful advice, but I do believe it may be beneficial for a future immigrant to identify have some other dreams or goals to pursue after their dreams of living abroad was achieved.
Not having a goal is a lesser issue if you live in your home country, because subconsciously you can just do what your friends and neighbors are doing, go to work, start family, take a vacation, retire.
Not having a goal living as a stranger in foreign country can be very disorienting, because you can’t just do what locals are doing, unless you managed to assimilate extremely fast and extremely well.
Catcher_Thelonious@reddit
Locals do the same everywhere: "go to work, start family, take a vacation, retire."
Sufficient-Job7098@reddit
They do.
When I moved to US from Europe, I worked the same job as my American neighbors, I bought the same groceries, cooked the same meals, my kids played with neighborhood kids, they went to school together with those kids, my kids had plans for the future that were no different from their friends, today I am spending my retirement no different to how my neighbors are spending their retirement.
Yet, let’s be honest some immigrants have problems adopting lifestyle that is the same as lifestyle of local people, so they have problems to figure out their future, to figure out where they belong.
Catcher_Thelonious@reddit
Sorry, I thought your point was that if you don't have your own plan, you can't just "go to work, start family, take a vacation, retire."
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
That is such a great answer, I never thought about that
Competitive-Leg-962@reddit
Fellow German here, left the country 20 years ago. Best decision ever. Koh Phangan is nice, but you might end up lacking some of the amenities of bigger cities. But if that's your corner of the country, you could stay in Surat Thani and spend as many days as you want commuting between the islands.
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
Where do you live?
Competitive-Leg-962@reddit
Seremban, Malaysia right now.
I've never lived in Thailand, but usually I spend my downtime between projects there or in Bali. Not a beach person though, so I'll usually be in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai, or when in Bali then in Bedoegoel since Ubud became too touristy.
SeanBourne@reddit
What’s the longest period of time you’ve spent in Koh Phangan? As I’m sure you know, visiting a place on vacation is very different from living there.
TBH, I think you have a pretty idyllic set-up in Germany - your job sounds like one which wouldn’t be bad to keep even after you receive your windfall. (The benefits of the job when you have lots of money have more to do with the benefits of a routine, additional social infrastructure, needing to be somewhere, etc. A sabbatical is fun - and do take one - but prolonged ‘early retirement’ can get a bit stale.)
Also parents get older. Living halfway around the world from them as I do - this is on my mind constantly - e.g. am I seeing them enough? Calling them enough? etc. This builds over time like mental pressure.
Last but not least - a good gf is increasingly difficult to find. Many people these days are increasingly warped by odd views on social media. I wouldn’t take this for granted either.
Obviously it’s your life, but my bias would be - continue to live in Germany, just take more vacations to Thailand.
orange-ym@reddit
honest take: you're not actually asking an emigration question. you're asking a values question. and the "stay vs go" framing is hiding the option that actually fits your situation. you're 30, happy, with a great job, partner, cats, friends, and an inheritance you don't yet have. that's not someone who needs to make a binary choice today. three options most posts like yours don't surface:
the sabbatical test. ask your "rare gem" job for 3 months unpaid leave. live on koh phangan during that window. by month 2 you'll either know "i want this forever" or "the fantasy doesn't survive contact with reality." most well-paying low-demand jobs will say yes to 3 months unpaid if you frame it as a one-time life experiment. cheapest test you can run.
the split life. when the inheritance lands, buy or rent long-term on koh phangan. spend 3-4 months a year there, germany the rest. you don't lose your girlfriend, your cats, your friends, or the job. you get the fruits, the weather, the people — just not 365 days a year. underrated because it's not romantic, but it's what most people in your specific position actually end up doing once they sit with the math.
wait for the inheritance. "might be 1 year, might be 10" means you don't actually have the optionality you think you do. don't burn down a life you like for money that might land in a decade. revisit this question when the wire transfer is dated.
what i'd gently push back on: "i'd make new friends quickly." you said you're not outgoing and have three good friends total. new friends in your 30s, in a transient nomad/tourist culture like koh phangan, are not the same as decade-long friendships. that's a real cost, not a footnote.
the dream isn't "live in thailand." it's "have the koh phangan feeling regularly available to me." you can solve that without burning everything down.
if you do decide to seriously test it, fwiw i'm building expatspark.ai — handles the visa and cost mapping for trial moves like this (thailand DTV is genuinely interesting for your profile, 5-year multi-entry on $14k savings). free tier covers a single-country plan. but the bigger first move is asking your boss about the sabbatical.
Emergency_Ad7808@reddit (OP)
At the moment I definitely can’t take a few months off, but maybe next year. Thank you very much for this comment! You are right, I could try and see before burning the bridge
No-Jackfruit3211@reddit
There is a saying
"You don't know what you until its gone."
It looks like you already have a good life. Why risk it for the unknown?
GUmbagrad@reddit
If you have retirement level funds coming to you and can live on passive income (<4% draw rate), go for it. Make your money, THEN move to Asia. That's my plan too but gonna snowbird winters instead of full time.
Matildaspanish@reddit
Yo lo hice, y ya emigré a tres países. Hay un poema que me gusta mucho que se llama Ithaka, podrías leerlo, ya que habla mucho del viaje , que a veces no es el destino, sino el camino. Suena súper cliché , pero tal vez conecta un poco con lo que te pasa
kulukster@reddit
Take vacation trips there. Living somewhere is different from trips. You love the tropical fruits so eat a lot of them when in
Thailand, but I live in the tropics and really miss the fresh berries, peaches etc that I can't have in the tropics.
There are also the many excellent reasons why living in Thailand is not the paradise you seem to think, read many of the responses on this sub.