Why I Chose Thailand over Germany as a Place to Live
In August 2022, I moved from Germany to Thailand. I moved away from a country with one of the largest economies in the world and a social security system that catches you if something goes horribly wrong financially. In this blog post, I will explain my thoughts leading to this decision. But let us start at the beginning.
How I Came to the Idea of Visiting Thailand
To explain my thought process, we need to jump back six years to summer 2018. I had just finished my apprenticeship as a car mechanic and worked for a small company a couple of kilometers outside of my hometown. I never thought of moving away from my family and friends at this point in my life. All the people I knew back then were living their whole life in this city, and at this time, I had no other plans for the future. Okay, I already planned to go study Motorsport Engineering at a small town approximately 70 kilometers away from my hometown, but this was already a huge step for me. I already planned moving back after I finish my studies.
But then things changed a little bit. I met this girl in June 2018, and she was kind of like the complete opposite of me. Always hanging around outside, she loves to travel the world, get to know other cultures, and so on. Despite our differences, we somehow fell in love, and since I quit work one month before university started, she convinced me to do a road trip across Germany. (Funny what love does to someone, huh?) So we packed our stuff and drove around, slept in my small old Fiat Punto, visited some of her family members, went to amusement parks, showered in small seas near the road, and simply enjoyed our company.
This was my first experience of traveling outside of my hometown, and I loved it. So she got me into this idea of traveling a little more over the years. But there were a few problems. She was already experienced in backpacking and also visited India back in early 2018 while I was kind of like a couch potato my whole life. We had a couple of fights about the topic of traveling since I wanted to start small by visiting a country in Europe, while she wanted to travel to Asia. I was very anxious about traveling so far away from my hometown, and I had zero interest in Asia back then. But since she also has some roots in Thailand, she convinced me that Thailand would be a good destination for a first travel trip.
My First Visit to Thailand and How It Changed My View
So we booked our tickets to Thailand for early 2020. We spent four weeks in Thailand traveling around Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Pai. The first days I had a complete culture shock, but after that, I more and more enjoyed the way life seems to be in Thailand. Of course, I was just traveling, having loads of money compared to the locals there, and could easily eat outside for every single meal. But aside from these things, there was something else, more deep down, that I liked about Thailand. People seem to be less stressed and more friendly in everyday life. While I noticed this during our trip, it took me a little while after coming back to Germany to realize what that really meant for me as a person.
After we came back to Germany, the Covid situation was more serious than everybody initially thought. Lockdowns, strict regulations, and so on. During the following months and years, the overall mood and behavior of the Germans shifted even more to being mad at everything and everyone. Nobody was nearly as friendly as in Thailand, and I started to really dislike how Germans in general handled problems. This is, of course, a very sensitive, personal topic, and of course, everyone is different. There are pros and cons in the way Germans discuss and handle problems - straightforward, telling you everything they think about you into your face straight away, etc. This is just not how I like to handle things. I am always very careful not to hurt someone’s feelings and to talk in a very polite manner. Not that Germans are not polite, it is just that they think it is better to tell you their opinion, even if it might hurt you, than to not say anything and not hurt your feelings. I think it’s just part of the German culture. However, as time went on, I also started to think more about what I want in the future. I thought about many things and asked myself many questions. What do I want to achieve in my life? How do I want to live life? What do I want to see in my life? What are the most important aspects of my life?
The Decision
After a long period of thinking and discussing the future with my girlfriend, we both came to the conclusion that the most important aspect of our personal lives is our mental health. The main goal of life, at least how we see it, is to be as happy as you can be every single day of your life. For that, you need to be healthy, of course, physically and mentally. We both felt that life in Germany, although offering us way more opportunities career-wise, didn’t look very promising in terms of our mental well-being. We thought about where to move and thought about Thailand, since life in general seemed so much more chill there from our perspective. So we planned on how to make it possible and finally made it in August 2022. Since then, I have never regretted this decision one single day.
Conclusion
While life in Germany would be way better from a financial point of view since you have financial security and way more income, I still prefer living in Thailand because life here is so much better for my peace of mind. First of all, the weather is great all year long. Secondly, the food here is amazing. And the third, most important point for me is: I have the feeling of fitting a lot more into the society here. The people are always smiling and helpful; everybody is a little more sensitive when discussing, and in general, people are more relaxed. Of course, I also have my difficulties here, one of them being the language barrier. But I am doing my best to make this disappear as fast as possible, learning the Thai language every day and trying to speak with many locals and make friends with co-workers here. Overall, I would choose Thailand over Germany every time again. I still have some bad days, and everyday life is nearly the same no matter where you live, but it’s the small things that Thailand has to offer that make me a happier human being.