Tips and tricks on how to live and work in southeast Asia

Southeast Asia attracts more and more attention of people around the whole world. And not just travelers.

The reason is simple: beautiful exotic nature, great food, nice people, hot sun and also the possibility of slowing down and finding yourself.

Our western world is oriented on work, performance and results, while this one is slightly different.

Work in southeast Asia

Southeast Asia has its own specifics, which are for many of us very attractive.

It is the exotics in a true way, a place which is also very affordable for us. Those are the reasons why so many “digital nomads” relocate in southeast Asian countries. The only thing they need is their computer and they can profit from a pleasant life in Asia.

If you want to live and work in southeast Asia and for some reason this locality is also attractive for you, there are many ways how to achieve that and you don’t need to be a digital nomad.

Many different professions and jobs are available in all these southeast Asian countries. One of the major ones is being a teacher there.

Generally, in Asia there is a big demand for teachers from Europe, USA or Australia, it is because of education standards which are much higher than in these countries. We can teach them in ways they can´t learn at their government schools.

The salary is also very nice and teachers without any special experiences working in Asia can make several times more than teachers in Czech. Same goes for other professions, however being a teacher as an expat is one of the most common and one of the most demanded professions.

For example, in Thailand there are several job openings each day in teaching profession. Job in this industry is really not so difficult to get and if you really want it, you will always get it.

You can try and go through my favorite job website for teaching jobs in southeast Asia called www.ajarn.com which offers teaching jobs not only in Thailand but also Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and sometimes even China and Singapore.

Living expenses in southeast Asia are in comparison to our European standards pretty cheap and affordable, so the ration salary versus expenses can in some cases be very interesting.

Volunteering in southeast Asia

There are also other ways how to see southeast Asia except going there as a tourist or traveler. One of the greatest possibilities how to learn and live in an exotic culture is to become a volunteer.

I have great experience with a Czech foundation called Kintari (www.kintari.org), that helps and sends volunteers to teach English/computers to an Indonesian island of Lombok.

Travelling to and within southeast Asia

Maybe you are thinking about how to find the best possible way to travel to southeast Asia and were to get tickets. I personally always go for Skyscanner (www.skyscanner.com) which I think is the easiest and cheapest way how to find all possible ticket combinations.

Travelling within southeast Asia is very good and affordable with low cost airline called Air Asia (www.airasia.com).

Before you travel, think also about possible vaccinations. I recommend to get vaccinated for typhoid, hepatitis A and B and tetanus.

And one more advice in the end

Make sure you train your patience, because people in southeast Asia have plenty of time for everything and no scheduled time is for certain.