Does living in Thailand with a 50 metre infinity pool appeal to you?

Finding cheap apartments in Thailand is a process. But if you are organised and know where to look, then you can find yourself a real bargain. It depends on where you look, how long you look for and what time of the year you do it. You can skip top the bottom of this blog to see a video of the place we rented. But if you want to know the process involved for us then read on. Let us start at the beginning.

Where do you want to live in Thailand?

You can do this research from the comfort of your laptop in [insert expensive Western country here]. Thailand has a wealth of beautiful and interesting places. I have been here on 4 previous occasions and know my way around to a degree. If you are like us and you want strong internet to be able to work online, then you will probably want to live in or near a city.

If you also want to be relatively close to the beach then you will not chose the Northern jungle city of Chang Mai. Chang Mai has a great reputation amongst the travelling community. I am sure it is amazing, but we want the sun and the ocean as part of our Thailand experience.

We ruled out Bangkok as it is too hectic and again, not on a beach. There are a lot more cheap options in Bangkok than elsewhere in the country…but it is a different story living there than in some of the more chilled out areas.

We pointed our compass towards Phuket. We could fly in there on cheap flights. It would have good internet being a well developed island. And it has beaches…lots of hot weather and beaches. It may be very touristy and lack some of the charm of the quieter and more remote parts of Thailand, but it met the most important part of our criteria.

Living room area in our new apartment

What is your budget for a cheap apartment in Phuket?

We set ourselves a target of $300-$400 per month to spend on accommodation. We had a bit of flexibility with this as we could afford to pay more. A budget of $300-$400 per month means we would be getting great value for our daily living costs. While there are some incredible places available in Thailand, you can pay quite a lot for them.

A budget of $300-$400 is enough to get you a decent place in Phuket. While there are cheaper places available, they are few and none had the quality and high speed internet we were looking for.

Do your research online to see what is available.

Researching online is great. You get a good idea of a range of accommodation available. I used some great sites to get an idea of what was available. If you are Googling the search terms “cheap apartment in Thailand” or “cheap apartment in Phuket”, you will be hit with a vast amount of websites cheap is relative. Here is a list of some of the more popular ones which came up.

After much clicking and scrolling I figured out which ones had ANY even NEAR our budget and which were targeted at short term holiday makers with big pockets.