Here’s the budget breakdown after spending 3 weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai is a nice and cheap city.

If you’re heading to Chiang Mai and you’re wondering how much it will cost you to live there, here’s the answer!

Just a heads up: I stayed there for 24 days with my boyfriend and since we’re in the early stages of our online business we haven’t spend that much time on the main touristic attractions. However, I sincerely hope that this will help you to plan your trip there especially if you’re a Digital Nomad 🙂

Conversion rate on July 15th 2016

• 1$ = 34.92 THB
• 1€ = 38.91 THB

Accommodation

• Total cost: 405€ | 450.95$
• Cost per day: 16.88€ | 18.79$
• Cost per person per day: 8.44€ | 9.40$

We stayed 24 nights in a standard bedroom at Nimman Boutique Resort booked on Agoda with a 63% discount from June 19th to July 13th.

Food & drinks

• Total cost: 5,968 THB | 153.38€ | 170.90$
• Cost per day: 6.39€ | 7.12$
• Cost per person per day: 3.20€ | 3.56$

We mostly ate in cheap restaurants and ordered food ranging from 35 THB to 60 THB. We tried a couple of times “fancy” restaurants (meaning not street food nor kitchen in open air), it’s good if you’re tired of Thai food. But overall, if you’re on a budget like we were, Thai food street is delicious!

Leisure

• Total cost: 5,525 THB | 141.99€ | 158.22$
• Cost per day: 5.92€ | 6.59$
• Cost per person per day: 2.96€ | 3.30$

Here’s what we did:

• Cinema at Maya: 170 THB per person + 185 THB for the nachos (yeah we wanted to try something different from the popcorn… as a result I had stomach ache in the evening. I don’t know if it was related, though ^^)
• Thai Akha cooking class: 800 THB per person

• Elephant jungle sanctuary: 1,700 THB per person

Café & Coworking space

• Total cost: 3,817 THB | 98.10€ | 109.31$
• Cost per day: 4.09€ | 4.55$
• Cost per person per day: 2.04€ | 2.28$

Here are the places we checked:

• Camp in Maya: fast and stable internet, you have 2h of Internet every 50 THB



• Local café, think park: stable if not raining, unlimited internet



• Punspace Nimman: fast and stable, 229 THB per day
• Café Nine One Nimman/Soi 11: fast and stable, unlimited internet



• Wake up at Nimman road: slow and not stable, internet access is limited to 4h for 2 users
• Tom n Toms coffee: fast and stable, internet access is limited to 3h

My favorite one is Café Nine One 🙂

Grocery store

• Total cost: 2538 THB | 65.23€ | 72.68$
• Cost per day: 2.72€ | 3.03$
• Cost per person per day: 1.36€ | 1.51$

We went to 7 eleven or Tesco to buy some stuff like:

• Pepsi: 30 THB
• Singha Beer: 56 THB
• All you need drink: 25 THB
• Redbull: 10 THB
• Cookies: 35 THB
• Meal: 37 THB

Gym

• Total cost: 3,000 THB | 77.10€ | 85.91$
• Cost per day: 3.21€ | 3.58$
• Cost per person per day: 1.61€ | 1.79$

We choose to subscribe one month to Powerhouse Fitness Center.

It’s 1,500 THB per person and you can go everyday from 10AM to 4PM (on Sundays it opens at 1PM). With this offer, you can participate to their classes like yoga for 100 THB per session.

You have free lockers, access to a sauna, showers and toilet.

The towel is 40 THB.

Pharmacy

• Total cost: 984 THB | 25.29€ | 28.18$

We bought Centrum (100 pills / 699 THB) because we realized with the change of diet we were lacking some nutrients. Also we bought mosquito repellents (70 THB for lotion and 95 THB for spray) because mosquitos love me too much 🙂

Clothes

• Total cost: 540 THB | 13.88€ | 15.46$

We bought 2 pants during the market on a Sunday at The Walking Street.

Laundry

• Total cost: 200 THB | 5.14€ | 5.73$

It’s 50 THB per kilo.

Pictures for visa

• Total cost: 200 THB | 5.14€ | 5.73$

Our next destination, Cambodia, required a picture for the visa. So we looked for a place to have 4×6 format picture. For 100 THB you have 6 pictures. And they even lend you a suit to make you look formal on the picture ^^ You wait only 15-20 min and your pictures are ready.

The place is located in front of the Faculty of Pharmacy Chiang Mai University and is next to a Watsons and 7 eleven.

Taxi

• Total cost: 150 THB | 3.86€ | 4.30$

We took a tuk tuk only once from the train station to our hotel.

Visa

• Total cost: None

As a Brazilian citizen, my boyfriend can stay up to 3 months.

And me, as a French citizen, I can stay up to 30 days (only!).

Total budget for 24 days

• Total cost: 994.10€ | 1,106.88$
• Cost per day: 41.42€ | 46.12$
• Cost per person per day: 20.71€ | 23.06$

Final words

I’ll be back there for sure to visit at least Doi Suthep and to walk around the old city and I totally recommend Digital Nomads to start their journey there 🙂