Unless you are some outlandish size, you should be able to get all the clothes needed in Thailand and at lower prices than you pay in the United States. Use approximately 33 Thai baht to equal a dollar. For example you can buy casual mens' shirts from street vendors which are good quality and cost only about Thai Baht 200-300 each which is about $6-9 per shirt. In department stores the price could be about double, depending where you shop.

The Lazada online store can give you some good examples, for example Levis run from about $70 http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-men-jeans/?q=levi

Smart TVs at http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-smart-tv/?q=smart%20tv

Computer monitors http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-monitors/?q=monitor

Inkjet printers http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-inkjet-printers/?q=inkjet

Sunscreen http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-sunscreen-and-aftersun/?q=sunscreen

These will give you some ideas. Prices will vary by store and you can negotiate to some extent with street vendors.

Put another way, if your waist size is less than 44, you should be able to find clothes pretty easily.

The weather here is generally hot and humid, but we have a cool season from about November to February, and if you head north during that season, temperatures have gotten as low as -1C this year in the mountains, so a windbreaker and/or warm sweater might come in handy. The web site is in the process of adding more clothing items, in the next two weeks, but Department stores and clothing shops generally have good clothes.

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Thanks!!!!!! So much for the informative reply. Good point.. my size.. here in mexico I AM at outrageous size.. 6'3" tall.. size 13 shoe here has a zero chance of being found.. I shop online. So it looks like just 2 suitcases.. great!!

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In your other post, you said: "My pension is about $1,800 usd a month.. just shy of the 65,000 baht needed.. so a $3,000 savings deposit should do it for a combination for the year.. correct? Am I allowed to arrive on a tourust visa.. not sure how long those are for and if border runs are allowed... and then while in Thailand apply for a pension visa?"

My reply:
$3000 should just about do it with a bit of room to spare. Her are the calculations: Just to clarify for others who may be reading this post, if you had no monthly pension you would have to put up Thai baht 800,000 annually.

Take your pension and multiply by 32.5 baht (to be on the safe side) , which comes to B58.500 per month, then multiply that times 12 months, which comes to 702,000 per year in monthly pension money. Subtract that from 800,000 baht which leaves 98,000 baht and divide that by 32.5 baht to get $3015, which you would have to put into a Thai bank account in Thailand annually. If the exchange rate for the baht to the dollar changes, you could be required to ante up more or less. Keep in mind that you will need proof that the additional $3000 is from a legitimate source as well as the pension. In addition I strongly recommend that you do all the required paperwork as accurately as possible. When the immigration officials see that you are making their life easier, they will make your life easier. Also never get excited or angry when dealing with officialdom here. It is can be a surefire way to be denied.

As for arriving on a tourist visa, I think that can be acceptable, but you will be better off if you apply for a non-immigrant visa at the Thai Embassy or a Thai consulate in your home country. You tell them that you want to retire here, and you get a 90 day visa. At the end of the 90 days, you go to an immigration office in Thailand close to where you are living here, and apply for an extension of stay for the purposes of retirement. There is no "retirement visa" or "pension visa" per se.
See this site for locations and contact points for Thai embassies and consulates. http://www.thaiembassy.org/main/

I would avoid getting involved in situations where you have to make border runs. Getting the non-immigration visa will save you that hassle, and once you are on an extension of stay for the purposes of retirement in Thailand, you will not have to leave the country unless you want to. Just report your address to immigration every 90 days and renew your visa annually.

For more on Thai visas and living in Thailand, go to www.thaivisa.com. It has a very noisy forum, but there is also a lot of good information.

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Thanks again for such a detailed reply. Checking the site link shows no costs involved. Many countries in Latin America now charge outrageous fees -Ecaudor is about $1,000 .. fees plus required docs.

What is the initial O visa cost and each annual renewal?

Cheers

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I cannot guarantee that you can find size 13 shoes off the shelf here (might be possible); there are booterys that make custom shoes here, but I have no idea of prices these days. A search for Bangkok bootery will locate some of them.
But you might want to look for size 13 sandals if you are living a casual lifestyle, and I suspect that they will be easy to find and just a fraction of the price of shoes (somewhere in the neighborhood of $3-5 per pair). There are open-air markets all over Thailand where you can find things you never heard of before, things you have heard of before, and things you need. There are 7-11s all over the place, ATMs galore and street vendors every place you look. We have shopping malls in all major cities, and smaller versions in other cities. Resort areas are choc-a-bloc with stores. There are many forms of transportation available, depending on location and they can run from subways to overhead rail (skytrain), buses, taxis, tuk-tuks (the 3 wheeled motorized vehicles that are famous in Thailand) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://frangipani.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tuktuk-at-sanam-luang.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.frangipani.com/wordpress/samlors-in-thailand/&h=414&w=591&tbnid=jfXpDFCCXj5rRM:&zoom=1&docid=kGRDH2pzOtaC3M&ei=HM-hVK2ULpTluQTR5oHgCQ&tbm=isch
There are motorcycle taxis all over and some places still have the old rickshaws or the 3 wheeler non-motorized vehicles pulled by human labor.

You can travel distances by tour bus, plane or car, and rail.

Many people get by quite well here without the need to buy a car.

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Per http://www.thaiconsulatela.org/service_detail.aspx?link_id=34 it may cost $200 for the initial visa, but I would email the Embassy or call them and ask. For each renewal the fee is 1,900 baht or about $60.
And by the way, anything I tell you about visas is subject to change at any time, but generally speaking over the years immigration officials have gotten a lot more friendly helpful than, say, 30-40 years ago.

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Thanks. I just happened to check with the Thai consul in Mexico City.. $80 for the first year. Passport, photos, criminal check and cash.. thats it.

I will aplly for a single entry visa..good for one year. However. Does his mena that Thailand will not allow me to leave for one year..sort of ..ummm.. a prisoner?? :))

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No, Thailand is not taking people with visas as prisoners. :) Those who really like it here don't want to leave and those who don't like it are welcome to leave at any time. But if you have an extension for retirement, and you leave without a multiple re-entry visa, you might have to start all over again if you want to return to retire here. But you can always apply for a multiple re-entry once you have the extension approval for retirement.

In addition, if you find work that you want to do, you can apply to change your status, provided that the employer is able to support a work permit for you.

If you send me a PM, with an email address (use a disposable address, if you like), I will send you my list of Do's and Don'ts for Thailand, which is too long to post here (and I prefer to retain the formatting which I spent a lot of time on. :) :)

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