For the last 3 years, I’ve been living mostly in Asia, with bases in South Korea and Vietnam, and short visa runs in Thailand or Bali. I’m also familiar with Japan and Hong Kong from previous trips. What follows is my assessment of Asia as a destination for digital nomads.
How this blog post is structured: we will start with orientation, continuing with the basics, like internet coverage and coffee shop working, and touching up with the more complex social interactions and cultural differences. But you can read it in any order. Please note that my paid newsletter subscribers get a chunky bonus of tips, with actionable information like special areas where you can work from, best digital nomad friendly coffee shops or neighborhoods, etc.
Orientation — Know Your Place
Asia is not a monolith, and treating it as such will lead to disappointment — or worse, expensive mistakes.
The North of Asia (Korea, Japan) is over-industrialized, with high standards of living and a deeply opaque social fabric. You will need months, if not years, to penetrate the social layers here. Think of it as the Scandinavian equivalent of Asia: everything works, everything is clean, and everything is distant.
South East Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia) is a different beast entirely. These countries are developing rapidly, but they’re still affordable and the social fabric is permissive — people will actually engage with you. The Vietnamese are often called the Italians of Asia, and there’s truth to that: expressive, warm, and food-obsessed.
Bali deserves its own mention. At the time of writing, it’s almost fully Westernized — a place with dominant Western culture sitting on Asian infrastructure. The spirituality part that everyone goes there for? Over-commercialized to the point of parody. If you’re looking for authentic spiritual experiences, look elsewhere.
The practical takeaway: choose your base according to what you actually need, not what sounds exotic. Need structure and safety? Go to the North. Need affordability and human connection? Go South East Asia. Want to pretend you’re being spiritual while sitting in a cafe full of other Westerners? Bali is your next destination.
Internet Coverage
This is the easy part: Asia has exceptional internet coverage everywhere, at the WiFi level. Coffee shops, restaurants, malls — all reliably connected. Even small towns in Vietnam have better internet than some European capitals I’ve visited.
If you’re visiting for the first time, you’ll find 5G SIM card options immediately at the airport. I recommend this only for emergency cases. The better approach is to find an online eSIM provider and choose your package before departure, then activate when you’re at the airport. It’s cheaper, faster, and you won’t waste your first hour in a new country standing in line at a telecom kiosk.
One note about Vietnam specifically: the government blocks certain websites and services. Get a reliable VPN sorted before you arrive, not after. This is not optional.
Social Interactions
The North is highly formalized. In Korea and Japan, you should rely on meetup apps and try to discover connections at organized meetups — and there are many, with decent attendance. Random socializing in coffee shops or bars is possible but rare. People have their circles, and those circles are hard-coded by school, university, or workplace.
In the South, East you should go with coffee shops, bars, or expat-friendly areas and try to mingle there. It’s easier, more spontaneous, and people are genuinely curious about foreigners. You’ll have conversations. You’ll make friends. Some of those friends will try to sell you things, but that’s part of the charm.
The difference is profound. In Seoul, I could sit in a coffee shop for six hours and have zero human interaction. In Saigon, I’d have two conversations before my coffee arrived.
Status and Hierarchy
Understanding status matters if you want to navigate Asia without constantly offending people.
The hierarchy goes: Age, Career, Money — in that order.
Age trumps everything in the North. You defer to older people automatically. You use honorifics. You pour their drinks. This isn’t servility; it’s social operating system. In the South, East it’s more relaxed but still present.
Career matters differently across regions. In Korea, your company name is part of your identity. In Vietnam, entrepreneurship is respected more than corporate affiliation (it sounds weird for a self-declared communist country, but yes, Vietnam is highly entrepreneurial, everybody has a small business).
Money status is obvious everywhere, but the displays differ. In the North, wealth is quiet — luxury brands, yes, but subtle. In the South, if you’ve got it, you show it. Gold is the distinctive feature.
For digital nomads, this means: don’t brag about your location-independent lifestyle to locals working 12-hour days. Don’t talk about how “cheap” everything is. Don’t assume your Western casual approach to hierarchy will be appreciated. Be polite. Read the room, adjust accordingly.
Work Culture and Work Places
The work culture here is better than the West, regardless of the actual place — by which I mean: people actually work.
They work like they have no other choice, mostly because they don’t. If you’re not born into a wealthy family, you have to work incredibly hard, because there’s no relevant social welfare system. Pensions are barely a thing, so young people are actually supporting their entire family tree. Your 25-year-old colleague in Korea? They’re likely financially responsible for parents and possibly grandparents. The beautiful 20-year-old girl working in a Saigon bar? Same-same, but slightly different, she may also support brothers and cousins.
This creates an atmosphere of focus that’s frankly refreshing after years of Western “work-life balance” debates that mostly result in neither work nor life being particularly good.
By far the most affordable places to work are coffee shops. In Korea, there are even functional areas designated for work. A decent coffee shop — let’s say A Twosome Place, which locals consider lower-tier — has the first floor for ordering and quick sips, second level for social interactions (you can talk loud, laugh hard, walk around), and third-fourth levels for work and study. Same blueprint in Hollys, a slightly higher-tier chain.
Specific to Korea, and something I haven’t seen anywhere else, are the study rooms in dedicated buildings: just rooms with a table, a small fridge for drinks, and internet. Many students spend entire nights in these study rooms, then go directly to school in the morning. The hustle is real.
In Vietnam or Thailand, there’s not much franchising (although you can find Highlands Coffee, Phuc Long, Cong Caphe and Trung Nguyen Legend), but the diversity is incredible. It means you need to do a bit of extra searching, but it usually pays off big time. Independent coffee shops with character, good coffee, fast internet, and prices that make you wonder if there’s a mistake on the bill.
Food And Fun
Each place has its quirks, but in general, Asian food is spicier than you think.
In South Korea, they use kimchi (??) alongside pretty much everything. In Vietnam, fish sauce (N??c m?m) is everywhere — and I mean everywhere. When a local tells you that the food in some place is “really good,” 99% of the time it means that food is incredibly spicy. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
There are more and more Western options, but they’re usually more expensive and often worse than what you’d get back home. If you want to stay on the safe side, pick an international franchise (usually in shopping malls) or stay around expat-friendly areas. In Vietnam, this is easier, as expats are somewhat grouped by the real estate landscape — most condominiums are expat-only or expat-majority.
About fun: you cannot talk about Asia without talking about karaoke. This is an industry here, and part of the deep culture.
In South-East Asia, everybody sings — and they sing incredibly well. It’s casual, spontaneous, joyful. In the North, karaoke is more of a social layer you need to master for work, for social interaction, for integration. Different purpose, same activity.
Needless to say, the nightlife landscape is very rich everywhere in Asia. You can always find areas with bars and restaurants — that’s one of the main perks of being around this space. The variety is staggering, the prices are reasonable, and the energy is genuine.
If you’re the hiking type, you need to make your choice beforehand — pick a place to live that’s suitable for that, not for the bustling life of the main cities. You can try smaller cities: Busan or Daegu in Korea, Da Nang, Vung Tau, or even Phu Quoc (a small island in the south of Vietnam). These places offer nature, slower pace, and significantly lower costs, but you’ll trade that for fewer expat connections and less infrastructure.
Transportation and Traffic
You need to get your taxi/rideshare app sorted before arrival.
In Korea, you can pick from Kakao T (the dominant rideshare app) and Uber (limited availability, usually more expensive). In the South, Grab is your choice. Grab is becoming a super-app, including food orders, ticketing, and more, on top of the main transportation layer — and it works well. You can order a car or bike, and prices are transparent.
A word about Vietnam’s traffic: it’s intense. Actually, it’s like nothing I’ve seen before — though I haven’t been to India yet, so I’m refraining from calling it the most intense in the world.
It took me one and a half days to summon the courage to cross the street.
Vietnam has a population of 110 million people (including those living overseas, probably 10%) and a staggering 97 million bikes in circulation. The traffic doesn’t stop. It flows. You don’t wait for a gap — you step into the flow and move at a steady pace. Bikes will navigate around you. Stop suddenly, and you’ll cause chaos. I call this process “combing” through the bikes.
This sounds terrifying, and it is, for the first few crossings. Then it becomes normal. Then it becomes kind of not a big deal.
Budgeting and Expenses
It goes without saying that South East Asia is the most affordable place to live and work right now.
Vietnam and Thailand have a very low cost of living, and what you get for your money here — in any area, from accommodation to food to services — cannot even be compared with what you get in the West. Everything is cheaper and better. Significantly cheaper and way better.
A proper meal in a local restaurant in Vietnam: $3-4. Meaning you can get a big bowl of Pho (50,000 Vietnamese Dong, $2), and a beer (30,000 Vietnamese Dong, $1.2) and you’ll be set for the day. A 2-3 bedrooms apartment in a good area of Saigon: $400-600/month – including pool and gym access. A full-body massage: $10-15. These aren’t backpacker prices; this is normal life.
If you choose the North, you can still have a decent life, but the cost of living is pretty much on par with big cities in Europe. You can live off €10/day if you really pay attention and plan — and I did this experiment — but you won’t enjoy much. Korea and Japan are expensive if you’re trying to live cheaply, and affordable if you’re earning well and know where to spend.
The practical advice: budget for the North as you would for Western Europe. Budget for the South as about one-third of that, maybe less. And remember — cheap doesn’t mean low quality here. Often it’s the opposite.
The Takeaway
Asia is an incredible destination for digital nomads. It has good prices, a vibrant night-life, lightning fast developing infrastructure and a huge learning surface: from cultural differences to social interactions.
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