About FarangBlog
I’m Mário Ferreira — sailor, trainer, skipper, and for the past few years, a happy farang in northeast Thailand.
My path has never been a straight line. For years as an officer in the Portuguese Navy, I sailed on various ships handling navigation, electronics, and combat systems. The sea taught me one essential thing: the world is too big to stay in just one port.
After the Navy, I became a trainer in electricity and electronics, a sailing skipper, manager of a music shop in Lisbon, and even — why not — a sports arbitrageur with a mathematical model based on the Poisson distribution. Life has a sense of humor.
But Thailand never left my mind.
My first contact with this country dates back well before my retirement — I opened a guesthouse here, built connections, and ultimately found my wife, Rinlada, from the Isaan region near Surin.
Today, retired, I live just a few kilometers from the Cambodian border, among rice fields and elephants. The uniform has given way to a floral shirt. The ship’s bridge has been replaced by the house terrace. But my curiosity remains intact.
Why Thailand and nowhere else?
People often ask me that. The short answer: because here, €1,200 a month lets you live well — really well. The long answer is this entire blog.
After 3 years of daily life here, I’ve learned Thai (enough not to get ripped off at the market), navigated the visa maze, opened a bank account, chosen health insurance, and discovered that every province has its own character.
FarangBlog was born from all these experiences — the good decisions, avoidable mistakes, and surprises that no tourist guide mentions.
This blog is for you if:
- You’re considering retiring in Thailand
- You’re looking for practical, honest information — not copy-pasted content
- You want the perspective of someone who actually lives here, not a passing tourist
Welcome aboard. ขอต้อนรับ
— Mário Ferreira