Mobile, Free,
Cosmopolitan?
Digital Nomads in Chiang Mai
A Morning in
Chiang Mai
- A café full of laptops
- Video calls with clients in Europe
- Editing, building, designing — for elsewhere
“Many of them are foreigners.”
Three questions,
one city
Does it give freedom?
Freedom to work, to move, to choose a life.
What does it do to places?
Rent, work, culture — and who pays for it.
Does it make “citizens of the world”?
Mobility versus a genuinely global outlook.
It can —
but not automatically.
It depends on three things:
- Who is allowed to move
- How platforms & markets organise the lifestyle
- How people connect with the places they visit
6 core academic articles + one real case: Chiang Mai.
Speakers A → B → C → D → E
Freedom
Is the nomad lifestyle really free?
Reichenberger (2018):
“Holistic Freedom”
Why choose location-independent work?
Professional freedom
You choose your work.
Spatial freedom
No fixed office, no fixed city.
Personal freedom
Live by your own values.
“Work should feel meaningful — not just a duty to earn money.”
Freedom Has a Cost
Freedom does not mean “no work”.
Freedom
Choose where, when and how you work.
Effort
- Housing & adaptation
- Routes & planning
- Staying productive
You manage more things yourself — freedom is a skill, not a default.
How Freedom
Looks Online
2025 · New Media & Society
Nomads highlight independence and freedom. Work fades; leisure and travel move to the front.
Online you often see the beach more than the laptop.
Freedom for Whom?
The “traveling entrepreneur” image
Links the Instagram image to wider ideas about work — and to gentrification in the cities nomads visit.
Your passport matters
Nomads are often Global North citizens, enjoying relatively privileged mobility rights.
In simple words: your passport matters.
Freedom — Recap & Assessment
Real but partial. Holistic freedom is experienced — and paid for in effort.
Online shows only part. Leisure is visible; work and admin are not.
Not everyone can do it. Mobility is distributed unequally.
The internet makes the work possible; Instagram makes the freedom visible — but only part of it.
Reichenberger shows how nomads understand their own freedom. She cannot tell us who is unable to live this way.
The Place
Whose city is it?
Whose city is it?
Nomads are free somewhere — in someone else’s city.
Chiang Mai:
“Digital Nomad Capital”
A new type of visitor.
- Stays longer than a tourist
- Works for clients or employers outside the destination
- Researched through local citizens, not only the nomads
Length of stay
Positive Effects
Coworking & cafés
New spaces, new demand.
Local business
New commercial opportunities.
Knowledge sharing
Workshops, events, jobs for locals.
Digital infrastructure
Reliable internet benefits residents too.
Online communities
Facebook & Instagram groups can connect.
Negative Effects
Gentrification
Rising costs in popular neighbourhoods.
Socio-economic gaps
Costs and benefits fall on different groups.
Cultural clashes
Different expectations, different rhythms.
“Ambivalent.”
The paper’s own word for the impact — both directions, at once.
2026 Entry Rules: the DTV
Destination Thailand Visa
Holders cannot work for Thai companies or Thai clients.
Applications run through the Thai e-Visa website. Freelancers prove their work with a portfolio — e.g. Fiverr or LinkedIn profiles.
The Rules Changed
New requirements
- Proof of permanent residence — not just current location
- A criminal record certificate
Embassies apply it differently
“Location-independent” work still depends on where you legally belong. This connects straight back to the passport point.
City in Numbers
Nomads.com — a commercial platform. Estimates, not official statistics.
Nomads.com ranks cities, publishes reviews, runs chat groups, meetups and a friend finder. It ranks Chiang Mai #3 on its Nomad Score — a website helping to decide where thousands of people go.
Housing Evidence Is Mixed
Prices around Nimman Road are significantly high — but tourism also brought local jobs and income. Chiang Mai is not like cities where housing became out of reach.
Note: this study is about tourism in general, not only nomads.
The lead researcher of the Chiang Mai study links nomads to rising rents and gentrification.
We cannot say nomads simply push locals out — and we cannot say there is no effect.
Place — Fair Assessment
One city ≠ all destinations. The same team has also studied Bali.
Commercial estimates show scale, not truth. They are not official statistics.
Benefits and costs are both real — and they depend on housing and policy, not only on nomads. Meanwhile, a website helps decide where thousands go.
Identity
From where they work to who they become.
Who do they become?
So far: where nomads work. Now: who they become — and who organises that?
D’Andrea (2006):
Post-Identitarian Mobility
Fieldwork with countercultural expatriates — Ibiza and Goa.
Fluidity
Constant movement.
Rootlessness
No fixed anchors like nationality or hometown.
Aesthetic reflexivity
Identity built through lifestyle and taste.
Later scholars note that such studies highlight marginality, countercultural values — and above all the celebration of limitless freedom.
“I am not from this country. I follow music festivals, yoga retreats and creative communities around the world.”
Identity from choices, not from a fixed place.
This is only an illustration of the idea — not an example from his data.
Toivanen (2023):
Digital Nomad Infrastructure
Since the 2010s, services, spaces and events have been built for nomads.
- Fieldwork + 46 interviews
- Spain · Bulgaria · Thailand
- Plus online data mapping the services nomads use
The infrastructure network
Infrastructure Shapes the Lifestyle
Shapes routes
It guides where nomads go.
Smoother entry
Easier for newcomers to start.
Social infrastructure
A ready-made social world.
To what extent can digital nomadism still be called countercultural?
The “alternative” lifestyle now comes as a package: coworking, coliving, events, visa help.
Identity — Lens & Assessment
Much of this infrastructure is online — platforms, apps, social media groups. Toivanen’s own data include a mapping of online services. Nomad identity is shaped by platforms and rankings, not only by travel.
His fieldwork was countercultural and pre-dates the nomad boom. Scholars still build on it — a useful lens, not a perfect description.
The next question is how nomads use, adapt or resist this infrastructure — her abstract does not answer it.
Cosmopolitanism
Are nomads “citizens of the world”?
Citizen of the world?
Greek origin: citizen of the world. Everyday sense: open to other cultures, caring about people everywhere. Does nomad life produce this?
Horst & Olsen (2021):
Moderate Cosmopolitanism
Mobility can lead to a cosmopolitan outlook
They write about transnational citizens — migrants who keep links with their origin and diaspora. These people can be moderate cosmopolitans.
“Moderate” means you don’t cut your roots
Care about your family and community — and still care about all human beings.
Duties: equal respect and justice to every human being.
A way of life: mixing elements from many cultures.
Conceptual article: compares theories of cosmopolitanism with research on transnational migrants in Europe. It is not about nomads.
The Extreme Cultural Version
“Only people who completely leave their roots behind are truly cosmopolitan.”
That sounds a lot like the popular image of the rootless nomad.
The moderate version is more useful: you can travel widely and keep your roots. Cosmopolitanism becomes a behaviour, not a status.
Kirpitchenko (2014):
Three Features You Can Look For
Academic mobility — students and researchers moving between countries.
Globality
Seeing the world as connected.
Plurality
Accepting diversity.
Civility
Handling differences with respect.
Academic mobility and inquiry create fertile ground for cosmopolitanism — observed in everyday intercultural encounters.
A Practical Test for Nomads
“Fertile ground” is not the same as “guaranteed”.
- Do people see global connections?
- Do they accept differences?
- Do they talk with respect across cultures?
Bridge or bubble? Facebook and Instagram groups can help nomads and locals share information and organise events [S3] — but many nomad platforms are designed for nomads [S14]. We don’t know which effect is stronger.
Both articles study other groups: migrants in Europe, and academics. Applying them to nomads is an extension — a hypothesis to test, not a result.
Research Gaps
What we still don’t know.
Putting It Together
Freedom
Real but partial; online it looks like leisure; it depends on your passport.
Place
Benefits and costs; mixed evidence; tightening entry rules.
Identity
Increasingly organised by infrastructure and platforms.
Cosmopolitanism
Possible — but it shows in behaviour, not travel history.
We read six core articles and a few extra sources, not the whole field. So these are gaps in what we read.
Gap 1 & Gap 2
Tested, not assumed
Moderate cosmopolitanism and Beck’s three features come from studies of migrants and academics [S6, S7]. In what we read, none tests them directly on digital nomads.
→ We need studies of what nomads actually do in everyday encounters.
Digital media — bridge or bubble?
Online groups can connect nomads and locals [S3]. Nomad infrastructure gives nomads a ready-made social world [S5]. These do not contradict — they show tools can work both ways.
→ Under what conditions do they build bridges, and when do they build bubbles?
Gap 3, Gap 4 & Future Research
The online image vs. daily life
Instagram research shows freedom and leisure [S8]; interviews describe the effort behind it [S1]. In what we read, no one links these images to local interaction or to how locals see them.
Who can move — and over time
Nomads often hold privileged passports [S10], and Thailand’s 2026 change shows how fast rules shift [S12, S13]. Many studies are snapshots.
→ Cross-country, longitudinal work: what happens after five or ten years?
Two people,
one city
- She has real freedom to choose work and place [S1] — but the visa asks where she holds permanent residence [S12].
- She may have chosen the city from a ranking [S14]; online she may show the beach, not the work [S8].
- The barista lives in a city where costs may be changing — the evidence is mixed [S15, S16].
The internet makes the lifestyle possible.
Instagram makes it visible — selectively.
Platforms and visa systems decide who enters.
Mobility is the starting point, not the finish line.
Over to You
Instagram & TikTok
Have you seen digital nomad content? Did it make remote work look easier than it really is?
Passports & visas
If a visa depends on your passport and legal residence, is “location-independent” work really independent?
Backup
Should a city like Chiang Mai welcome or limit nomads — and who should decide?
Thank you.
We would love your questions.
[S1] Reichenberger, L. (2018). Digital nomads — A quest for holistic freedom in work and leisure. Annals of Leisure Research, 21(3), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2017.1358098
[S2] Jiwasiddi, A., Schlagwein, D., Cahalane, M., Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., Leong, C., & Ractham, P. (2024). Digital nomadism as a new part of the visitor economy: The case of the digital nomad capital Chiang Mai, Thailand. Information Systems Journal, 34(5), 1493–1535. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12496
[S3] UNSW BusinessThink. (2024, May 26). How digital nomads impact local communities: A Chiang Mai case study. https://businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/digital-nomads-local-communities-chiang-mai
[S4] D’Andrea, A. (2006). Neo-nomadism: A theory of post-identitarian mobility in the global age. Mobilities, 1(1), 95–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450100500489148
[S5] Toivanen, M. (2023). Countercultural lifestyle no more? Digital nomadism and the commodification of neo-nomadic mobilities. Mobility Humanities, 2(2), 70–89. https://doi.org/10.23090/MH.2023.07.2.2.070
[S6] Horst, C., & Olsen, T. V. (2021). Transnational citizens, cosmopolitan outlooks? Migration as a route to cosmopolitanism. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 11(1), 4–19. https://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.337
[S7] Kirpitchenko, L. (2014). Locating cosmopolitanism within academic mobility. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, 6(1), 56–75. https://doi.org/10.5130/ccs.v6i1.3551
[S8] Miguel, C., Lutz, C., Majetic, F., & Perez-Vega, R. (2025). Working from paradise? An analysis of digital nomad Instagram content. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231205289
[S9] Bozzi, N. — Critical essay on the “traveling entrepreneur” image, work discourse and gentrification.
[S10] Toivanen, M. — On privileged mobility and Global North passports.
[S11] Royal Thai Embassy — Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) information page, Thai e-Visa portal.
[S12] Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Announcement of 31 August 2026 on DTV requirements.
[S13] Thaiger. (2026). Reporting on differing embassy practice (Vientiane, Ho Chi Minh City, Los Angeles).
[S14] Nomads.com. (2026, October 31). Chiang Mai cost of living, remote-worker estimate and Nomad Score.
[S15] Peer-reviewed 2024 study on tourism, housing prices around Nimman Road and local income in Chiang Mai.
[S16] Schlagwein, D. — On digital nomads, rising rents and gentrification.
[S17] 2023 special issue on neo-nomadic mobilities, building on D’Andrea.
[S18] Journal editor’s summary of Kirpitchenko (2014) — “fertile ground” for cosmopolitanism.