Travel Newsletter: 16 September 2022
Where I’m At: Bali, Indonesia. Latest Post: Notes on Koh Phi Phi. Travel Reads: cycling around Britain, Australian dark-sky tourism, and more...
Indonesia has been talking about introducing a digital nomad visa, which is an official acknowledgement of how popular Bali has become as a digital nomad destination. This week they kind of announced a digital nomad visa by confirming that the current B211a Social-Cultural Visa can be used by digital nomads.
I’m in Bali for a combination of reasons. Partly as a visa run from Vietnam, partly to compile some transport and infrastructure stories for Future Southeast Asia, and partly to see if it would be a good base for me. The B211a visa is only single entry though, so it would not be useful for my line of work. For people who just want to settle in a place for 6 months at a time then it would be worth considering.
Meanwhile in Malaysia, the government has just announced their version of a digital nomad visa. I expect more countries in the region will follow from this.
[James - Bali, Indonesia.]
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
Notes on Koh Phi Phi – Backpackers return, and the rehabilitation of Maya Bay
Travel reads
• This week’s article about Phi Phi and Maya Bay is from January this year, so it doesn’t reflect what it is like now. I didn’t realise that Maya Bay closed again after I was there, so I had a brief window of opportunity to visit. Without tourists there, dolphins have turned up. Maya Bay is going to reopen again in October.
• I’m working on some guides about the Thai islands, so I was interested in this new ferry cruise between Pattaya and Samui as a way to bypass Bangkok. For example, if you were in Koh Chang, you could make your way to Pattaya and then go overnight to Samui.
• What I learned cycling 3,500 miles around Britain during a pandemic
• Seeing stars: the astronomical rise of Australian dark-sky tourism
• The Spanish beach town that keeps calling you back
• The surprising history of Sentosa, Singapore's staycation island
• Take a ride to admire Ha Giang’s stunning trails and people
Live abroad
• Italy will pay people over $15,000 to move to the island of Sardinia
🚆Train travel
• Flight-free travel: Inside Turkey's party train that's all about the journey, not the destination
• One of Vietnam’s hottest Instagram spots shut over safety fears — again
✈️ Air travel
• Milky Way timelapse from 38,000ft
• Queen Elizabeth II: Flight carrying coffin most tracked plane in history
• 30 of the most savage roasts from Ryanair’s social media
Ryanair went viral this week with this Tweet…
The Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news from around the web, and random ramblings by the editor.
- James Clark
I'd consider Sardinia....