International Livings 2025 ranking for best places to retire in Thailand are as follows: Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Bangkok, Hua Hin, Phuket, but no mention of Pattaya.
Each one of these destinations offers its own unique lifestyle as most of us already know, but what’s interesting is the fact that our beloved Pattaya is no longer on the top of the IL list and seems to be losing its identity.
Growing from a population of 50,000 in the early 1990’s to over 100,000 today little has been done to improve Pattaya’s infrastructure to support this growth as witnessed by the constant suffocating traffic, streets that flood after just a few minutes of moderate rain, knotted up electric lines dangling from lopsided poles, polluted water at the beaches, and the list goes on. Yes, they do have constant road construction projects going on but they take forever to complete and rarely are they done right.
Pattaya still provides the best LGBTQ environment with more gay bars and service providers then all of the other popular locations in Thailand combined, so I personally rank Pattaya as #1, but as far as health and safety goes for the more senior retired expats - Pattaya is losing its luster. Maybe this is the reason it no longer ranks in the top 5 cities in Thailand for expats.
https://internationalliving.com/the-5-b ... -thailand/
Is Pattaya the Best Place to Retire?
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Gaybutton
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Re: Is Pattaya the Best Place to Retire?
Also the powers-that-be, instead of allowing Pattaya to continue being the way it has been when it thrived, they tried to change the paradigm and make Pattaya a "family oriented" city. I still don't understand why, but I do understand it didn't work, still is not working, and won't work in the future.
I'm still very happy I live in Pattaya despite how a media group I've never heard of ranks it, but I for sure am not thrilled with the types of changes that have taken place, especially when the types of changes that are necessary either end up ignored or jut plain botched.
I'm still very happy I live in Pattaya despite how a media group I've never heard of ranks it, but I for sure am not thrilled with the types of changes that have taken place, especially when the types of changes that are necessary either end up ignored or jut plain botched.
Re: Is Pattaya the Best Place to Retire?
I suspect International Living don't consider air pollution with Chiang Mai. Those mountains are not visible all year around.
They must also fail to consider the gay scene and the availability of money boys. If doing that, it's easy to see why Hua Hin ranks higher.
What they do consider is a question. I remember one such survey which ranked Vietnam highly. Now I'm currently in a nice Vietnamese coastal city that makes Pattaya look like a third world dump.
However, there's no retirement visa or reasonable alternative for Vietnam. So it raises a lot of questions about the quality of journalism. Rather than carefully considering a pile of objective and subjective data, it's probably a case of some journalist having a few hours to produce the clickbait.
Of course, it's a topic well worth considering independently of the journalists.
Overall, Pattaya is regressing and the authorities often do the exact opposite of what they should.
For example:
The road behind Dongtan Beach used to be pedestrian only during the day. The same for walking street. Instead of extending this all the way up the beach, they allow traffic on formerly pedestrian only areas.
They allowed Terminal 21 to build 2 enormous car parks. It's designed around the car. Cars are great for the countryside, where public transport is too difficult. However, in cities, cars just create pollution and congestion.
The provision for pedestrians is poor. What they do have is often blocked be regular or temporary street food vendors. Even the walkway up the beach was entirely blocked around new year, as food stalls were set up.
Vietnam doesn't seem to permit street food, at least where I am. The result is more accessible pavements and they are clean, rather than stained by grease dumped by vendors, as we see in parts of Pattaya.
Yet, taking into account the gay scene, Pattaya/Jomtien would be the place I'm most likely to move to.
They must also fail to consider the gay scene and the availability of money boys. If doing that, it's easy to see why Hua Hin ranks higher.
What they do consider is a question. I remember one such survey which ranked Vietnam highly. Now I'm currently in a nice Vietnamese coastal city that makes Pattaya look like a third world dump.
However, there's no retirement visa or reasonable alternative for Vietnam. So it raises a lot of questions about the quality of journalism. Rather than carefully considering a pile of objective and subjective data, it's probably a case of some journalist having a few hours to produce the clickbait.
Of course, it's a topic well worth considering independently of the journalists.
Overall, Pattaya is regressing and the authorities often do the exact opposite of what they should.
For example:
The road behind Dongtan Beach used to be pedestrian only during the day. The same for walking street. Instead of extending this all the way up the beach, they allow traffic on formerly pedestrian only areas.
They allowed Terminal 21 to build 2 enormous car parks. It's designed around the car. Cars are great for the countryside, where public transport is too difficult. However, in cities, cars just create pollution and congestion.
The provision for pedestrians is poor. What they do have is often blocked be regular or temporary street food vendors. Even the walkway up the beach was entirely blocked around new year, as food stalls were set up.
Vietnam doesn't seem to permit street food, at least where I am. The result is more accessible pavements and they are clean, rather than stained by grease dumped by vendors, as we see in parts of Pattaya.
Yet, taking into account the gay scene, Pattaya/Jomtien would be the place I'm most likely to move to.
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Gaybutton
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Re: Is Pattaya the Best Place to Retire?
In my opinion much more than merely often. Even so, I'd rather be in Pattaya than anywhere else I've seen. For me, what journalists have to say about it is irrelevant. If they don't like it here, they can go somewhere they do like. Problems and all, Pattaya is the place for me. The problems are annoying, yes, but not to the point that I would rather be elsewhere. Show me any city in the world that doesn't have its share of problems of one kind or another.
In any case, I don't believe there is any such thing as a "best" place to retire - in the context of it applying to everyone. I believe it depends on what you're looking for and what place(s) provide it. While Pattaya does it for me, someone else may find his retirement happiness somewhere in rural Paraguay. Wherever it is, while I don't mind magazine articles suggesting places I know nothing about and perhaps never even heard of, I might look into them, but I'll make my own decisions. I also wouldn't blindly accept where some magazine article says to avoid.