Total of perhaps 14 years, starting in 1980 (plus 3 years studying Thai formally at Cornell University -- in addition to grad study in anthropology) plus 1.5 years raising a then-monolingual Thai daughter who arrived at age 8, plus multiple years of marriage to a Thai woman who joined me in the USA (so I speak Thai pretty well and idiomatically, which probably helps me a lot). Most recent previous stay was nearly 9 years, first as Lecturer and briefly Chair of the PhD program in Asian Studies (now defunct) at Walailak University (5 years), then as an English teacher at a Thai government school, then as an official Volunteer at two Thai Christian charitable Foundations, and then several 90-day COVID era Visa extensions. Currently working on my next potentially long-term attachments, as I am clearly still very welcome back here in the place I consider my "home community." I hope those details help (smile)

Good point. I have been getting the impression from this Group that SA is more difficult. And both of those are reasonably close to where I want to live, so will try to remember to explore those options (especially Samui, which may be *really* close.. )

@Brandon ***********

Good point. I learned from experience that Thai employers can often be predatory that way. Fortunately, the time that happened to me, I stopped by Immigration on another matter, and they (1) told me what the rule was, and then (2) said "You won't make it out [of the country] in time anyway, so just request a 7 day extension as a tourist." And before the 7 days were up, someone referred me to a charitable Foundation that was willing to issue me paperwork for a Volunteer Visa, which in turn led to a Work Permit for Volunteer work without pay, which was all I needed at the time. (The rest of your points are well taken as well.)

Correct. And the provincial immigration official said that the 30-day extension can be obtained up to 30 days in advance. First I have to get my house registration in order (and land-lady is out for a couple of days), and fortunately the Immigration officer did not seem too bent out of shape about my failure to properly register my four (4) previous "residences" since Oct. 7. (A matter I had been not mentioning to my hosts and hotels, because I am aware of how onerous this whole process can be for Thai owners, especially if they are not used to hosting foreigners like me...and fortunately the officer has decided NOT to require my current landlady to appear in person -- they are going to let me submit copies of her documents on her behalf)

@Brandon ***********

Your question about my age (over 50) and my marital status (not yet, this time, and I do not yet have the needed financial resources anyway -- probably just short of the minimum income, and still lacking the required funds in the bank) reminds me of an additional question -- I had once (a few years ago) been told that on Marriage Visas and Retirement Visas it is not possible to work, not even as a volunteer. However, yesterday I met an old British (?) friend who told me that he is teaching in Thai schools on a Marriage visa and that work is probably still possible if obtaining the correct work permit. Is this true, and would it also be true on a Retirement visa? (I am thinking well down the road, and in addition one of the nice perks of working on a Marriage Visa -- should that be able to happen soon -- is that I would be able to stay in-country if the job should end abruptly...)

@Brandon ***********

Oh, that would be nice (changing to a non-O in-country) -- I will be sure to ask about that on my next follow-up with provincial Immigration (a second visit is something I was planning on doing anyway).

Unfortunately, when I tried to log into Wise, it eventually gave me the choice of receiving their two-step code through SMS, phone call, or WhatsApp, all three of which are tied to a phone number that is no longer available to me. Wise did not seem to offer any way of changing the phone number that they have tied to my account, nor any way of turning off this "second step" (the two-step verification processes increasingly favored by big companies' webmasters increasingly "lock me out" of their websites through measures like this). Any suggestions on what to try next?

I thought I should mention to everybody who has been trying to help me here that I also received the following helpful response from the webmaster and IT person at the organization Global Scholars, where I have been a "Faculty Associate " since 2014 --- "It sounds like what you are trying to do is take money from a Wise account and transfer it to your Thai bank account. If that's what you are trying to do then based on my search, you will need to log in to your Wise account and then choose the amount you want to send, enter your banking information and select "bank transfer" as the method of payment. . . . Let me know if this is what you were looking for or if I am missing something." [I am about to make another try at accessing Wise, using various people's suggestions, and will try to let you all know what I learned... -- EZ]

Yup. That's me. Though I currently sport a "skinhead" look (not my personal choice, but once it happened, my Facebook friends voted in favor of keeping it by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1, so I kept it...)

OK. If I can get them to send me an email, then I should be able to access my account. A lot of websites, including some of the "big and powerful" ones, are no longer willing to do that. So thanks for the info.