Cornerstone guide
Moving to Bangkok with kids: relocation playbook
The chronological 2026 relocation playbook for an expat family of four — offer letter to first month settled, school deadlines to first-week banking.
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Pillar 03 · Travel
Landing in Thailand and the first month with kids
The order things have to happen in when you arrive with a family — visas, arrival week, and the admin that quietly blocks everything else until it is done.
Updated
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Relocation content usually has a tone problem. It is either a checklist with no judgement in it, or a personal blog post about how magical the first week was. Neither helps at 6am on day three when you are trying to work out why the bank will not open an account.
This pillar is about sequence. Almost nothing in a move to Thailand is difficult on its own; the difficulty is that half of it is blocked by the other half, and the dependencies are not written down anywhere obvious. An address needs a lease. A lease often needs a visa status. A bank account needs the address. A school place is easier with the address. Work the order out in advance and the first month is admin. Work it out as you go and the first month is stress.
The second thing this pillar takes seriously is that you are doing all of it with children, who are also jet-lagged, also displaced, and do not care that the immigration office closes at four. Advice written for a solo arrival assumes a flexibility a family does not have.
That is why your first 30 days, in order is sequenced rather than categorised. A checklist sorted by topic looks tidier and helps less.
The gap we are aware of
This pillar is called travel and relocation, and so far it is entirely relocation. The travel half — weekends away, half-terms, the trips that make living here worth it — is not written yet. It is coming, and until it is, this page should not pretend otherwise.
Once you have landed, housing is the next decision. Sort healthcare cover before you need it rather than after.
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Questions
What families ask us about travel
What has to happen first when we land?
Less than people fear, but in a strict order. A few pieces of admin gate everything after them — you cannot open a bank account without an address, the address usually needs a lease, and the lease often wants a visa status. Doing these out of order is the most common way a first month gets lost.
How long before life feels normal?
For most families, somewhere in the second month, and it tends to arrive suddenly rather than gradually. The first thirty days are almost entirely logistics. Knowing that in advance makes them much easier than discovering it while jet-lagged with children.
Do we need the visa sorted before we arrive?
It depends which route you are on, and it is the one area where getting it wrong is genuinely costly. Requirements differ by nationality, by whether you are employed locally, and by whether children are dependants on your permission to stay. Check an official source, not a forum thread.
Is it worth booking a serviced apartment before finding a home?
For most families, yes. Viewing condos in person beats viewing them in photographs by a wide margin here, and committing to a twelve-month lease from abroad on the strength of a listing is how people end up moving twice in a year.
What about travel once we actually live here?
That is the good part, and it is genuinely easy — Thailand is one of the best-connected countries in the region for short trips with children. We have not written that guide yet, and we would rather leave the gap visible than fill it with an itinerary anyone could assemble.
Gaps
What we have not written yet
These belong in this pillar and they are not here. We would rather name them than let the page imply the ground is covered.
- Weekend and half-term trips from Bangkok with kids
- Visa routes compared, in depth
- 90-day reporting and re-entry permits
- Domestic flights, trains and driving in Thailand
- Travel insurance for residents rather than tourists
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