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I moved to Thailand to recover from burnout. Living here has been harder — and better — than I expected.

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As a frequent traveler, I fell in love with Thailand’s diverse landscapes, rich culture, and — best of all — the food. So when I experienced career burnout in 2024 after five years in Hong Kong and needed a soft landing, Thailand felt like an instant safe haven.

I knew it like the back of my hand (or so I thought), and with the introduction of the digital nomad DTV visa that same year, the leap felt like a no-brainer.

Living here has largely lived up to my expectations. Still, the shift from enthusiastic visitor to long-term resident came with challenges I hadn’t anticipated.


A tuk tuk in Bangkok near Sala Deeng station.

Finding silence in Bangkok proved difficult, so he relocated to Phuket.

Provided by Andre Neveling



City buzz versus island serenity

I began my new life with a three-month immersion in Bangkok, my favorite city in the world. I wanted a familiar landing pad and the festive energy. I learned that even favorites have their downsides.

The city’s relentless buzz — thrilling at first — slowly became overwhelming. The constant motion, traffic, and density fueled my anxiety. In a metropolis so vast, finding genuine silence or peace felt nearly impossible. I often wanted to switch it all off, but Bangkok doesn’t come with an off switch.

As a remote freelancer, I had the freedom to chase a different dream by moving to Phuket. For anyone who’s ever wondered what it’s like to live there, it really does feel like paradise with a permanent holiday vibe. Even so, I realized how little I’d truly known it as a tourist. I keep discovering corners I’d never seen before.


A beach with sunbathers in Phuket, Thailand.

Despite Phuket always being packed with people, he found it difficult to make friends.

Provided by Andre Neveling



High season nightmare

Then high season arrived. My peaceful paradise transformed into an overtourism nightmare, especially in December and January. Secret beaches swarmed with festival-like crowds, and daily routines fell apart. Food deliveries took hours, shops ran out of staples, and transport apps like Grab and Bolt were overwhelmed.

On one recent beach day, I couldn’t book a ride home for nearly three hours, leaving me stranded in a roadside meltdown. My Zen mood quickly gave way to frustration.

Ironically, on an island packed with people, making real connections has felt harder than in Bangkok. With tourists constantly coming and going, most interactions are fleeting. Expat communities exist, but they’re scattered and often divided by nationality. Even amid the crowds, island life can feel surprisingly lonely.

Navigating the nuances

Then there’s the bureaucracy. Thailand operates with a certain fluidity that can be confusing. Laws around visas, business, and property don’t change often, but their interpretation can vary wildly between offices, officers, and provinces.

Take the 90-day reporting rule. It requires expats to report to immigration every 90 days, an outdated system that often pushes people to do quick “visa runs” instead of spending a full day in line. Many newcomers don’t learn about it until they’re hit with a hefty fine.

I’ve since joined expat groups just to keep up with the ever-shifting rules.

The constant tourist bubble

Thailand’s sex industry is impossible to ignore in heavy tourist zones. Living here, I’ve had to build a certain emotional distance from it. When I first arrived in Phuket, I stayed in a room next to a tourist who was clearly there for that purpose. For a week straight, I was an unwilling audience to noisy transactions — until I finally complained to management.

And as a foreigner, you’re often placed in the “tourist” box by default. I thought Tinder might be a way to meet people. Instead, half my matches offered a “massage” rather than a conversation.


Woman sending coconuts and drinks in Thailand.

Now that he’s become a regular at local markets, he receives the occasional “special price.”

Provided by Andre Neveling



Finding my footing

Thailand is known for its affordability, but a clear divide still exists between local and foreign pricing. You have to stay vigilant to avoid overpaying. The reward comes with time. As I’ve settled in and become a regular at local markets and shops, I’m now greeted with smiles — and the occasional “special price.”

That, in the end, is what makes all the headaches fade.

For every moment of frustration, there are many more filled with beauty, incredible food, and genuine kindness. The trade-offs are real, and the challenges come with the territory.

But most days, when I look around at the place I now call home, the struggles feel like a small price to pay for living in a real-life paradise.

Do you have a story to share about living abroad? Contact the editor at akarplus@businessinsider.com.




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Critical Role’s chief creative officer, Matt Mercer, explains how he avoids burnout

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Critical Role’s chief creative officer, Matthew Mercer, had been spearheading his eight-member crew’s relentless push into the big leagues of nerdworld for 10 years.

That was until this July, when he announced that he’d be giving up control of one of the crew’s biggest priorities, their long-running “Dungeons & Dragons” Twitch livestream.

In an August appearance on the podcast “Crispy’s Tavern: Tales and Tea,” Mercer said he’d felt the threat of burnout and thought he needed a break. He said he’d started to feel a “continuous need to produce creatively,” which was “a very draining and very scary thing.”

To be sure, Mercer and his seven cofounders still have a full slate of projects to work on. That includes an ongoing sold-out arena tour, as well as two Amazon-backed animated series on Prime Video. Mercer also has a key role in the team’s game publishing arm, Darrington Press, home to “Daggerheart,” their flagship game and their answer to “D&D.”

Still, Mercer says, it’s important to be able to admit when you’re done, and to give yourself permission to step away from the work for as long as you need to.

“My biggest advice for burnout is to acknowledge when you’re at the edge and take every opportunity you can to step away and replenish your cup,” Mercer told Business Insider.

Brennan Lee Mulligan of “Dimension 20” fame, Mercer’s longtime friend and collaborator, is the game master for Campaign Four, the team’s ongoing “D&D” stream. Mulligan taking over the main stream means Mercer is no longer solely in charge of captaining the team’s regular episodes, which often run to the four-hour mark.

“There’s this concept, the idea that just pushing through and sometimes necessity requires you to do that to a certain point,” Mercer said.

“But I find walking away and taking some time to enrich your creative input means that whatever time you lost beating your head against the wall will be more than made up for when you can return from a place of genuine inspiration and renewal,” Mercer added.

Campaign Four airs on Beacon, Critical Role’s in-house streaming platform, as well as on Twitch and YouTube.




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Burnout led me to build Bala — and caught up with me again as we grew. Here’s how I manage now.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Natalie Holloway, a 37-year-old cofounder of Bala, based in Los Angeles. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

The first time I recognized I was experiencing burnout, my husband and I left our advertising jobs and traveled without any set plans. This trip got me out of the nonstop grind mindset I’d functioned in for too long.

I came back to corporate work refreshed and inspired in October 2016. Our company, Bala, was supposed to be a side hustle, creating cute wrist and ankle weights inspired by our travels. We never imagined it would take off the way it did. I went full-time on Bala in 2019, and my husband joined in 2020.

After building the business for five years, we had to lay off our entire team due to the post-COVID-19 fitness industry downturn. I felt immediate burnout knowing the work that was ahead of me, but this time, I couldn’t take a year off to recover.

Having experienced burnout in multiple stages of my career, I now understand what it looks like, and I can navigate it effectively with the right tools and tactics.

I fell into advertising and burned out quickly without realizing it

After college, I landed a job in advertising and fell in love with that career path. As my career progressed, I would often stay at the office late into the night and miss 9 p.m. dinner reservations. I felt creatively inspired by what I was doing, but the hours were so long that I began to wonder what the point was.

My husband, whom I had met at work and just started dating, suggested that we quit our jobs to recover and travel, and I said yes. We were both experiencing burnout, and I didn’t even realize how bad it was until that moment.

We spent several months saving money and planning before leaving our jobs in March 2016.

We came up with the idea for Bala Bangles on our recovery trip

It was so freeing to leave with no real plan, but also scary. We didn’t have jobs, we didn’t have an income, and our résumés were not being built. But we did finally have the mental space to slow down, look around, and feel inspired.

One day, we were taking a yoga class in Indonesia, and the class was too easy; we wanted to work up a sweat. After the class, my husband, Max, had the idea for wrist and ankle weights that look like cute bracelets. We decided to try creating them when we returned.

This trip taught me that detachment is what helps the most when I’m feeling burned out, and that’s the easiest to achieve through time away from the source of my stress.

We came back and our side hustle became our full-time jobs, but then we had to rebuild again

We got back and both got new jobs in advertising, but started working on Bala on the side. We never thought it would be our full-time jobs, but it started growing.

Once we were carried in stores and had enough orders coming in, we felt we couldn’t keep up with both our corporate jobs and Bala. I left my advertising job first, and my husband followed a few months later.


Two people packing items at tables in a room with scattered boxes and a dog lying on the floor.

Shipping out Bala orders.

Courtesy of Natalie Holloway



Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and the fitness industry experienced a surge in demand. However, after the pandemic, the fitness industry experienced a decline, and we had to lay off our entire staff.

I was pregnant and felt like I didn’t have enough stamina to take on the work of 30 people. It was a really demoralizing time, and the burnout hit me immediately because all of our hopes and dreams were on the line.

The second time I experienced burnout, I had to confront my mindset

I was determined not to let burnout destroy my health during my pregnancy. This time, I focused on and learned the value of how I speak to myself.

During my second experience with burnout, I learned that giving myself a mantra helps ground my anxiety. Sometimes it’s something like ‘I’m calm, present, and have an abundance of time.’ Repeating this helps when I’m feeling overwhelmed and burned out.

I can’t control when stress creeps in, but I can control how I talk myself through it because my head is my reality, and I’m trying to create a positive one.


A woman stands holding baby in Bala store.

Natalie Holloway in the Bala store in Los Angeles.

Courtesy of Natalie Holloway



When we started rebuilding the business, my husband and I decided that no matter how long it took for the company to recover, we were determined to see it through to the end. We had to prepare for a marathon, not a sprint.

We’ve started regrowing our team back to its original size.

These small changes have made all the difference

I started working with a life coach, and that’s really helped. They’re helping me understand what’s on my to-do list that aligns with my values, which will give me energy, and what doesn’t align with my values, which will deplete my energy.

Although we can’t travel to cure burnout as we once did, I now take mini recovery trips, either for a weekend, a week, or a month, when I can. We sometimes visit Joshua Tree as a family to escape from LA, unwind, and mentally reset.

We also spend every July in Lakeside, Ohio. We don’t make any plans. It’s just our kids and us. We still do some work, but we’re able to meaningfully downshift our lives in a way that recharges us.

I always have my mantras going now, and I’ve learned how to feel comfortable being kind to myself. I realized that burnout is inevitable, but it’s about how I handle it. I try to prevent it by reminding myself that I’m working toward the long game.




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