My Thai friends call me a local. The joke is that I know about a square mile of Sukhumvit extremely well and almost nothing else — which is exactly what living somewhere does to you.
Bill Mullen made the opposite bet. A Thai friend called him out on his excuses and found him a $619 flight. Three weeks later he was sitting on a beach in Koh Samui looking at a bill so small it rearranged his retirement plan. He flew home, walked into his boss's office, gave three months' notice, and sold everything he owned.
That was eight years ago. He's now spent those years getting deliberately lost in a country most visitors see about four percent of — mountain villages where he counted exactly one Westerner in three days and it was him, long-tail boat rides that cost ten dollars and take all afternoon, and the parallel Thai economy that most foreigners never find the door to.
He's also the reason this show exists. I'd been sitting on the idea for a long time. He told me to stop talking about it and do it.
We get into the resident versus the rover, why "where do I want to go" is the wrong question, how a Westerner pays 300 baht and his wife pays 40 for the same waterfall, and what he'd say to someone who's been calling Thailand a someday for years.
This is the first episode of Good Grief Travel. Thanks for being here.
IN THIS EPISODE
- The $619 flight that dismantled eight years of excuses
- A beach in Koh Samui, a bar bill, and the moment Key West got scratched
- Why his Plan B — teaching English — turned out to be the whole game
- Butapu: three days, five thousand people, one Westerner
- The two-price system, and why the real value of Thailand is on the other side of it
- Uncle Young, a hammock, a tarp full of fish, and the best ten dollars in the country
- Why "where do I want to go" is the wrong question to plan a trip around
- The tuk-tuk tailor shop, told at his own expense
- 800,000 baht that lived in a bank account for five minutes
- Getting told to go buy pants, mid-appointment
- Resident vs. rover — and the word I'm stealing from him
- Book two: circumnavigating the Gulf of Thailand on an 18-foot Hobie Cat named the magic carpet
- What to do if Thailand has been a someday for you
FIND BILL
Website https://www.thailandadventurenetwork.com
Podcast: Thailand Adventure Secrets
Book: Getting Lost in the Magic of Thailand: Island Hopping Down the Siam Spice Route — released September 8. Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
His standing offer: Bill does free Zoom calls for anyone planning a trip to Thailand,
MENTIONED
On IHG points and five-star mornings in Asia — Bill and I both turn out to be Intercontinental people. Here's the long version of how that works: https://goodgrieftravel.com/2026/01/28/why-ihg-points-changed-how-i-travel-in-asia/
On the Thailand LTR visa — including the part where I got sent out mid-appointment to go buy pants: https://goodgrieftravel.com/2026/07/24/the-thailand-ltr-visa-what-i-wish-id-known-and-why-i-now-own-parachute-pants/
goodgrieftravel.com
