Digital Nomad in Penang Malaysia – with costs for short and monthly living
Update May 2017
Digital Nomad in Penang – Why Penang
Penang is a gem. It offers an ocean views, the relaxed island vibe, a developed city, English speaking locals,safe, a food paradise, affordable costs, and a 3 month visa. No wonder I’m seeing an increase in the number of digital nomads coming to Penang. On the downside your biggest hurdle to staying long-term may the cost of accomodation. I’ve got solutions for that so read on. I’ve visited here numerous times and will have stayed here a full month living as a local. Check out my video for some tips.
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Co-working and Community
I recommend staying at a good modern apartment. The Volke suites at Gurney offer Western standard living and fast reliable Internet. I cannot speak for accommodation in Georgetown. If you’re serious about getting work done then I recommend working at the@Cat co-work space located in downtown Georgetown, which only opened it’s doors in 2015. I was impressed with the space, price location and can see this space as being a central space for Penang Digital Nomads to meet. Yes the Internet is solid I’m solid there are multiple 50mb fibre lines and all the essentials like power,desks, bathrooms, meeting rooms, and free water are here. The current rate is $69 US or 300 ringet for a premium monthly membership. Its currently the best value in Asia. Yes better than Thailand.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@greghungshowdotcom) on Jan 9, 2017 at 8:08am PST
I find that Penang often attracts digital nomads that have already traveled and lived in Thailand and are getting tired of visa runs. I love Thailand and if you have ever already lived in Bangkok or Thailand you will be surprised to find that Penang is a bit more developed and not as chaotic. However, the nomads I met from at @Cat co-work space on this trip were are just starting out their Digital nomad journey. I didn’t actively search for digital nomads here and I think there isn’t much long term community here at the moment. You may encounter nomads that are here for a short visit to get their Thai visas. It’s hard to recreate the organic community that currently exists in Chiang Mai Nimman area and in Ubud & Canggu Bali. Maybe this will change in the future. All the ingredients are now here.
Accommodation
This is the downside of Penang. Good comfortable accommodation is expensive and landlords expect long term leases of 6 months to a year. You’ll often have to make appointments with real estate agents. These agents will begin to interview you before you even get to see an apartment. For instance, they want to know your purpose for staying here, what do you do for a living, and where you are from and so on. It’s a lot of work to even view an apartment room. This is not Thai style where you can just roll up and ask to see a room, so this made me appreciate the more laid back approach of Chiang Mai.
The cost is generally higher as well. There are monthly options, but they don’t come cheap. Georgetown is the tourist Unesco heritage area. Great for sightseeing, but not a lot of good accommodation options. I learned over time that Gurney is the desirable area for it’s close location to Georgetown, and the 2 modern malls Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon. To find a good modern apartment in the Gurney area (desirable area) you are looking at 3500 ringet a month or more ($782 US).
Airbnb is the workaround for skipping these agents and having the flexibility to stay in Penang in a modern condo for short-term. Compare this to Chiang Mai at $250 Us (9000 baht) and I’m sure this may be the deal breaker for digital nomads. My recommendation is to do an airbnb in the Gurney or near Time Square area and share a 2 or 3 bedroom condo with a friend. You’ll be surprised at how comfortable spacious the accommodation can be.
I have a friend that found lower cost options after a long hard search. She was staying at the Coastal Towers in Tanjing Bungah for about 1200 ringet a month. This area is about 20 mins or more from Georgetown.
A quick side track. I’ve even looked into Malaysia’s Second home program which allows foreigners to purchase a home for minimum 1 million ringet to get a 10 years multiple entry visa. This is not cheap and is almost on par with Canadian prices.
Let’s see if the accommodation situation changes in the near future. If it doesn’t Penang is still good location for a food trip, Thai visa run, and good base to travel to Bali, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is a great travel base to India, South Korea, and many locations in Asia. For now check out our 1 bedroom airbnb I rented in Georgetown Penang near the Gurney Plaza.
1 month estimate comfortable Value style (in Ringet)
Accommodation 1 bed in Gurney: 3500 Food 1200 (40 ringet daily budget) Transport 240 (20 Uber round trips from Gurney to Georgetown)Cell Phone 7.5GB data plan 45 (Digi 7.5 data plan) Cowork space @ Cat 200 (24/7 monthly plan. There are cheaper plans) Daily Americano 300 (10 americano @Starbucks) Booze 40 (10 ringet a beer)
TOTAL PENANG MONTHLY BUDGET: 5210 Ringet a month (1163 US, 41,601baht)
VS
Chiang Mai Monthly Budget $817 US
This is a comfortable living budget where I would stay in modern condo in a good area. Everyone lives a different lifestyle so you can use this as a baseline and get creative on making your own budget. You can eat at Hawker places or get a motobike instead of a Uber. Assume the accommodation costs include your hidden costs like electricity and wifi. For my lifestyle I would spend 346 US more to stay in Penang versus Chiang mai per month. I think its also important to factor in the cost of Visa runs if comparing your costs to living in Thailand. For me my Penang Visa run trip cost $ obo 500 US every 3 months the cost of extending my 60 day in Thailand and getting the tourist Visa at a Thai Embassy in another country (obo $100). I calculate this works out to $600 US in hidden costs for going on these visa runs when living of of Thailand not including the time and hassles associated with it. From Penang I would still need to do Visa runs every 3 months, but some time and money from doing extensions within Thailand and getting an actual visa. For me I consider Penang to be more developed than Chiang mai and can actually walk on the side walk and go to my favorite food options. The locals speak better English and most speak Mandarin Chinese. You have to figure what’s important to you.
Post from my 3 day short visit in 2015 for a Thai Visa Run
From what I read and heard Penang, Malaysia was a food paradise not too far away from Chiang Mai. There’s even a dish I’ve seen on menus called Penang curry rice. As part of the location independent videographer lifestyle I chose Penang as my first Visa run destination this year. I had a family friend living there as a digital nomad and had heard positive things. She gave me some ideas for accommodation. One of which was the 80’s guesthouse. I didn’t end up booking there as I wanted a room with a larger bed and found them to be rude on the phone when I tried to change. I booked my flight from to Penang via Kuala Lumpur via air Asia. Even though it isn’t relatively far away with the accumulation of the total journey time made it feel like a long day. I basically left Chiang Mai in the morning 645amish and arrived in Penang before sunset. I decided to capture some stock footage using my SLR and drone. I have to be grateful I have an opportunity to travel and film footage and still earn money while I’m traveling or sleeping through my on-line passive income streams.
Flight
CNX to KL $118 US 4 hour trip KL TO CNX $52 US Round trip KL to PEN $90 US
Total flight cost 260 US
I exchanged 4500 Thai Baht for about 500 RM (Ringet) in spending cash. While there I got another 100 RM. I spent about 550RM in cash during my trip and didn’t use the ATM or credit card
Total cash spent $137 US
Total cost of 3 day trip
Hotel $101 US Flights $260 US Cash spent $137
TOTAL COST OF TRIP $498 US
Visa runs and extensions are one of the headaches and hidden costs of living as a location independent in Thailand. Assuming you do 4 visa runs and your visa runs have a similar cost ($500 * 4)and 4 extensions during the year($567 * 4= $228) a rough estimate of the annual cost is $2228 Us or $2876 Canadian. One should also factor in the cost of the actual 6 month multiple entry Thai Visa ($154 US or 200 cdn). I think its important you factor this and your total rental cost including electricity into your budget. In fact I met some location independents in Penang. They chose Penang over Chiang Mai because of the visa issues.
PACKING FOR AERIAL TRAVEL VIDEOGRAPHY
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 7, 2016 at 1:39am PDT
Packing for aerial travel videography is an important part of getting footage. There are special considerations when packing your regular video gear plus packing the drone. I talk about this more in my course. Using Chiang Mai as my base means I don’t have to pack as much as a long journey between Canada and Asia. This was a mini 3 day trip. My airline air asia baggage policy basically states that you were only allowed one laptop bag (7 kg). I took the drone bag, my camera sling bag, and a big laptop backpack with a rollout handle. I booked 15 kg check in I luggage throughout the trip as my insurance. I checked in one bag, but had enough weigh allowance left over if they made an issue about my carry on luggage. In my laptop bag I packed my clothes, toiletries, and tripod. In my camera bag I kept my SLR camera. I wasn’t sure how Air Asia would accept this setup. Luckily it was no problem throughout the trip. This set up is still more luggage than I would like. Ideally I would like a bag that could fit the drone and my SLR camera. I decided to leave the laptop and focus on creating footage and catching up on some reading with my ipad. I also brought a 32gb SD card for the drone and another 32 gb card for the SLR. This ended up being enough, but my 32gb SD card got stuck in non write mode when taking it out for an airport shot. I went to the nearest photo shop at the KL airport and got a quote for 500 RM for a class 10 32G SD card. I had no internet, but used XE currency to convert 500 RM is $125 US. Your standard Class SD card on B and H photo’s website goes for $22.50 US. I didn’t know the market price off the top of my head, but I knew this was way off. I was disgusted and he kept marking down the price as I started walking out the store. Be careful in KL.
HOTEL
I booked a 3 night stay at a Georgetown hotel called Link. It had excellent reviews for $131 Canadian. The hotel had friendly staff, water machines, and a nice clean room. The room was a bit small and a small window with natural light. On the positive side it did the job as it had working AC, flat panel tv, a clean room, comfortable bed, working toilet, and hot shower. Yes these are the basics we take for granted, but not in Asia. The free breakfast was very basic and I would just go there for the juice, an average coffee, and some toast. The food just minutes away at the hawker area kicked ass. It served as a good base at a reasonable budget although making trips to the heritage town started to add up as we took taxis at 20 ringets a shot. In general I was surprised that the hotels were a bit on the pricey side. To find a well located hotel in Georgetown it seemed you have to spend at least $27US a night and up.
FOOD
A video posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 2, 2016 at 6:11pm PDT
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 2, 2016 at 3:02pm PDT
My hotel was located a minute away from Macalister road where I had nearby and late night access to good and cheap chinese and indian food. It was nice to see dim sum, wonton noodle soup,congee and indian dishes (roti,briyani, butter chicken) that have been a bit hard to find in Chiang Mai. I chose to just walk around a pick out some dishes. In general dishes ranged around the 6RM mark, which is $1.49US , $2 Cdn or 52 baht. This is cheap. If you wanted to spend more I spotted a Chicken claypot restaurant priced at $12 US. Not bad for western standards, but a bit of a treat for locals I think. For me this is the highlight of the trip as there really isn’t a lot of attractions.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 7, 2016 at 1:44am PDT
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A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 7, 2016 at 1:44am PDT
I wanted to relax a bit so didn’t do a lot of research on trip advisor or Lonely planet. I wanted to go with the flow. I visited the UNESCO heritage area and we rented a bike to get around. I visited during May it was scorching hot so had to find indoor shelter every 15 minutes.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 4, 2016 at 8:46am PDT
We returned here to try some Indian food at Kapitan. The service was crap, but the food was amazing. I ordered Cheese naan and chicken briyaani. Later we walked down a street to have a couple of drinks at a small bar. Everyone is very friendly and I struck up a conversation with a couple from Vancouver.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 7, 2016 at 8:14am PDT
WHERE TO WORKOUT IN PENANG
There are a lot of options to keep fit in Penang. The sidewalks are mostly paved and there are plenty of areas to walk off the food. There is a nice walk around Gurney drive. Penang now offers a shared bike system called LinkBike that is available to locals and foreigners. Just download the app and register with your credit card. It is a new system, but I’ve tested it and its cheap and convenient. You can use this as a way to get exercise biking.
If you like a gym with the works. I mean all the machines, free weights, punching bag, kettle bells, bikes, treadmills, ac, lockers, showers, relax area, free classes, and wifi then check out Jatomi Gym in Gurney Plaza on the top floor. I just enrolled and I had a great workout. The gym is high tech and you get to use a high tech bracelet to enter and open and close your huge locker. The price is normally 214 ringet, but if you look for Imran and mention my name (Greg) you can get the monthly rate for 189 ringet all in. Just bring your ID and towel. They are in the mall so you can have so many options to eat after. You can uber there, use the linkbike, or even walk there.
Imran 011-33646536 7th Floor Gurney Plaza
Another option in the Gurney area is called Body Factory. These guys are nice and offer all the equipment you would need including classes and a showers. The gym is a bit more modest, but they offer good walk-in (RM20), and weekly rates ( RM 60) if you are looking for a workout on your short stay. The monthly fee works out to 165 RM so I decided Jatomi was a better choice for me for a bit more. There is a nice hawker area nearby too.
Some of the taller condos may have a gym and swimming pool so if you value convenience then this is the way to go.
A post shared by Greg Hung (@greghungshowdotcom) on May 6, 2017 at 11:22pm PDT
FILMING
I did a quick google search for “drone malaysia” before I left. I recall not finding any official sites, but I gathered it was ok from the sites that I read. Make sure you do your due diligence before you trip as I’m not liable. After checking in I wanted to get a drone flight it before the sunset. I spoke with the Damion, the helpful hotel clerk and he advised me to fly behind the Time square mall at the advice of the hotel clerk. I flew a simple crane reveal and got some decent shots. I also felt the mosqitoes around my feet. I haven’t learned my lesson to carry mosqitoe repellent with me, but perhaps you can learn from my lesson. I also had a middle aged local lady where she could buy the drone. This surprised me and thought that I should set up a site and have a card with my site ready to give to people while out flying. This happens quite often so perhaps I could get an affiliate fee if they decide to purchase from someone they met and saw flying. I realize that because I’ve been pretty deep into this world and I have technical friends that are too I sometimes forget that the average person doesn’t know that much about drones.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on Apr 30, 2016 at 5:12am PDT
Later on night 1 I put the tripod and SLR to use taking it to the food streets. I focused on capturing some footage of the street food scene and close-ups of food. From experience I know footage of food and night street scenes sell my plan was to do it in the food paradise. I also sat night at a chinese restaurant with nice lighting, friendly service, and fans. I ordered a noodle soup dish and mango sagoo. Of course I filmed it with my tripod. It’s a little bit more to film on the streets where it’s darker and there are foot and motobike traffic.
The next day I took some handheld shots in the Heritage area. I brought my tripod , but it just wasn’t practical to us it while I was riding the bike. I’m thinking more about getting something like the DJI Osmo where I can film footage with stabilization on a stick. I felt guilty about not using my tripod and on my last night I captured some tripod shots of signage and one of the building landmarks called the Komtar.
I did a second aerial flight at the park 2 streets away from me before sunset. When I arrived at the park there were some local boys playing soccer. I took off in front of the park for a crane reveal of the Komtar. Next thing you knew I had mosqitoes around my feet and 11 local boys crammed around me looking at my ipad. I had to focus on getting my shots and keeping a consistent vertical and horizontal speed. After I landed it was fun to see how happy to see this flying camera in the air. They were so happy to see this thing fly so so. Hopefully I’ve inspired them to fly when they are older.
On my last evening I decided to rent a motorbike for 40 ringet conveniently dropped off at my hotel. There is also a street in little India area you can rent them, but then its a bit more work to get there and drop it off. It was the easiest way to get around and give me the freedom and time to fly the drone. I wanted to make the most of the time as the owner want the bike back at midnight. At the advice of the hotel I took a ride to Padang Kota Lama park. This was in a great location in George town giving me a proximity and a view of the Heritage town and by the ocean. There weren’t too many people and I had a large park area so I did a manual flight with a forward sweep and some course lock pans over the ocean in the afternoon.
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 2, 2016 at 7:53am PDT
Getting mobbed by kids on my drone flight
A photo posted by Greg Hung (@ghung604) on May 2, 2016 at 3:02pm PDT
I still had a bit of time so I took a 45 minute ride to batu feringghi, which I read was an upscale area further up north along the coast. It was a long ride, but an exciting experience to ride around in a new country. It’s a little safer to ride in Penang than I Chiang Mai in my opinion. I found a road with beach access and took off. I got some decent shots of the hotels and landscape with a simple forward sweep going as far as 400 m. There were some parachutes ahead of me so I was careful to get enough height clearance. When I landed I use the sling bag as the launch and landing platform because it was soft beach sand around. I did not land cleanly and I crash landed the drone upside down. Next time I’ll just create a sand platform instead. Be careful when landing as it requires slight adjustments which is tricky for a small landing surface. I also got some sand stuck in the motor. I even saw this message on the app. I freaked out for a bit. I manged to blow some of the sand out. After I got the sand out I restarted the drone and after accepting the message it disappeared. I spun the motors several times without the props and it sounded smooth.
Batu Feringghi
I decided to ride back to the Padang Kota Lama park area for a possible evening shot or just a meal at the pavillion. I hesitated on whether to just open up the drone and clean it in Chiang mai. I thought I was already here so I would just do a low hover and see how it fly. To my surprise there were no issues so I went higher and got some good crane reveals.
Summary
Penang is a gem and has a lot of offer. Great food, good co-work space, relaxing vibe, and affordable. It is more developed and expensive than Chiang Mai and other South East Asian countries. The people are bit more diverse than Thailand with many East indians and not as many foreign tourists. It definitely feels safe, reasonably clean and with a 3 month visa this food could a future destination to stay longer. With the arrival of @Cat space Penang is ready to be a long term digital nomad destination. The locals on average spoke more english and it would be an alternative to Taiwan to practice my Mandarin and work on my business. Penang has short cheap flights to Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, which are great travel hubs. On the downside it’s not as naughty or the nightlife cannot compare with cities like Bangkok, but there aren’t many cities that can.
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