You can live extremely well here if you want to. There are excellent restaurants, quality homes, private hospitals, golf courses, international schools, beach clubs and almost every service you can think of. At the same time, you can keep a much lower profile and live considerably more cheaply while still enjoying a perfectly comfortable life. That flexibility is one of the things I have always liked about Pattaya.
I am probably biased about the food
I love Thai food. Actually, that is probably an understatement. When I travel overseas, I take Nam Pla and chilli flakes with me, and if I am away for more than a week I start craving Thai food badly. It sounds slightly ridiculous, but it is true.
Food is such a normal part of life here. You can eat wonderfully for very little money, or spend considerably more in some excellent restaurants. And there is almost always somewhere open. You only really notice how convenient that is when you travel somewhere where everything seems to close just when you become hungry.
Live and let live
Another thing I appreciate is the general attitude of live and let live. Thailand, and Pattaya in particular, is relatively open-minded when it comes to lifestyle, sexuality and the LGBTQ+ community. People generally get on with their own lives without becoming too interested in how somebody else chooses to live.
Of course Thailand has its rules, traditions and sensitivities, and as a foreigner you should respect them. But socially, Pattaya can be a very accepting place. There is a sense that you can simply be who you are, and I think many people underestimate how valuable that can be.
And then there is Pattaya's reputation
For years Pattaya has been looked down on by people who often know surprisingly little about it. The familiar labels are always the same: sex tourism, crime, human trafficking, suicides, fights and all the other headlines that make good clickbait.
Some problems obviously exist. Pretending otherwise would be silly. But the image is often based on a Pattaya from twenty or thirty years ago, or on the loudest stories rather than normal daily life.
What amuses me most are the trolls, keyboard warriors and self-appointed bar lawyers who seem to know everything about Pattaya, sometimes without having spent much time here at all. If Pattaya were really as terrible as some of them claim, I occasionally wonder why so many of the critics are still hanging around.
The city has changed
Over the last decade especially, Pattaya has become much broader. The restaurant scene has improved enormously, infrastructure has improved, and international hotels, residential developments, hospitals, schools and lifestyle businesses have changed the city.
Pattaya today attracts a much wider mix of people than the old stereotype suggests. Families live here, Thai couples come down from Bangkok, international business people work here, retirees settle here and tourists still come for the nightlife as well. Why shouldn't they? A city does not need to apologise because people enjoy themselves.
Bangkokians have also rediscovered Pattaya. It is close enough for a weekend, easy to reach and increasingly offers far more than nightlife. That has helped change both the market and the atmosphere.
Is Pattaya perfect?
Of course not. Traffic can be frustrating, development is sometimes chaotic, some areas are beautiful and others certainly are not. Like any international tourist city, Pattaya attracts both good people and bad ones.
But after nearly 30 years, I still enjoy living here. The people are generally friendly, daily life is convenient, the cost of living can still be very reasonable and the city gives you an enormous amount of choice.
For me, that matters much more than the old reputation. Pattaya is not for everybody, but neither is London, Amsterdam, Bangkok or New York. You either connect with a place or you don't.
I did. That is why I am still here.