Khon Kaen for Digital Nomads

Khon Kaen is one of Isaan's big four cities, located both geographically and characteristically between Udon Thani and Nakhon Ratchasima. Whereas Udon has a nascent but noticeable tourist presence and Nakhon Ratchasima has little to offer foreigners beyond a local experience, Khon Kaen lands somewhere in the middle. You will see other foreigners here and there is a small area of foreigner-aimed bars, but in the main it's a city that most visitors to Thailand don't have a reason to stop in.

It's perhaps at that perfect level, where there are enough foreigners that you're not a novelty and no one gives a fuck about you, but there aren't so many that there's any tourist industry. You can go about your day largely uninterrupted.

There are some big night markets that are fun to explore, it has a large reservoir that's lovely to go for a walk or a run, it's safe, very affordable, the wifi is fast and reliable, the streets are very walkable, the people are friendly, and the little area of foreigner-aimed bars gives you somewhere to go in the evenings. In terms of what I look for as a digital nomad, it has everything.

This is the City Pillar Shrine. I'm not sure why you'd have a shrine to a pillar, but it's on the way to the Central shopping mall, so you'll probably run into it too.

Who is Khon Kaen suitable for?

To enjoy Khon Kaen you need to be someone who's happy with isolation. It's not a touristy place so you won't find much going on socially. The small cluster of foreigner-aimed bars provides some respite, but come here expecting to spend a lot of time on your own.

The city is very walkable, but also quite spread-out and slow-paced, so you can expect to have to walk for 30 minutes to get to the supermarket, for example. I'd say that Khon Kaen is good for people who like being outside, who aren't in a rush and have plenty of free time, and who are comfortable in their own company.

How affordable is Khon Kaen?

As with the rest of Isaan, Khon Kaen is great value, even by Thai standards. You will easily find a nice hotel room for less than 1,000 baht per night, you'll spend less than 100 baht per meal in local restaurants, and expect about 80 baht for a bottle of local beer in a bar.

Is Khon Kaen safe?

Completely. As there are no tourists, there are no tourist scams. I wasn't aware of any crime when I was here, and felt very safe walking around in the middle of the night.

Is it easy to get by with English in Khon Kaen?

You will find some English spoken, but most people you deal with won't speak any. In the restaurants I regularly go to for example, the staff speak no English.

Like anywhere, you can get by with sign-language and caveman noises, but if you want to be able to communicate well I recommend brushing-up on your Thai.

Things I don't like about Khon Kaen

My biggest gripe with Khon Kaen is that the city's main bus terminal is located miles outside the city centre.

In this part of the world there are no comprehensive online listings of bus times so being able to easily get to the bus station to research things is useful, and when you have to sit in a taxi for 20 minutes to get to the bus station, that's not really viable so it can leave you a bit in the dark. If you're leaving Khon Kaen by bus, then figuring-out when is massive a pain.

Being sociable in Khon Kaen

I'm unaware of any English language events in Khon Kaen designed for meeting people. Instead, there's a small cluster (about a dozen) of foreigner-aimed bars in front of the Pullman Hotel. It's very tame, even compared to just Udon Thani.

As a general rule it's often wise to avoid the quieter bars, because they're usually quiet for a reason, but in Khon Kaen I've found them to be more fun. As it's a city with very little tourism, the foreigners that go to these bars are mostly expats that live in Khon Kaen, and being as diplomatic as possible, I'll just say that many of them haven't made good life choices. My experience is either drinking alone or just chatting with the bar staff in a quieter bar is more fun than going somewhere busy.

Where to run in Khon Kaen

All of my runs in Khon Kaen have been at Bueng Kaen Nakhon Reservoir.

Isaan is notorious, in my mind if no one else's, for putting lovely pathways and running tracks around all large bodies of water in their cities. They seem to have done it at every lake I've come across.

One lap of the reservoir is 3.2km, and it's a really pleasant place to run, so long as you like to run in the daytime, at which point it doesn't get crowded, and there are even four public toilets dotted around the path with slightly curious opening hours. However, a word of warning:

One of Khon Kaen's night markets is the Bueng Kaen Nakhon Night Market. It takes place at the north end of the reservoir and gets very crowded. And while the night market itself doesn't cover the pathway around the lake, there's so much spillover of people that this northern part of the lake gets much harder to run around after dark. That's why it's a better place to come for daytime runs.

Coming here to run, or even to walk, Bueng Kaen Nakhon Reservoir is lovely. This is the inner path that I tend to run along, but there's also an outer path shared by pedestrians and cyclists that has fewer obstacles so is better suited for faster runs.

Where to get vegan food in Khon Kaen

Khon Kaen has a pretty meagre vegan scene. It's almost all local Thai food, and there's not that much of it, but you won't go hungry at least.

By far my favourite place is a vegan restaurant, shop and smoothie bar that confusingly has multiple names, but for simplicity I'll just call it Tawanthong Vegetarian. It's a big open space with many tables, and the restaurant is your typical point-and-hope buffet. Technically the restaurant closes at 2pm every day, but you really want to be here by 12:30pm to make sure they have a decent selection left.

The restaurant is cheap no matter what, but one thing I noticed from my first visit to Khon Kaen when I couldn't speak Thai, to my second visit to Khon Kaen when I could, is that if you order in Thai the price drops by about 40%. Be warned that even though the food here looks ok, it really isn't that healthy and on my most recent time in Khon Kaen when I ate here almost every day, my weight shot-up, and not in a good way.

And while the restaurant here is what will get your attention, the real prize is the attached store, which is an almost-vegan shop, and one of the best I've found anywhere in the world. It's quite odd to find it in Khon Kaen of all places, but it has a wide selection of nuts and seeds, loads of different teas to choose from, and the cheapest vegan protein powders that I've found anywhere in Thailand. And while the shop seems to think it's vegan, I've noticed while scanning over the ingredients of a couple of their items that they, perhaps unintentionally, contain dairy. The shop is open daily until 6pm.

Tawanthong can honestly be the only place you need to go in Khon Kaen, for both cooked food and groceries (barring fresh fruit/veg), but if you want to branch-out a bit, down near the reservoir is a restaurant whose name translates to roughly Bun Barami Vegetarian Food. They have a buffet or a made-to-order menu, and the staff here speak surprisingly good English.

In previous versions of this article I've sung the praises of Su Ting Sian, a vegan made-to-order restaurant with cheap prices and huge portions, but on my latest visit to Khon Kaen, I was served a green curry that just didn't look fresh, and within two hours of finishing it I had the shits, so I'm apprehensive about recommending it anymore, but perhaps it's worth chancing. Nearby is J. Lao Di Fang Vegetarian Restaurant, a not particularly impressive 'jay' restaurant, but another place to try if you want some variety.

All of the above options and the few other 'jay' restaurants dotted around the city will stop you going hungry, but one last place worth a mention is Kem-Kon Khon Kaen. They have a nice premises once you get there, but unfortunately it's way out of the city centre, and the walk there really isn't that fun, particularly the last part, when the main road you're walking down doesn't have a pavement and it feels more like an industrial area. Instead, Kem-Kon is better suited for Grab delivery. They serve some non-Thai food, and they're open late. That's the good news. The bad is that the dishes are twice as expensive and half the size of those you can get elsewhere, so you've really got to be hungry at some point in the evening to make it worth ordering. When it does arrive, the food is decent.

The buffet at Tawanthong Vegetarian has a good selection, but I'd advise getting here before 12:30pm.

Where I stayed

Manomon Residence

I've stayed here 3 times as a digital nomad, starting in January 2024, for a total of 34 nights, most recently...

In all of my stays at Manomon Residence I've been in the deluxe king room, which at 33m² is ironically the smallest room they offer. I'm not sure when it became normal for the king to sleep in the smallest room. As there's not much in the room other than the bed, it's a very spacious room, even for a fat king. Sufficiently spacious for yoga and bodyweight workouts.

There's a decent-sized TV mounted on the wall, and below it is a large surface. There's not really any cupboard space in the room, so instead you find yourself using this surface for everything. I keep my clothes on there, I setup my workstation there, I make my smoothies on there. It's big enough that you can do all of that.

There is also a table and a couple of chairs that might be more suited in a garden. These get less use, but still nice to have I guess.

Unfortunately there aren't cooking facilities of any kind in the room, even a microwave, but it does at least have a kettle and a fridge. There's a microwave in the hotel lobby that you're free to use.

The bathroom is especially nice considering the low price of the room, and you also have another sink on the balcony more suitable for things like washing up. The wifi in the room is fast and reliable - I'm yet to have any connection issues when staying here, and I really like the location. Most of the places you're going to want to go to are within a 25 to 30 minute walk, including Central Plaza, Bueng Kaen Nakhon Reservoir, and most of the vegan restaurants detailed above.

The staff are very friendly, although as the reception is curiously on the second floor, you don't ever really see them once you've discovered that it's quicker and easier to go through the car park any time you go out.

One point to note is that on my first stay here, I was in a room on the fourth floor. It had a big, open balcony that let in loads of sunlight. On my second stay, I was in a room on the third floor, and for some reason these balconies are partially walled-up. As you can see in the photos below, the rooms on the third-floor let-in a lot less daylight.

It's important for my mental-health that I get a lot of daylight, so for my third stay I specifically requested a room on the fourth floor, of which they obliged, and I was much, much happier.

Other than that I can't fault this place. It ticks all the boxes, even if it's a little unremarkable. I've never found anything better in Khon Kaen, and I've looked.

The 33m² deluxe king room doesn't have much in it but the bed, which means that you have plenty of space to exercise. I do yoga at the foot of the bed.

Summary of Khon Kaen

Do I want to come back again?

Absolutely. Tourist cities in Thailand can be ok in small doses, but you can really have too much of them. Khon Kaen is a nice antidote. It's cheap, it's peaceful, and the people are friendly but not overbearing.

I hope to be back in Thailand regularly in the coming years, and Khon Kaen will be a regular feature on my itinerary. I would gladly stay here long-term.