Gday all!

I'm finally ready to leave for Thailand! I've got my retirement visa O A and my wife has a visa O. Tickets booked!

Just want to ask if anyone can give me some tips on to what to take from here (Australia), besides the obvious and day to day living items.

I'm more curious on what docs I should take, ID docs, original marriage certificate etc... or anything else people have forgotten that they ended up needing?

I just want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything.

Thank you in advance!!

Cheers!

If you and your wife are coming here to retire, to live long-term, you should bring all your documents. Hubby and I brought certified originals of birth certificates, high school diploma, college transcripts, military service records, marriage license, expired passports, life insurance policies, documents related to investments, final Will, tax returns for the last decade, voter registration cards, drivers licenses, credit card contracts, heck, even our library cards (we were able to download recorded books for a while, using our library card number). We made copies of all this stuff, gave one set to my brother and scanned and emailed another set to ourselves.

We had a small business, which we shut down. I looked up how long we should hold records for IRS purposes (I think it was seven years). I boxed up the business records, each year in its own set of priority mail boxes and we've stored the boxes in my brother's basement. Each box is labeled with something like "2006 business records. Destroy in 2013." (or whatever the appropriate year really is) Brother has access to secure document disposal at his workplace and will simply chuck the box into that dumpster when the time comes. Our concern is that we can still have a tax audit for a closed business and we want to respect the privacy of our customers, since we saved sales slips with credit card data.

We're Americans, so the cost for us to go back to the U.S. to retrieve paperwork from my brother's basement is high. As an Aussie, it's cheaper and the OP may plan to return from time-to-time, but we're over here for the long haul and don't want to have to pay for an emergency trip to the U.S.

One item that should be done by most is to make a wire transfer agreement with your bank so they can send money to you here in Thailand if/when you ever want that service - in most countries this agreement must be signed in person so best to do while you are there. You should not have to know account you will send into just to set up the procedure so you can do so when you want either on-line - fax - phone or writing in worst case. Using cards, if that is your plan, can be costly and if lost could cause issues that a wire agreement might help you weather.

On same subject I would have at least one credit card and debit card with low foreign transaction fees and good to have an extra bank account open, even if just in case you get mad at one you have an option.

Thank you NancyL & lopburi3, great advice!

1 troll post removed.

One would hope you have been here quiet a few times to test the waters , so to speak, your inquiry dosn't indicate this.