I have always dreamed of going to thailand to live I have a small pension of about $1300 mo. u.s I will be flying out there within the next few months but my question is this?I want to stay out there for about 6 mo. to check things out but I only have a 30 day stamp or visa time limit how do you get more time to stay? if I cross the border and come back do I get another 30 days? somebody please help me get a better understanding of visas for u.s citizens because when i looked it up it said none required

Its best to apply for a tourist visa at the Thai Embassy in the US before comming here. You can get a free 30 visa exempt stamp on arrival, but you are only allowed to use this method for a total of 90 days in a 180 day period. You want to stay 6 months, so if you come here on a tourist visa you will get 60 days, you can further extend that at immigration for another 30 days, so far you have 90 days in on a tourist visa. Then you can simply just do 3 border crossings and get you free 30 days visa exempt stamp, which will give you a total of 6 months. If you can get a double or multiple entry tourist visa it would really be good, but they are hard to get these days. So a combination of a tourist visa plus 3 border crossings will cover your 6 months.

Days =

60 Tourist visa

30 Tourist visa extension

30 Visa exempt stamp

30 Visa exempt stamp

30 Visa exempt stamp

total = 180 days or 6 months

Request a double entry tourist visa in the US....worth a try. If not...the previous post is spot on.

Good luck

thank-you for the help