I know a lot of expatriates (westerners / foreigners) living in Thailand and Indonesia have and do help travellers out on these forums, but I always felt expats were often an underused commodity. I also thought about running "my" own expat forum(s) as some I have frequented have been a bit badly managed (e.g. On the so called Expat Forum the owner and some of his users once actively discussed how to "hack" and spam travel forums with hate messages).
Osama

As a former expat in Phuket, Thailand myself, I often fealt travellers asking other travellers on travel forums where were the best places for this and that were missing a much more knowledgeable and up to date source of information. Also when impending visitors to Thailand or Bali wanted information, they often ignored replies given by expats. Why? Because I think expats gave them answers they did not want, for example:

Tourist question: I am going to stay at the Holiday Inn in Patong, where can I get the best shopping buys and Thai food?

Expat reply: You are best to take a taxi out of Patong (get your hotel to phone for an aircon metered cab, don't use a tuk-tuk) and go to Phuket Town.......... For food, getting good, fresh authentic Thai food without MSG and at a sensible price is really hard, but the New Moon Restaurant between the two hotels in Nai Harn (Beach) is superb, and Friendship Beach in Rawai serves great food on the beach with some of the best views you can hope for.

But it was often the other tourist replies such as "Micky's T-Shirt Parlour just round the corner from your hotel has a great selection of things and we really liked the seafood restaurant "Tom Car's Guy" that serves king prawns" (for 500 baht per 100 grams when you get 1 kilo if you know where to go), were often the answers tourists responded to and therefore wanted. I could never understand that myself. I knew Patong better than most tourists and apart from a few exceptions would never spend more to get less there. Actually, to be candid, I would not stay in Patong except for two nights maybe just to experience it.

It occured to me there were two main types of traveller, those out to experience and get the best / most out of their trip, and those out to enjoy the brochure / perception / safety in numbers and total R and R. There is nothing wrong with the later type, but I could never truly relate to such people. So I thought what a good idea it would be to have an expat forum where both expats and travellers can come and chat amongst themselves, separate from the main travel forum, because a) expats know to chat in expat forums themselves, and b) true travellers would see the chance to get someone with a lot more area experience's views.

Also hopefully this can be a useful place for expats to talk amongst themselves (no I don't mind some ads either).

Good idea?

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There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!