You know what it feels like to travel.Do you know what it feels like to stay?
You've got an idea. Maybe you've left your job, or you're freelancing. Maybe you're simply wondering if there's another way to work and live.
Spend six days in Chiang Mai with people building one-person businesses, experimenting with AI and working remotely, and with the ones who stopped moving and made a life in Chiang Mai
International sales close 15 September so we can plan catering and workshop capacity.
You're building it by yourself.You don't have to figure it out alone.
Everyone running a session has been there. They built the business, made the expensive mistakes, and worked out what actually moves the needle in this part of the world.
Six days of asking them directly beats another year of working it out on your own. Bring what you're building. Leave knowing which mistakes you can skip.
- AI foundations: the tools that let one person do the work of three, taught for people who aren't developers
- Product-market fit: how to find out whether anyone wants it, before you build the whole thing
- Sales funnels: how a stranger actually becomes a customer, start to finish
- Business mindset: pricing, money management, and making decisions when there's nobody else to ask
- People skills: how to have the conversations that turn into work
- Doing business in Thailand and across Asia: the rules of engagement, and where they differ from the ones back home
- Networking on purpose: who's worth knowing, and how to actually get introduced
- Thai founders, makers and operators in the room as participants, not on a panel
Then put it to the test.
Two days at the Mövenpick building with Claude tools on real local problems. Find out what your new AI skills hold up against a deadline.
Bring your idea to Cult Caffeine and let the room take it apart. Honest feedback, not polite encouragement.
"Still Human: what AI can't replace in a one-person business."
"F*ck Ups, Face & the Thai Way of Doing Business." Failure, face, and the deals that fall apart when someone loses it.
We curated the spaces where the stories get told.
You find out how someone actually did it by hearing them tell it, and that only happens in the right room. So we built three. One where a few people a decade ahead of you have everyone's attention. One where you and your peers compare notes all week. One where you're the person talking.
Keynotes
24–26 September · Marriott and Cult Caffeine
Three days of people who are further down the road than you. Someone who built a business of one and sold it. A Thai founder who has watched a decade of foreigners try and mostly get it wrong. Someone who built a life on a farm and never needed to leave to find it. An hour each on how it actually went.
The coworking hub
All week · Alt_PingRiver · open 24/7
The default workspace for the week where most spontaneous conversations happen. Residents are the ones who have been living and working here since 1 September, a month deeper in and happy to tell you what that month taught them. Phone booths for calls, and a sauna and cold plunge for when it's time to wind down.
The unconference
28 September · Wat Ket District
The last day has no programme until you make one. Anyone can claim a slot and run a session on what they know, and most people arrive intending to watch, then end up hosting something. It happens in Wat Ket, the riverside district we're building into Thailand's first Nomad Friendly District, which makes it the right place to find out what you have to say.
The parts you'll still be telling people about.
Nobody comes home from a week like this talking about the sessions. They talk about the night they sat down to dinner with two hundred strangers and left with none. So we put as much work into those days as into the programme, and we're holding them in the places Chiang Mai is actually known for.
Roughly half the room is international and half is Thai. That mix is deliberate, and it's why this happens here rather than in a hotel ballroom.
Two hundred people, Lanna style, and half of them are locals. Everyone brings a dish. You will finish the night actually knowing the person sitting across from you, which is more than most events manage in a week.
A month of research into what a district needs to work for people who live and work between places. You don't just walk through it, you mark it up, vote on it and argue with it. What comes out is the blueprint for the Nomad Friendly District, and it goes to the city.
One day out of the city, and you pick where. It's the day most people stop checking their phone.
A slow morning, and a different nervous system by lunch.
Caring for them, not riding them. Ask anyone who has done both.
Our partners, and twenty years of permaculture done by people living it rather than posting about it.
Booked separately from the standard pass. One excursion is included with the Gold pass.
They stopped travelling here for a reason.
A few of the people you'll meet. The rest you'll meet over dinner.
Left crypto marketing in Beijing for the Chiang Dao mountains, where she built a permaculture farmstay and nature school.
From Hong Kong, ten years here building a Wat Ket ecosystem where nomads and locals collaborate.
Twelve years of travel vlogging, and finally a decision to set base in Chiang Mai.
Speaking on what AI keeps getting wrong about culture and consciousness.
Built and sold one-person businesses. Speaking on what AI can't replace in a business of one.
More speakers to be announced.
We picked Chiang Mai on purpose.
Chiang Mai has been at the top of the remote-work lists for a decade, and the lists never explain why people stay. Affordable, workable, and small enough that you keep running into the same people. Wat Ket, on the river, is the district the government backed as Thailand's first Nomad Friendly District, and Main Week is its flagship event, though the week runs across the city, not one neighbourhood.
September is green season. The city is calm, the hills are green, and a week here costs less than a long weekend in most of the cities on that map.
You're already close
Nine Asian hubs, one short hop
Flight time to Chiang Mai
Venues: the Mövenpick Hotel for the hackathon, Pantip Plaza for the exhibition, the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center for the pot luck, Cult Caffeine for the Show & Tell. Everything is walkable or a short ride.
Backed by
40+ collaborators building this with us.
Choose your pass
Both passes cover all six days, September 23–28.
Access to all Main Week events including keynotes, workshops, unconferences, and evening community activities throughout the week.
- Access to all Main Week standard events
- Lunch on Sept 24, 25 & 26
- 24/7 access to Alt_PingRiver coworking hub during Main Week
- Access to Alt_PingRiver cold plunge & sauna facilities during Main Week
- Access to all workshops throughout Main Week
Everything included in the Purple Pass, plus premium experiences, curated introductions, and additional opportunities to connect.
- Everything in the Purple Pass
- Priority seating at all keynotes
- 1 free guided excursion
- US$50 contribution to a local impact project (you choose)
- Invite to Speaker & Mentor Breakfast
- 2 curated 1-on-1 introductions matched to your goals
Secure checkout via Stripe. Cards and Apple Pay accepted.
Before you book
No. A lot of people come with an idea and a deadline they've set for themselves. What matters is that you intend to build something, not that you're only researching.
No. The AI workshops are built for people who aren't developers, and the business sessions assume you're coming from a professional career rather than an engineering one.
Yes. Main Week runs in English, with Thai participants and speakers throughout.
Passes cover the full six days. Most of the value is in the relationships, and those need more than a day to form.
Both cover all six days. Gold adds priority keynote seating, one included excursion, the speaker and mentor breakfast, and two one-to-one introductions matched to what you are building.
No. There are guesthouses and colivings within walking distance of every venue at a wide range of prices, and we send a list with your confirmation.
Chiang Mai, mostly along the river, with the hackathon at the Mövenpick Hotel, the exhibition at Pantip Plaza, the pot luck at the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center and the Show & Tell at Cult Caffeine. Everything is close.
Passes are non-refundable, but you can transfer yours to someone else as long as you let us know their details before the event starts.
September 23–28, 2026. Chiang Mai.
You can spend another six months reading about people who did it. Or you can spend six days with them.