Let me tell you about my favorite addition to my toolkit: Soho House.
As a digital nomad, it’s easy to feel isolated and disconnected from the world around you. Yes the join of travelling and meeting new people, but when I am at my home base in Bangkok, it actually can be pretty quiet … And hard to make friends who are aligned with you not just passing through the city.
Jump back back to my younger years and the first time I was invited to a Soho House, I was a Junior at an advertising agency in London and a friend of a friend was invited and allowed to bring a guest – I was said guest. Things I vividly remember:
> Beautiful decor and lots of velvet
> Exclusivity and prestige
> Vibrant but not too loud
> No photos were allowed
But most of all … I wanted it! I wanted to be part of this community from that day forward
Now we all know about cost of living and lifestyle, no matter how far I lived up the career ladder in London, I could never justify to myself the spend on Soho House plus I knew the rumours of how long the waiting list was that I daren’t apply! To give anyone context who may not be aware of what Soho House is – let me divulge … It’s a british company started in 1992 and offers private membership for those in the Creative community.
Bring you 2022, the location is Bangkok and there is an announcement that Soho House is opening their first house in South East Asia and it’s in Bangkok …! That’s right, sorry Singapore, but Bangkok was first this time.
Finding my tribe, home away from home
Being an expat and living overseas isn’t always rainbows and sunshine. One of the biggest challenges is finding your tribe and community to feel at home. One of the reasons I moved cities from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was because I knew I wasn’t ever going to find my people in the mountains and needed that city energy. Having been in Bangkok for more than 2 years, there still was something missing. Add in COVID and wow, Bangkok can seem like a big large and unforgiving space – How do you get started?
Your ‘tribes’ can often be described as your people, the group of individuals you connect with. It can be a collection of friends from the past or you may find these groups of people at work or whilst doing hobbies. They are people who you resonate and connect with straight away and didn’t expect to. This is exactly what I have found with Soho House, I don’t know why it still surprises me when I strike up a conversation with anyone whether by the pool, in the changing rooms or after a yoga class, and we instantly seem to be on the same level. It’s almost that reassurance that Soho House are continuously keeping that close loop of alignment for accepting members global.
Can anyone join Soho house?
This is the beauty of said social clubhouse, it is designed for those who work in the creativity industry – yes, that’s right, just for us! You have to go through an application process with the local house you are applying to and this also gets reviewed by their head office in London to ensure you are aligned with the values and community of Soho House.
They know their target audience and they aren't afraid to say no. I respect that.
I love a grammable place the much as the next person however sometimes you just want to knuckle down and smash some things out. If you know anything about Soho House, it’s that one of the first house rules is around confidentiality albeit the house itself and the members. If you need to talk a call, there are only certain areas to do so which means you can enjoy an iced oatmilk latte with great vibes music without someone shouting down the phone next to you “can you hear, can you hear me now?”.
What to wear to Soho House?
This being said, I remember the first day outfit planning what would be appropriate to wear for my induction, so much so that I created a Pinboard of ideas of the vibe I wanted to ooze just like that moment I first went in London. As usual, a trillion outfit changes later and I settled on a dress, heeled converse combo with bold jewellery. Ooo just wait, on arrival there was so much more fabulousness! Again, another wonderful (and no I am not being sarcastic) rule is “no suits allowed” – LITERALLY LOVE THIS! As the months have gone on, I feel like I’ve found my grove with attire and more and more I feel like I can be myself and wear what I want, to the point where some mornings I have debated if I should take my slippers (of course they would be ugg outdoor functional hahhaa) with me to the house whilst I am having brunch and catching up on emails.
What can you actually do at Soho House?
There is so much more on offer within this community and space than I had expected (really, this is not a paid post, I am truly shocked), from morning fitness events to wine tasting evenings, to member mixers, to skills workshops that to be honest you could fill your days up just with their activities!
Staying productive whilst socialising at Soho House
As mentioned, one of the house rules is no phone calls and specifically no video calls which can be tricky for days when you need to do meetings but it’s actually made my days more focused so I ensure I have meetings on the same day to keep blocks of time to be able to enjoy Soho house. And, because I am who I am, I created a dedicated “Soho House” focus mode for my devices (iPhone, Apple Watch, Macbook Pro) = Yes Apple Addict!
I’ve set Soho House as my “work” location for when I am in Bangkok and enabled it to automatically switch to this mode when I come within a certain distance of the house, another productivity hack!
> Restricted app notifications
> Silence overall
> The locked screen has a digital business card (QR)
Is Soho House membership worth it?
If you are looking for more sneak peeps into what life and vibes are like at Soho House Bangkok, their instagram is always capturing this. As a digital entrepreneur, I’ve found that having a membership at Soho House has been a game changer for me. No seriously. I said to my partner when the house first opened “I aim to go at least once per month to get use of it” … Well, let’s say I probably should start paying rent there instead of my landlord. I will also say watch this space as I am hoping to become further integrated into the Soho House community both locally in Bangkok with events and workshops they do, as well as travelling to other houses to see their vibes and facilities.