Tye and Chip Pierpont left Austin and moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to retire. Amanda Goh/Business Insider Tye and Chip Pierpont left the US and moved to Chiang Mai to retire. The couple first visited Thailand in 2008 to celebrate Tye's 40th birthday and fell in love with the country. They own a condo and estimate they spend between $4,000 and $5,000 a month on total expenses. Tye Pierpont got her first passport a few months before turning 40, and she knew exactly how she wanted to celebrate that milestone: with a trip to Thailand . She'd never left North America, and Thailand felt exciting. "Back in 2008, that seemed to me the most exotic, crazy place. I didn't want to go to Paris or Spain. I wanted to go to Thailand," Tye, now 57, told Business Insider. She and her now-husband, Chip, spent that first trip in the chaotic city streets of Bangkok , the Thai capital, and on the sandy beaches of Phuket. Over the next decade, they kept returning to Thailand for vacations.…