Best visa option for a tourist living on Ko Samui

Are you sure you have a visa because tourist visa's are usually good for sixty days.  It sounds like you have a visa exempt entry because you carry US passport and arrived without a visa you are allowed 30 day visa exempt entry.

When you fly out for a few days travel make sure its to a place that has Thailand consulate so you can apply for a tourist visa which will be good for 60 day stay.  You will be able to extend for another 30 days before you must leave again.

Thank you for your reply and yes you are correct. I have a 30 day visa exempt entry and plan to extend it for another 30 days. Then leave via air and do the same thing. I didn't bother with the 60 day tourist visa because I've been reading about getting the 30 day extension on the 30 day visa exempt entry...just curious if anyone has had experience doing this...

Are you 50 or older? Do you have monthly income (pension, social security) or do you have about $25,000 USD to put in a bank account?  If the answer is yes, you can apply for a 3 mth temporary O visa and a 12 mth O-A retirement visa.  That's what I did last year and just received an extension for another 12 mths.

If you are not 50 yrs of age, then you will have to keep leaving the country.  I don't know of any other visas you could get. I'm not sure how hard it is to get a 30 day extension every other month once the 30 day visa exempt runs out.

Thank you very much for the information.  I am not retired or under 50 so no luck there. I was also thinking of buying/starting a small business but sounds like that may be a bit expensive...I've heard talking to a lawyer may be helpful as well but I'd like to hear other people's experiences if there are any similar to mine. Cheers.

I did the 60 day application from home (NZ), and last month did the +30 extension in Pattaya, as I was staying nearby at the time.
Despite great potential for confusion, I read/watched a few online guides before I went, came prepared with the bits, and had it all done inside an hour and a half, mostly just in an orderly (take-a-number-style) queue. I was pleasantly surprised.

For me it was no great hardship to make a trip into Pattaya for a change of pace, certainly more fun than a gruelling 'border run'.

The one thing you'd really need ahead of time (copy shop and photo service is adjacent) is as much paperwork as you can get proving your accommodation - a formal document your landlord should have to fill in. As it was, I just got my local hotel to print out my booking confirmation, bill on letterhead, and they also wanted a business card.
Didn't seem to matter that I'd been elsewhere until then, and was only in town a couple of days,

I'm approaching 90 days now, so doing a flight to be a real tourist for a while before I return to Samui, and am looking for hints about how best to continue a pattern like this.
Under 50, genuinely interested in the Thai Language study option.

I arrived from the US at the end of Nov with a 60 day Tourinst Visa to visit my son, his wife and new baby. I didn’t want to move funds around for the Retirement Visa so I did the Education Visa instead through a Language School in Phuket. The School does all the paperwork and I’m required to take 200 hours of  lessons a year. The ED Visa is renewable up to 5 years, however I have to check-in with Immigration every 90 days. A school official will accompany me each time with the required paperwork.
I had to do a Visa-run to the Thai Embassy in Penang to get my Non-Immigrant ED Visa. It was just a one night trip. When I head back to the US for a few weeks I’ll need to get a re-entry stamp before I leave Thailand. Hope that helps!