A whole month in Thailand. The longest I’ve traveled a county to date. Yet it still wasn’t enough. Thailand is one of the best countries in the world to travel to, and after spending a month here, my overarching feeling was that I should have booked an extra month off work. Ranking everywhere we went would be simply unfair, so I’ve listed every place in the order we visited, as well as some areas I plan to visit on my next trip, at the end.
Chiang Rai
Chiang Rai is a largely forgettable place in Thailand and is only somewhere you’d stay for a night or two, or skip if you’re on a shorter trip. The main attractions are the Blue and white temples, which are in their own right incredible – and slightly bizarre. The White Temple takes a couple of hours to walk around as it is quite large, and the interior decoration is far too interesting to skim over. The theme of this temple isn’t similar to that of any other temple in the country. This temple was built to convey the message that ‘people are wicked’ with the walls depicting red and orange flames, devils, and famous terrorist attacks such as 911. As shocking as this is at first, it gets all the weirder when you start to notice the western film characters interspersed within this, such as Spiderman, Harry Potter, and …. Hello Kitty; god knows what she’s done to deserve her place here.
The blue temple is far more normal and can be done in a passing visit, especially if you’ve reached the stage where all temples look the same. The two temples can be easily visited on the same day.
The reason most people stay in Chiang Rai is that it is the gateway to Laos. This is where you would go if you are going to take the slow boat into Laos, or where you arrive if you have taken the slow boat from Laos to Thailand. If this is the case, it is quite a convenient stop to break up some longer travel days, but if I were to return for another trip only to the north of Thailand, this is somewhere I’d consider leaving out.
Chiang Mai
Food. Incredible food. Just thinking about the restaurants in this city makes me want to book a flight back to try them all again. Add to that one of the best water parks in Thailand, countless elephant sanctuaries, and a thriving set of Jazz bars, and you get one of my favorite places from the whole trip.
What to do:
The Grand Canyon Water Park – It’s impossible to mention Chiang Mai without bringing up the Grand Canyon Water Park. Potentially my favorite day out of the trip. Make a group of friends at a hostel and go there for the whole day; from as early as you can get there until the sun goes down, and they shut up at around 6 pm, and it still won’t feel like you’ve spent enough time here. It is like you’ve been put into Total Wipeout, and it is so much fun. We spent 6 hours running around all of the inflatables, catapulting each other into the air from the blob, flying down slides, jumping from the 10-meter diving boards, and even trying to aquafoil (which I’m convinced is impossible).
Hike the monks’ trail to Wat Pha Lat and Wat Doi Suthep – This is just outside of Chiang Mai and serves as both a viewpoint hike and a visit to a beautiful temple with a grand golden roof. Get going on the trail early because this is one you won’t want to do in the full heat of the day. You can also cheat and get a tuk tuk or drive all the way to the temple itself if the hike isn’t a bit of you.
Visit an elephant sanctuary – We chose not to visit an elephant sanctuary ourselves for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we held out hope we’d come across them in their truly natural habitat when visiting Khao Sok National Park later in the trip, and also because we’d be so busy in the week or so before this that we hadn’t spent any time researching which sanctuaries are best to visit. There are many that do not operate in the best interests of the elephants, but we did hear of a fair few that are doing great work rescuing elephants and educating locals and tourists on how they used to be used and poorly treated in several industries.
Visit the national parks – if you have time to burn, you could spend weeks exploring all of the forests, mountains, waterfalls, and sanctuaries that surround Chiang Mai. There are countless forests, jungles, mountains, waterfalls, and everything in between within the surrounding area if you have the time and a scooter to explore them all. The most well-known spot is the sticky waterfalls, which can be done through many of the hostels. Going as a group is okay, and the waterfalls are still fun to walk up, but it’s much better to visit if you can get here early and have the waterfalls to yourself rather than queuing to get to the top.
Wander through the night market – It wouldn’t be Asia if there wasn’t a night market, and this is one of the best we went to for variety of food from crocodile skewers to creme egg brownies, and of course, there’s the usual fridge magnets and elephant pants stalls.
Go to a Jazz bar – there are plenty of small independent jazz bars scattered across the old quarter with bands playing almost every night; it’s a nice switch up to have a chilled evening out rather than a backpacker night out.
Where to Eat:
Neng’s Eatery – a lesson everyone quickly learns in Thailand is that the best restaurants are the ones that look the worst; with plastic chairs, slanted tables, and cable fences for walls, and this is no exception. Here, they slow roast all of their pork and chicken in huge clay ovens for hours before they serve it, so that when they do, it has soaked up all of the smoky flavour and is incredibly tender. We came here twice in 4 days, and I tried just about everything on the menu, and no meat in Thailand could ever come close to the crispy pork from Nengs. It is also mainly filled with locals, so meals here are as cheap as they get.
It’s the good kitchen – This one has gone huge on TikTok and is right in the middle of the old quarter, so there will be a 10-20 table queue at basically any time of the day, which will take about 20/30 minutes to clear, but this is well worth the wait. They serve undoubtedly the best green curry and their rosti’s are unbelievable. Again, this is a restaurant with plastic chairs and £1-2 meals and is a must-visit in Chiang Mai.
Kat’s Kitchen – Another restaurant with plastic chairs, and while the food here is good, it’s separated from the other restaurants by one thing: portion sizes. I’d like to say I can put away a fair amount of food, and so it’s not uncommon to finish a main in Asia feeling a bit peckish, but this isn’t the case with Kat’s kitchen. They serve meals that will leave you in a food coma.
It’s not just Thai food that’s good in Chiang Mai; it is also home to a huge number of Western-style cafes because of the number of digital nomads who choose to make this their home. While these will stretch the budget far more than the local spots I’ve mentioned above, they’re too good to say no to, especially when you need a break from fried rice and curry. My favorites here were the Fern Forest Cafe and the Sun Rays Cafe, but there are so many more I saw on social media that I just didn’t get around to going to.
Where to stay
At this stage of the trip, we were staying in whatever we could find as we hadn’t booked far enough in advance to get the best hostels. In general, if you’re in and around the old town, then you’re within walking distance of the best food spots, nightlife, and hostels. If you plan on renting a moped to venture out of the city, it may be worth staying a little further out, as traffic near the old town can get pretty busy and not the friendliest for learner moped riders.
I met a bunch of people staying at Stamps hostel, and they all had great things to say; it’s cheap, runs day tours every day, and has a great social atmosphere in the evenings, so this is where I’d stay if I went again.
Pai
A tiny village in the mountains with not much to do, and yet somehow Pai ends up being ranked among the very best places in Thailand by almost everyone who goes here. With many on longer trips getting stuck in the ‘Pai hole’ and staying for weeks rather than days. It’s hard to explain why, though. In the daytime, there’s not much to do besides relax; whether that is sunbathing by the river or playing ping pong, pool, or even going to one of the many video game cafes in the town. There are no outstanding places to eat, the bar and live music scene is good but not incredible, and the nightlife is okay at best. But it does have a weird charm about it because of how simple it is. Wake up, relax, socialize, watch the sunset, rinse and repeat. I only have 3 recommendations;
Pai Canyon – this is a vast area covered by narrow ridgelines that snake their way around and past each other with steep drops on either side. It’s a really pretty spot to walk around, and everyone gathers around the main canyon to sit and watch the sunset.
Two huts bar – this is the other main sunset spot in Pai, where everyone gathers to watch the sunset with live music, drinks, and great views out over the valley
Tipsy tubing – This is, of course, the highlight of Pai. Every Tuesday and Friday, over 300 people jump in big rubber rings and float down the river whilst getting well… tipsy. It starts with everyone in 7 Elevan at 11 am (when they start selling alcohol) stocking up with their drink of choice and funneling it into an empty 2 liter plastic bottle (they don’t allow glass bottles of beer/soju etc on the river) before being picked up by tuktuks and taken to the start point of the event. Here, there’s the first of three DJ sets while you wait to get into the river and find your friends. Then everyone gets in and you spend about 40 minutes floating down the river drinking and singing (either bring a speaker or pray someone near you has one) until you reach the first stop. Here, there’s another DJ set, beach volleyball and football, and a bar to restock your bottle. Then another stint on the river before the final stop, where there’s another DJ, a foam party, and a BBQ. It’s such a simple concept and so much fun, I’d have gone again if I was there for long enough; especially as it only costs 250 baht (~£6)
Bangkok
This is where a lot of people start their trips simply because of how cheap it is to fly into and out of, and I think this is why most people rate Bangkok highly. However, after traveling for a period of time, these big cities become somewhat boring as they all have similar characteristics. Bangkok offers the same things you can find anywhere else in Thailand, just a little bit bigger, but without anything truly unique to set it apart from other destinations on this list. A couple of days here is all you need to tick off the main attractions;
Explore the grand palace complex – these are undoubtedly some of the most impressive temples and palaces you can visit, and are simply a ludicrous showcase of wealth with gold and gemstones completely covering these enormous buildings. If this is your first stop in Thailand, you may as well experience the best temples in the country straight off the bat.
Of course, remember long trousers and sleeves, or you won’t be let in.
Visit the MBK center – shopping is huge in Bangkok, and there are markets and shopping centers everywhere in the city. This is the most well-known and biggest of these shopping centers. We found shopping in Bangkok not to be anywhere near as cheap as people say that it used to be, with many clothing and shoe stores having prices similar to Europe. Great if shopping is your thing, but nothing special.
Go out in Khaosan Road – this is the main backpacker nightlife hub with a daily night market and countless bars and clubs which spew out into the street well into the early hours of the morning every single night. This was one of my favourite nights out in all of Southeast Asia. Starting on the next street along, Ram Buttri Road, for pre-drinks where there’s endless happy hours and live blues bands playing, and then going from club to club all the way along Khaosan Road. What separates this from nightlife elsewhere in Thailand is the music here, which is strictly 2000s and 2010s white girl pop – the best club music, of course, not the standard techno and D&B you usually find in the rest of the country. Some people recommend staying here, but I couldn’t think of anything worse with most of the clubs playing music incredibly loudly until 4/5/6 am -there are plenty of hostels that are just a street or two away, so that this isn’t an issue.
Recreate the Hangover photo – as someone trying to progress as a photographer, it’s mildly annoying that the best and most liked photo of the whole trip was taken on a phone, and it’s us recreating the iconic hangover photo. This photo doesn’t come cheaply, though, as cocktails in the bar at Lebua State Tower are £25+, which was enough to cause a heart attack after drinking Chang and Saigon for £1 a bottle for the month beforehand. Aside from that, though, Bangkok does have a number of incredible rooftop bars to relax in the evening and take in views across the whole city; a great way to ease into a trip if you’ve just come off a 14-hour flight and aren’t quite ready for Khaosan just yet.
Koh Phangan
The Full moon party
After Bangkok, we skipped half of the country to speed straight down to Koh Phangan just to make it in time for the Full moon party. This is a huge party that takes place every full moon on Haad Rin beach. It’s estimated that around 40,000 people flood the beach for the festival during tourist season, with almost all of the accommodation on the island sold out months in advance and thousands more commuting to the party via ferry from any islands close enough to do so. This gets a lot of hype on social media, and it’s easy to see why content about it gets views with videos of the vibrant body paint, fire shows, and vast crowds, but for me, it didn’t live up to the hype. It was a good night, but it’s almost certainly not worth the hyper-inflated cost of accommodation and food to be there.
With that being said, Koh Phangan is still an incredible place and one that we easily could have spent more time in. It’s exactly what you imagine from island life in Thailand. Here’s how to spend your time here:
- While the full moon party was a bit of an anti-climax, that isn’t the case for all nightlife on Koh Phangan. We went to the Jungle party, which is held the night before every full moon party, and it was miles better with fantastic DJs and a real festival atmosphere. I’ve also heard great things about the halfmoon party from countless people I came across all over Asia, and there are other events which happen almost every night, as it seems they are always either building up to or celebrating after the full and half moons.
- Beach days don’t get much better than they are on Koh Phangan; enjoy soft white sand beaches stretching as far as the eye can see, all the way around the island. Whether you prefer the bustling Haad Rin beach with plenty of shops and restaurants up to the sand or quieter and more secluded beaches like Bottle beach, there’s a perfect beach for everyone. Grab a group of friends from the hostel and a ball, and explore a new beach every day.
- No destination in Asia would be complete without a viewpoint hike, and Koh Phangan is no different. The bottle beach viewpoint is breathtaking and one of the easiest viewpoints to get to; just a couple of hundred meters from where you can park your scooter. The final climb up onto the boulder is a bit tricky, but nothing your average person can’t overcome, and at that point, you’re standing on a giant boulder emerging out over the palm trees and looking out across the beaches and sea below. A big mistake was leaving my camera at the hostel on our visit here.
- It wouldn’t be right to talk about Koh Phangan and not mention Namaskar; probably the best Indian meal we had in the entire trip, and it’s not close to where most tourists stay, so it’s never full. The Ban Tai food market is another great shout in this category with a huge array of cuisines and even dessert options which you can mix and match.
- Sunsets Sunsets Sunsets. The best sunsets I’ve ever seen. Every. Single. Night. And we even watched them right from where we were staying at the Last Hammock Resort. This is where I took my favourite photo of the trip as the sun set directly behind a raised sandbank a couple of hundred meters into the ocean, where a group of people were watching from. Another option is the Amsterdam bar set in the hills with a swimming pool, bar, and live DJ overlooking the sunset; this does get pretty busy, though, so best to get here early so you have somewhere to sit and eat or drink.
Koh Tao
Undoubtedly my favourite of the islands we visited, and we didn’t even scratch the surface of what Koh Tao truly has to offer. This is the place we stayed in the longest and where I am most keen to go back to. Koh Tao just has everything you need. Chill beach days? Pick from 20 beaches. Sunset sports on the beach? Play football or volleyball with both locals and backpackers. New to scuba diving? This is the cheapest place in the world to learn and has several world-class dive spots to see all sorts of marine life. Don’t have time (or the remaining budget) to scuba? The snorkelling tours are unreal, just the same. Fancy a night out? There are plenty of bars, and possibly the best event we went to in Thailand.
What to do
- Of course, the number one thing to do in Koh Tao is learn to scuba dive; it costs just £200 with most companies here to do the full 3-day course, which is unreal value. I didn’t have the time to do it on this trip, unfortunately, and that was a big mistake for sure. As soon as we left, Tom travels (@thomas_hunt_ on TikTok) was all over my FYP with some of the most incredible videos of diving around all of the spots Koh Tao has to offer, which gave some serious fomo. An alternative, if you’re a bit short on time like we were, is the full day snorkelling tour. There are plenty of these on the island, but we chose to go with Oxygen tours located just off Sairee beach. For just over £10, they pick you up, take you to 5 different snorkelling spots, Nangyuan Island, and it even includes lunch and a photographer on the boat taking photos in and out of the water.
- Visiting Nangyuan island is included in the snorkelling tour above, but you can also get taxi boats here whenever you want from Sairee beach. I’d recommend getting here early if possible. It is a protected area, so plastic bottles and other forms of litter are not allowed on the island, and there is a 250 baht (~£6) entrance fee, and that is because of how beautiful the island is and because it is still reovering from a typhoon a couple of years ago. The Nangyuan viewpoint is very famous and has incredible views, but if you get here anywhere near lunch time, there will be a long queue to get to the top – I waited for almost 40 minutes! That is because the actual viewpoint can only have a couple of people at the top at a time, and there is a local who stands and takes pictures for everyone for free (he couldn’t quite figure out my camera, though).
- Hike the John-Suwan viewpoint. Of course, no SEA destination would be complete without a viewpoint, and this one stacks up to all of the rest. This is a viewpoint that takes just 10-15 minutes to hike and is located at the end of a peninsula, meaning there are some fantastic photo spots looking back towards the mainland, overlooking the peninsula with beaches and the crystal clear water of Shark Bay and Chalok Baan Kao Bay on either side. Add in that this is right next to Freedom Beach, one of the most popular beaches on the island ( and the best for swimming with sea turtles), and this is a great day out.
- Jungle parties are always pretty good in my experience, and this might just be the best one there is. Jump in a shared taxi from 7-Eleven next to Sairee beach, which takes you up the hill and into the jungle to the entrance to the party. Tickets are 1000 baht (~£24, which is increasingly common for the bigger events like this), but this is an event that is well worth it. There are five different stages to choose from, with different genres of music and several bars spread throughout the venue, meaning this was a rare occasion where we rarely queued for drinks. Koh Tao is known for its nightlife and some of our other favourites, whilst here were the AC Pool party and Fishbowl Bar, which are also great, but the jungle party is by far the best.
Where to eat
There is a real mix on Koh Tao of really cheap local restaurants and western-style cafes and restaurants for a bigger budget. My favourites from the trip were Mama Tams and 995 Duck; both are stupidly cheap with the classic plastic chairs and serve amazing Thai food. For your daily smoothie bowl and coffee, Factory Cafe is the standout. In general, I’d steer clear of any of the places on Sairee beach as the food is mediocre in most of them and they charge far more just because they’re on the beach, which you’ll likely spend countless hours at anyway.
Where to stay
The vast majority of the backpackers stick to the Sairee beach area. This is where there are the most restaurants, bars and hostels. It is also on the west side of the island, meaning you can sit on the beach to watch the sunset every night, just minutes from where you are staying. This is also where you can play volleyball and football in the evenings, and there are plenty of diving schools and day trip companies to choose from. It’s probably the only place on the island you can stay without needing to rent a moped, so bear this in mind if you’re looking at the quieter and cheaper areas of the island, as these will require you to be comfortable riding one.
Khao Sok national park
You simply cannot find places like this in the UK, and this was a must-see place in Thailand for me. Khao Sok is simply incredible and well worth the visit. The best-known part of the park is Cheow Lan Lake, which spans 165 square kilometers in the middle of a huge limestone mountain range. This creates a dramatic landscape where steep mountains emerge out of the water, creating a maze on the lake – allegedly one of the inspirations for the scenery in the Avatar films. The lake is man-made as it is a result of the construction of a hydroelectric dam in 1982, displacing many residents of the area. Those that stayed now live on floating bungalows and make their money through tourism, allowing you to take boat tours and safaris around the lake and even stay in floating bungalows yourself.
We stayed for one night in Khao Sok town and then went on one of the 2 day 1 one-night tours where you stay on the lake. This cost us £130 including all meals, one night’s accommodation in the floating bungalows, 2 boat safaris, and a visit to the coral caves by bamboo raft. In free time between activities and meals, you are able to swim in the lake, sunbathe, and take kayaks out to explore on your own; this helps you truly appreciate the size of the park and the huge distances between the mountains and bungalows.
On our safaris, we weren’t that lucky with wildlife as we only came across one monkey and some camels, but near the lake, there are also Tapir, Leopards, and Elephants, which all roam free. If you have more time, you can also stay for longer in the town and then head out to trek through the surrounding jungles for a better chance at seeing this wildlife and potentially even Tigers, with an estimated 200 remaining in the park. We were lucky enough to spot one elephant in the end as it strolled down the middle of the road towards us in our minivan out of the park.
If you are planning to fit this into your trip, you are going to have to book this well in advance, as all of the tour providers sell out, with the best ones fully booked months in advance of the peak season. You can do day tours of the lake from Khao Sok town, but it just isn’t the same as you won’t see sunset, sunrise, kayak on the lake, and your chances of seeing wildlife and significantly reduced.
Krabi
Before arriving in Krabi, it was described to us by other travelers as ‘the Benidorm of Thailand’, and I think that says about as much as you need to know about the vibe of both the place and the people here. The first thing to note is that although everyone says they have been to Krabi, what they mean is Ao Nang, which is the closest beachside town to Krabi airport/city, and this is where you should stay. To be honest, the weather while we were here was pretty terrible and so we didn’t do much while we were here other than party and be hungover in the hostel, which to be honest, it seems like most people come here to that anyway and so I’d only recommend a couple of days. From what other travellers, who visited when there weren’t thunderstorms, have said, this is how you should spend your time here:
Go on the 4 islands boat trip – this is the most popular day tour from Krabi and is exactly what it says on the tin – spend the day exploring 4 beautiful islands just off the coast from Krabi and snorkel at the best spots each island has to offer. It costs just roughly £20, depending on which tour company you go with, and most include lunch and snorkel hire within this.
Visit Railay beach – this is one of the most picturesque and highly rated beaches in Thailand, and so expect it to be rammed at all times. It is, of course, still well worth it, though. It is easiest to get to by longtail boat taxi from Ao Nang beach, which costs 100 baht (~£2.50) per person and takes around 20 minutes. If you get bored of the beach there are also severla other beaches, viewpoints and even a legoon that you can hike to from here; this aren’t flat poaths but closer to vertical rock climbing at points with not much more than some hanging ropes to help you up and down so consider some proper shoes at least.
Eat at tan tribe cafe – simple, the best smoothie bowl and coffee combo from the trip.
Ko Phi Phi
Ko Phi Phi gets a lot of hype on TikTok. A lot. And after visiting… I’m not sure why. It is an absolute trap for both conventional tourists and backpackers; everything here is designed to take advantage of this. You get off the boat and are surrounded by western fast food chains and restaurants, and countless vendors all selling the same mass-produced knick-knacks and trinkets. Of course, the reason people come here is to visit the famous Maya Bay, which is stunning. But only if you are there at 6 am; anything later and the place is rammed with tourists. It is a beach where you are not allowed in the ocean, and will be hard pushed to be able to hear yourself think. With that being said, most of the tours here do also stop at some pretty good snorkelling spots, but countless islands offer the same without the price tag associated with Phi Phi.
The nightlife here also somehow has a fantastic reputation, which is baffling; there are a few mediocre bars on the beach that have fire shows, but nothing spectacular. The one saving grace of the island is the Reggae bar, which is hilarious. Imagine a bar with a boxing ring in the middle of it, which offers free alcohol to anyone who will fight in it. The result is a night watching overconfident Brits making fools of themselves. Every couple of hours, the bar puts on a Muay Thai fight with locals who know what they are doing – and are sober – and these are great to watch. The sport in general is a great watch, but just how close you can get to the ring here makes it so much better than watching from half a stadium away in most other venues.
What used to draw people here was Phi Phi’s reputation for being a tranquil island paradise, and this has been lost in the main. The only place where this is still the case is the north of the island, only accessible by ferry and home to the majority of the high-end resorts. Of course, this is a whole different kind of trip and comes with a hefty price tag, which, of course, as the last place on our itinerary, we could not quite afford this time. Maybe just the consequence of it being the last place we visited with the thought of going home soon always in the back of our minds, but Phi Phi isn’t somehwere I’ll be rushing back to.
How would I change my Itinerary?
With the amount of time we had, all of the headaches I had in planning our trip were from what places we would have to miss out to be able to spend enough time in the places I really wanted to go. That meant missing out on Koh Samui and Phuket were good choices but I’d also skip Krabi and Ko Phi Phi on my next trip; all of these places are just to accessible and so they’re overfilled with tourists and have lost a lot of what brought tourists to Thailand in the first place.
I’d replace the time we spent in these places with time exploring some of the less-visited areas like Koh Lanta, Koh Lipe, the Similan Islands, or Kanchanaburi. These places are far enough away from the tourist hubs that they maintain Thai culture, and the people who tend to visit here are more likely to be looking for exploration and activities rather than party hostels and nights out every night. I’d also love to open up even more time in Koh Tao to be able to learn to dive and rent mopeds for longer to explore all of the island and its viewpoints. I’d also take the time to go to some of the renowned cooking classes so that I could accurately recreate some of the incredible cuisine when I’m back at home – the green curry recipes you find online simply don’t come close to how the locals make it. Another thing I’d love to go back to do is Muay Thai; we didn’t go to see anywhere near enough fights or go and train in any of the Muay Thai gyms that are everywhere in Thailand. Activities like this are often missed out because they can be done everywhere, and so they don’t get added to an itinerary for any specific location; make sure to plan these into your itinerary in locations you think you’re going to have some spare time.
