Thailand gives you one country and three completely different holidays.
Whether the four-island longtail out of Krabi beats the Phi Phi speedboat. What a Chiang Mai cooking class actually costs. Which Grand Palace ticket skips the queue. Reviews of every tour you can book in Thailand.
The river temples
Bangkok: Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided Tour
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · from $24
The Andaman
Krabi: Premium 4-Island Day Trip by Longtail Boat with Lunch
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · from $39
The north
Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · from $60
Three days, three parts of the country.
A market on a railway line, a palace, an elephant valley, a longtail boat.
The five bookings a first Thailand itinerary tends to hang off. What each costs, and what the people who went say about it.
01The morning out of BangkokBangkok: Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketDamnoen Saduak by boat, then Maeklong, where the awnings fold back and a train comes through the vegetables. Leave early or the canal fills with tour boats.
02The palace morningBangkok: Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourGrand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun in one guided run. Long trousers and covered shoulders, and go at opening while the marble is still cool.
03The Chiang Mai dayChiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo RaftingA sanctuary day in a valley north of the city: feeding, mud, the river, then a waterfall and a bamboo raft down. No riding at any point.
04The Krabi boat dayKrabi: Premium 4-Island Day Trip by Longtail Boat with LunchFour islands by longtail with lunch on the sand. Slower than the speedboats, quieter at each stop, and the prow shot everyone comes home with.
05The kitchen afternoonChiang Mai: Authentic Cooking Class with Market & Farm VisitMarket first for the herbs, then a farm kitchen and five dishes you cook yourself. Chiang Mai does this better than anywhere else in the country.
Longtail, speedboat or a mask and fins. The sea day splits three ways.
Almost every good day in the south starts at a jetty. Three kinds of boat day, what it costs to get on each one, and which coast it belongs to.
Bangkok, then north to the hills or south to whichever sea suits the month.
A capital built on canals, a walled old town in the mountains, limestone islands on the Andaman side and calmer water in the Gulf. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
Bangkok: the river first, the traffic never.
Everything in Bangkok →
The old city sits on the water and the express boats still beat the road. Do the palace and the two temples opposite by river in the morning, then pick an evening: a night market on a tuk-tuk, a dinner boat, or ringside seats.
Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun
The three sit within one river loop, which is why almost every guided morning covers them together. Shoulders and knees covered at the palace, and the last entry is earlier than you think.
Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong
A canal market reached by longtail, then the railway market where the stalls sit on the track and pack away eight times a day as the train comes through. Both are better before nine.
Dinner on the Chao Phraya
The river cools first and the temples light up from the water. Boats range from a buffet barge with a band to a small teak cruiser, and the price gap tells you most of what you need.
Three things that only happen in Thailand.
Beaches and night markets exist all over the region. A market that folds itself up for a passing train, a valley where the elephants are retired, and a temple made of white plaster and mirror glass do not.
The Maeklong Railway Market
The stalls are built on the track itself, awnings out over the rails and baskets of fish set where the sleepers show. Eight times a day a horn sounds up the line, the canopies fold back in about twenty seconds, the train passes close enough to touch, and the whole market unfolds again behind it. Most tours pair it with the canal market at Damnoen Saduak an hour away.
- 1Bangkok: Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 26,723 reviews
- 2The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10,992 reviews
- 3Bangkok: Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 9,547 reviews
The Elephant Sanctuaries
Thailand’s logging ban left thousands of working elephants without a job, and the valleys around Chiang Mai and inland from Phuket filled with the places that took them in. A day is feeding by hand, mud, a wash in the river and a walk at the herd’s pace. Nobody sits on anything. Group sizes are capped, so the good mornings go weeks ahead.
- 1Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 9,160 reviews
- 2Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary & Waterfall Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 5,780 reviews
- 3Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary Feeding Program Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,527 reviews
Wat Rong Khun
An artist began rebuilding a ruined temple in white plaster and mirror chips in 1997 and is still at it, funding the whole thing himself and refusing donations above a set amount. You cross a bridge over a field of reaching hands to get in. The murals inside are contemporary and strange, and photography stops at the door.
- 1Chiang Mai: Chiang Rai Temples, Karen Tribe and Hot Springs★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,401 reviews
- 2Chiang Rai White Temple and Blue Temple Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,366 reviews
- 3Chiang Rai: Guided Highlights Guided Tour with Buffet Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,532 reviews
The days out the whole country queues for.
Every Thai tour we have reviewed →Thailand keeps a handful of days that everybody ends up doing, and mostly for good reason. Here is what they cost and how they differ.
1
Half-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang Mai
Travel from your Chiang Mai hotel to a local market and Smile Organic Farm Cooking School. Choose dishes across curry paste, curry, stir-fry, soup, and spring rolls, then cook at your own station with guides such as Lily, K, Love, or Cici. Vegetarian and vegan menus are available.
From · $29
Read our review →
2
The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Market
from $32
3
From Bangkok: Ayutthaya Temples Guided Tour with Lunch
from $28
4
Bangkok: Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ride
from $25
5
Chiang Mai: Doi Inthanon National Park Eco-Friendly Tour
from $46
6
From Bangkok: Ayutthaya & Ayothaya Floating Market Day Trip
from $48
7
Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary & Waterfall Group Tour
from $50
8
Phuket: Elephant Jungle Sanctuary Ethical Feeding Experience
from $28
Gold leaf, brick ruins and a temple built out of mirrors.
The country keeps its history in three registers: the working temples of the capital, the brick capital that burned in 1767, and the mountain wats you climb a staircase to reach.
Chiang Mai is where the country slows down and starts cooking.
Three hundred temples inside a square moat, a mountain road up to Doi Suthep, and a ring of valleys holding the sanctuaries and the cooking schools. Everything here is a half day, which is why people book four of them.
Every Chiang Mai day out →
The rain does not arrive everywhere at once. Neither does the smoke.
The Andaman side takes the southwest monsoon from roughly May to October, while the Gulf islands stay calm and then get theirs in November and December. In the north, February to April is burning season and the mountain views go flat behind the haze. The answer is the same each time: move coast, or move indoors.
The Andaman coast is a car park for limestone.
Phang Nga Bay, the Phi Phi group, the four islands off Ao Nang and the Similans further north. Phuket and Krabi are the two doors into it, and the only real question is longtail or speedboat.
- 1Krabi: Hong Islands Day Trip by Speedboat with Lunchfrom $43
- 2From Phuket: Phang Nga Bay and Canoeing Tour by Big Boatfrom $53
- 3From Krabi: Phi Phi Islands Speedboat Day Tourfrom $51
Thai day trips, sorted by what they cost.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A lot of the best Thai days come in under the cost of a beachfront dinner.
Temple mornings, market runs, cooking classes, the shorter reef trips and most single tickets.
The full-day standards: island hopping with lunch, sanctuary days, Ayutthaya and the northern loops.
Private guides, chartered boats, liveaboard diving and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Four things you cannot leave until you land.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast on the day. These four run on park seasons, daily caps and dress codes that take no interest in your flight times.
- 01Similan Islands Snorkeling Day Tour from PhuketThe Similan Islands national park shuts for the monsoon, roughly mid-May to mid-October. Outside that window there are no boats at all.
- 02Phuket: Phi Phi Islands and Maya Bay Day Trip with LunchMaya Bay closes every year through August and September for the reef, and even in season the number of people allowed ashore at once is capped.
- 03Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo RaftingSanctuaries cap how many visitors join a session and the morning slots go first. Same-week booking usually means the afternoon or nothing.
- 04Bangkok: Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourThe palace closes early, enforces covered shoulders and knees at the gate, and shuts entirely at short notice for royal ceremonies.
Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, then south to the water.
Bangkok
Ayutthaya
Chiang Mai
Krabi
Phi PhiBy place - the capital, the north, both coasts
By kind of day - boat, temple, kitchen or jungle
Freshly written up.
Keep going back →
Bangkok: A 4 Hours Tuk Tuk Sightseeing Tour Iconic Landmarks
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Bangkok: 2 Temple Tour (Golden Buddha + Marble Temple)
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Bangkok: 2 Hours Grand Palace & Wat Pho Private Tour
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Bangkok: Baiyoke Observation Deck Ticket with Buffet Meal
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Ayutthaya: Colorful Slow Life Bicycle Tour with local guide.
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Ao Nang: Premium 4 Islands Snorkeling Tour by Speedboat
Read our review →
