Thailand is a country that we’ve visited many, many times. We’ve spent close to four months there across various trips and so I thought I’d share with you some of what we consider to be Thailand’s travel highlights. The best places to go and the best things to do. There’s a lot of highlights for me, as it’s such an awesome country, but I’ll try to narrow it down to the best stuff we’ve done.
For a bit of background, back in the late 90’s, Rob and I backpacked our way around the country for a few weeks with not much more than our Lonely Planet guidebook and a sense of adventure – not even a smart phone! Can you imagine! In more recent years, we’ve taken three extended holidays to Thailand as a family, with our two children, totaling about 12 weeks of travel. We’ve explored the country from top to bottom – from the Golden Triangle in the North to Koh Lanta in the South.
To me, Thailand is the easiest country in South East Asia to travel now that we have children. Thai food is pretty accessible, the Thai people love kids and give them lots of attention, entertainment is a little more laid on than some other South East Asian countries, and it’s easy to find amazing beaches and pools for relaxing after the sightseeing. Here’s our top spots;
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is my favourite Asian city. Big enough to have lots going on but still has that small town, intimate vibe and easy to walk around to explore the sights – particularly the buddhist temples. Our favourite was the Elephant temple before dawn, when it’s nice and quiet. But there are heaps of beautiful temples dotted around within the ancient city walls. If I’m honest, probably our least favourite was Wat Phra That Doi Suthep – the one on most people’s bucket list and on the itinerary of all the tours. For me, it’s just too busy there to enjoy and we much more enjoyed just ambling around the old town finding our own little jems.
The other big draw for me in Chiang Mai is the food. From rustic Khao Soi noodle houses to modern, healthy eateries – Chiang Mai has lots on offer. Some of our favourite places to eat were Cat House for breakfast, Khao Soi Khun Yai, My Secret Cafe, the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar and the plant based restaurant based at Green Tiger Hotel.
The cooking classes are not to be missed also. Back when we were backpacking we did a 3 day course at Chiang Mai foodie institution Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School – https://www.facebook.com/CMTCS1993/ This school has been open for over 30 years and has an awesome reputation. More recently we did an awesome half day course with our kids at Siam Rice cooking school on the outskirts of the city https://www.facebook.com/SiamGardenChiangMai/
A great introduction to the food of Northern Thailand was with Chiang Mai Street Food Tours – where we did and evening tour and ate until we burst. The tour took us to the night market on the north side of town and also the Muslim food market in the south. We sampled so many local delicacies – Chiang Mai sausage, Soy Pork and coconut cakes to name a few, and we literally were dropped back at our hotel the most full I’ve ever been.
Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle
Chiang Rai is in northern Thailand and just a couple of hours drive from Chiang Mai. We drove across in our hire car and spent a fun couple of days exploring the sites. Wat Rong Khun/White temple was first on the list, of course. It was busy but still beautiful to visit and very different from the many, many other Thai temples that we’ve seen.
My favourite night market in Thailand was the one at Chiang Rai too, and we’ve done a lot of night markets! They had the usual rip off designer gear, which we largely avoided, but also lots of local handicrafts too and good quality jewellery. Lots of lovely little street food and drink stalls too meant that this was a fun night out for the whole family.
Out of Chiang Rai, we did a day up to Doi Mae Salong too, originally settled by Chinese refugees. This cute little mountain village is surrounded by tea plantations which do tours and tastings and worth a day trip. From here it was up to the Golden Triangle with an overnight stay in Chiang Saen. An interesting couple of hours was spent in the opium museum. https://www.tourismthailand.org/Attraction/the-hall-of-opium-golden-triangle-park
Followed by lunch at the most spectacular Thai restaurant – Sala Mae Nam. With views from the terrace over to Laos, Myanmar and the Mekong River, and also over the local elephant park, this is one of our most memorable lunches ever. https://www.anantara.com/en/golden-triangle-chiang-rai/restaurants/elephant-bar-and-opium-terrace
Elephant Encounter
On our first trip to Thailand with our children, something we were really keen to do was an ethical elephant encounter. We wanted to see the elephants in as natural a habitat as possible and being well looked after. We chose Elephant Haven in Kanchanaburi, which is affiliated with the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, which had a great reputation and reviews. Our morning tour started with us preparing rice balls, bamboo and watermelon for the elephants and then we took a walk with them through the forest. It was a proper once in a lifetime experience. We loved it, the kids loved it and I would definitely recommend it. https://elephanthaventhailand.org
Cycling around Sukhothai
Another of Thailand’s travel highlights for us was our few days in Sukothai. Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand in the 13th century and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. We hired bikes in order to explore the ancient ruins and temples of this historical city. We were keen to go at our own pace, so opted for a self-guided trip, and found that a map and plenty of water was all we needed to see the sites. Plus a couple of snack and ice cream stops.
It’s 70 square kilometres though so we were never going to get around all of it, but in 4 or 5 hours we saw lots of the main sites at a very leisurely pace. It was a great outdoor activity to do as a family – a bit of exercise, a bit of culture. Perfect.
Ramayana Water Park, Pattaya
At the other end of the scale from all the cultural sites, our holidays also have to have a good mix of pure out and out fun and entertainment. We’ve visited a few water parks in Thailand and elsewhere and this is our favourite one by far. I can see why it’s rated the #1 Water Park in Thailand on Tripadvisor.
With 26 water slides for the family to enjoy, a couple of aquaparks for the younger kids, a huge wave pool, a lazy river, foam party pool and an activity pool with volleyball and an over-pool ninja course, this water park was entertainment for the whole day. We spent a whole day there from open until close and it still wasn’t enough. We had to go back a second time as it had been so much fun. We hired a cabana for the days we spent here so we had a base for some relaxing and ordering food when we weren’t bombing down the slides. https://www.ramayanawaterpark.com/our-park/
Koh Lanta
We’ve explored quite a few of Thailand’s islands – Samui, Pha Ngan, Phuket, Chang, Lanta and Phayam. Laid back Koh Lanta, for me, has it all. It was easy to get there ourselves in our hire car on the car ferry, and an easy island to get around as a family of four. There were lots of awesome, wide sandy beaches to explore, getting more beautiful and secluded the further south you travel. The island has amazing restaurants, which is always important for us, and plenty of activities as well.
We stayed at a large apartment with a shared pool just south of Long beach/Phra Ae. This 4km stretch of sand, lined with bars and restaurants, was our go-to spot every evening to watch the sunset with a cocktail, and then grab dinner and a game of pool with the kids.
Lanta Old town was a super quaint little place to browse around the shops and restaurants for an afternoon, and had an awesome cooking school too – Cooking with Mon. We had a lovely lunch in one of the stilted restaurants over the water. Also on the East of the island is where you can hire kayaks or take a boat trip to explore the mangrove forests. We opted for self-propulsion and navigated our way through the beautiful scenery for a couple of hours. Lots of fun for everyone and we even saw monkeys swimming in the water!
On Saturday night on the island, we went to watch an evening of Muay Thai at Khlong Dao stadium. Afterwards we were inspired to try it out ourselves with a couple of classes later in the week, which was a good workout after all the sunset cocktails but felt like a bit of a cultural experience too.
We loved Koh Lanta so much that after a week there, we hadn’t had enough and decided to extend our stay for another three days. Our trip to Koh Lanta was pre-Covid, so hopefully all the awesome places we came across have survived, as we’d love to head there another time.
Koh Phayam
After having explored a few of the popular islands in Thailand, we opted for something a bit more off the beaten track with a three night visit to Koh Phayam. This was more along the lines of how we experienced Koh Pha Ngan back in the ‘90s when we were backpacking. No resorts, no beaches full of sunloungers, no cars even. It was bliss!
We hired two mopeds to get us around the island and spent our days beach hopping, swimming and hunting out the best places to eat on the island. One of our favourites was the Hippie Bar, constructed totally out of driftwood. The kids loved their roti station and we loved having a beer while the sun set into the sea. https://www.facebook.com/HippyBarKohPhayam/
We stayed at the Phayamas Private Beach resort, which wasn’t really a resort as you’d know it but had a pool, a small beach and an onsite restaurant. They were amazing at arranging our transport to and from the island and the mopeds for us and definitely was a great place to stay. https://www.phayamas.com/
Koh Phayam was a place to totally unwind and escape for a few days. Total relaxation. I actually didn’t want to leave and next time will stay for longer.
Ayuthaya
Ayuthaya is the ancient capital of Thailand and an UNESCO world heritage site. It’s just north of Bangkok and easily accessible and gives you that big hit of Thai culture. We spent a couple of days here wandering around the stunning temple ruins such as Wat Mahathat, Wat Phra Si Sanphet and Wai Chaiwatthanaram. We just loved the vibe of the town – super chill, great food and lots of sites to see. Definitely worth a visit for a day or two.
We stayed at the Kantary Hotel just on the outskirts of town. We had an awesome spacious two bedroom apartment and took advantage of the rooftop pool with its views over the city. https://www.kantaryhotel-ayutthaya.com/
Krabi
The Krabi area has tons on offer and we were keen to explore for several days. We based ourselves in Ao Nang because of the abundance of accommodation options available and rented our own villa with a private pool. The town of Ao Nang was not so much our scene. It’s pretty tacky, to be honest, and on our first night there we were drawing parallels with Benidorm. However, our villa was amazing and it was easy to travel around the area in our hire car. There’s a huge selection of restaurants too. Maison de Paris had the most amazing croissants and coffee for breakfast and Ao Nang is where I’ve had the best pizza of my life – at Johnny’s Pizza. So good we ate there twice. https://www.facebook.com/francomocci196/
Laid back Krabi town itself has much more character than Ao Nang, with an awesome night market and some great places to eat, so that was a big draw for us and good to head for dinner.
One thing on our wish list was exploring Railay Beach, which was super fun. It was pretty busy with tourists when we went but we still easily hired kayaks to explore the limestone karst scenery out at sea, and grabbed a bite to eat in the village.
Probably my favourite thing we did in the area was a visit to Tiger Cave temple. There’s a lot of stairs to get to it, but the views of the surrounding scenery were spectacular and so worth it. Be warned that there are some cheeky monkeys on your way up. There are signs to say don’t take food up with you in your bag as the monkeys will be drawn to it but, of course, some tourists ahead of us had taken some fruit anyway and one of them was bitten – the tourist, not the fruit!
Muay Thai
When in Thailand you really must try a Muay Thai class – one of Thailand’s travel highlights. It’s a great way to get in some exercise while on holiday and burn off some of those Chang beers. Our favourite was Dang Muay Thai gym in Chiang Mai. They ran an early class at 8.30am that you can join in on for just a 350THB fee, plus a couple of classes run a little later in the day if you’re not such an early bird. They managed to cater to our whole family from Rob, who’s a Tae Kwon Do black belt so has some reasonable martial arts skills already, to me, who’s big into fitness but has absolutely no boxing skills whatsoever, to our younger kids who were 7 and 9 at the time. The English instruction was great and we all felt we picked up a few of the skills and gave it a bit of a go.
You can find classes all over the country and they’re often used to catering to tourists.
We also went along to watch the pros at a couple of the Muay Thai boxing stadiums – the Tha Phae Boxing Stadium in Chiang Mai and the stadium on Koh Chang. Always a fun night out with a mix of locals and tourists, cheap beer and snacks, and lots of entertainment. https://www.muaythaistadium.com/chiang-mai
Cooking School
Every holiday has to involve cooking school for us no matter what country we’re in. We love the classes that are hands-on and where we learn the local tips, making the pastes and dishes from scratch and get to see where and how to buy the ingredients at the market. And even when you’ve done a few classes, and already made the pad thai and green chicken curry, the good schools out there understand that and have a few local specialities and additional choices that you can learn to make that take you beyond the basics. We’ve learnt to cook the local dishes in Cambodia, Vietnam and a few places in Thailand but I think my favourite was Cooking with Mon on Koh Lanta. He’s a big personality, loves what he does and really instilled his passion for cooking in us. https://www.cookingwithmon.com/ You also normally get to take home a cooking book with the recipes in for all the dishes you’ve been making which makes an awesome holiday souvenir.
This has really just scratched the surface of Thailand’s travel highlights and our awesome travel experiences in Thailand – a country that has so much to offer and is an easy introduction to South East Asia. Thailand really does cater to any type of tourist whether you’re looking for a Phuket resort holiday, a luxe Koh Samui getaway, a trek through the Northern tribe villages with your backpack, living up the nightlife in Bangkok, or a fun family beach trip. We’ll definitely be back for more.
