Travel guides, route ideas, islands, stays and useful places from Thailand, including Phuket, Bangkok, Chiang Mai and other destinations.
Patong, Kata and Karon are three of Phuket’s most popular beach areas. They’re all on the island’s west coast, but staying in each one can feel like a completely different holiday. Patong has the biggest concentration of nightlife, shopping, restaurants and budget accommodation. Kata offers a beautiful bay, a lively but more relaxed resort atmosphere…
Planning a holiday in Phuket involves more than booking a flight, choosing a hotel and throwing a swimsuit into your suitcase. There are entry requirements to check, documents to prepare, transport decisions to make and a few Thailand-specific rules that are easy to overlook. One of the biggest mistakes is leaving everything until the week…
Want to visit a small island near Phuket without joining a group tour? Or take a ferry to Phi Phi, Koh Lanta or Krabi and continue your holiday independently? The first thing you need to know is that Phuket doesn’t have one main departure point for every boat. A ferry to Phi Phi, a public…
Getting around Phuket can be surprisingly expensive, especially if you rely on taxis for every short journey. But renting a scooter isn’t your only alternative. During my time living in Phuket, I used practically every type of transport available on the island: Grab, Bolt, inDrive, motorbike taxis, Phuket Smart Bus, traditional blue songthaews, the old…
Packing for Phuket sounds simple. It’s a tropical island, so throw a few swimsuits, T-shirts and sandals into your suitcase, right? That works until you find yourself on a speedboat with a soaking-wet bag, trying to visit a temple in beachwear, or scratching insect bites that refuse to heal. I’ve spent a lot of time…
I usually book my Phuket airport transfers in advance. After a long flight with bags, I like being able to walk out, find the sign with my name and wait ten minutes for the driver to bring the car. The extra cost over other car options has often been small enough for me, and choosing…
Your travel month matters most when comparing Thailand vs Vietnam vs Malaysia for a beach holiday, because their coasts have different dry seasons. For December to March, the strong options are Thailand’s Andaman coast, Langkawi, Phu Quoc and, from January, Nha Trang. For June to August, they are Thailand’s Gulf islands, Malaysia’s east-coast islands, Da…
Phuket vs Krabi vs Koh Samui is a choice between three different beach holidays. Phuket is the big, busy island: a long run of sandy bays, a late-night strip in Patong and calmer beaches in the north. Krabi is limestone country on the mainland, where Ao Nang and Railay sit among karst cliffs and the…
On paper, Phu Quoc vs Phuket looks like a contest between twins: two tropical islands of about the same size, long west-facing beaches, sunsets over the sea, and a marketing line that calls Phu Quoc the next Phuket. On the ground they offer different holidays. Phuket is a busy, well-connected island of separate beach towns,…
Thailand vs Vietnam for first-time visitors is less about travel difficulty than about the days each country offers. Thailand pairs temple-and-market days in Bangkok with a cooler, slower north around Chiang Mai and limestone islands reached by longtail boat. Vietnam moves from the karst islands of Ha Long Bay to the imperial monuments of Hue,…