If you are lucky enough to be travelling to Thailand in the next few weeks or months, you will likely be trying to find things to add to your itinerary. It can be quite overwhelming when you don’t know an awful lot about the destination you are heading to, so doing research beforehand is a sensible choice. The great thing about being prepared is that you are more likely to stumble across ways to have a more authentic experience on your holiday, rather than following all of the other tourists to the same places.
How to plan a trip to Thailand
There are some brilliant resources online that will help you to plan your trip to a better degree, so you should continue reading this blog post to find out more about them. There is no doubt that your trip will be of a better quality than it if you just went along and stayed in the big resorts!
Lonely Planet
Your first port of call should be the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand which will inspire you something rotten. There are so many sights listed that you could pick all of the ones you are interested in and then figure out how to travel in between them all – a real adventure! The great thing about Lonely Planet is they tell you what is a tourist trap, and what isn’t. That way you will know what to expect when you rock up to your various destinations. If you click on certain sights and activities, it will show you their location on a map. There is an option there to show interesting places nearby, meaning you can pack in a lot of different things in a small geographical area.
TripAdvisor
There may be more about the touristy places on TripAdvisor, but there are some interesting snippets of information too. On the 4,216 Things to do in Thailand page, you can access up to date information about the weather, visa requirements, all alongside ratings from other travellers. There will be recommendation about hotels where you could stay, and you will have the chance to delve deeper into the site to find specific towns and cities you are visiting. For example you could read the guide about Bangkok off the beaten path, which could be ideal if you are spending time in the city.
Other resources
Of course if you look hard enough you will find plenty of other websites and travel blogs that could be of great help to you. However another one that is worth pointing your attention to is withlocals.com where you can actually arrange private tours with Thailand locals. This means you won’t be subscribing to a tour full of tourists looking for cheap thrills, but will be given the opportunity to see some hidden gems wherever you are staying. There are many benefits to this as you will have a completely unique holiday that you will want to shout about when you get home.
Have you been to Thailand? What did you use as your resources on how to plan a trip to Thailand?