Thank you !! That’s incredibly helpful!

Hey Tala! Thailand is really great to travel by yourself (male or female) as it’s safe and relatively easy. If it puts your mind at ease you could maybe book a short organized tour at the start of your trip, just to get used to things. But I don’t recommend booking a big organized tour for your whole trip, especially not if you’re going on a gap year. You’ll save a lot of money doing it yourself and it’s easy to meet people (including other solo female travelers) if you stay in hostels.

I remember way back when I first went solo to Thailand it was a bit scary for the first few days, just because everything was still unfamiliar, but then I got the hang of it and was loving it. Bangkok is a bit chaotic, but I felt much happier when I got to Chiang Mai, which is more relaxed and a lot of fun. You might benefit a lot from my book which goes into this exact question in a lot more detail 🙂

I’m planning on visiting Thailand as the 1st stop in my Gap year, I was wondering if you had any advice about where you recommend I should take a look at, I am slightly cautious as I will be a woman travelling alone so I’m not sure what you think is ok to do alone, or if it would be a good idea to book some guided tours or anything? Any advice you or anyone else reading this would be 100% welcome 🙂

Thanks,
Tala

I’d suggest maybe 1 week in Chiang Mai and around, and 1 week on the coast such as in Krabi or Koh Lanta. Could also consider Kanchanaburi near Bangkok.

There are definitely loads of transportation options everywhere. With a family it’s probably easiest to get a cheap local taxi. Small motorbikes can also be rented virtually anywhere and any places where tourists go will have small travel agencies that can tour you around the local sights. So don’t worry about this 🙂

My husband and I are taking our 2 boys, 15 and 17 Mar 2023 for 2 weeks. We will land in Bangkok and go from there. I know 2 weeks isn’t a long period of time. What places would you recommend us to visit? Also, I am a bit nervous about once we get to each place how we would get around that town. Are there bike and motorcycles every where ?

Hey Kieren. No, a visa-on-arrival can only be extended at immigration for another 7 days, if my memory serves correctly. Alternatively, you could cross the border somewhere (e.g. into Laos or Vietnam) and come straight back, giving you another 15 days in Thailand. Or you can get out of the country and fly back to Thailand, giving you another 30-day VOA.

If you just want to stay more than 30 days in Thailand without any such maneuvering, you might want to get a proper advance visa that can be extended.

You can use this to prebook your tickets. It is set to get to koh samui but you can change the search as you want…
The overnight train is great to option to save day time and a hotel night 😉 https://kohplanner.com/how-to-get-to-koh-samui

You can book that easily on this site 🙂