Thirty-one days, thirty nights, six regions, one country I gave a full month for the first time. Every hotel and every tour below is one I actually booked and actually did. I landed in Bangkok on a Saturday evening in July with nothing planned for the next few hours except finding my hotel and figuring out what my stomach wanted first. By the time I’d checked into the Tarawish and washed the flight off my hands, the heat had softened into something almost comfortable and the city outside was already fully awake, tuk-tuks cutting between food stalls, temple spires catching the last orange light before dark. That was the whole trip in miniature: land, drop the bag, go straight into it. Bangkok from the air, taken from my flight! This is the real route, not a version assembled afterward from research. Every hotel below is one I stayed in. Every tour has the actual link I booked it through. Where I’m recommending something I didn’t personally do, I’ll say so plainly, the same as everywhere else on this site, but for this trip that’s rare. Almost all of this happened exactly as written. 1 Every day of this is lived, not assembled. This isn’t a route built from two separate trips stitched together, it’s one continuous month, Bangkok to Bangkok. 2 Real hotels, real tours, real links. Every booking below is the exact one I made, not a generic suggestion pulled from a listings site. 3 This is a mid-range trip, not a backpacking one. Hotels through this route run roughly $40–$100 a night. If you’re after hostel-budget picks, this isn’t that guide, and I’d rather tell you upfront than waste your time. If you’re short on time, the Thailand hub has shorter versions of this route. This page is the full one, day by day, for anyone actually taking the whole month. The Trip in a Nutshell Trip Highlights at a Glance 🛺A night tuk-tuk tour, straight off the plane 🏯The Grand Palace & Wat Pho, Bangkok’s classic pair 🛕Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, on the river 🚤A Chao Phraya dinner cruise at sunset 🏛️Ayutthaya’s ruins, four centuries of history 🐘An ethical elephant sanctuary, no riding 🛕The White Temple & the Blue Temple, Chiang Rai 🌏The Golden Triangle, three countries from one viewpoint ⛰️Doi Inthanon, Thailand’s highest point 🏘️Mae Kampong, a village built into the hillside 🏝️Koh Nang Yuan’s sandbar, three islands joined by sand 🎬Maya Bay, the real Leonardo DiCaprio beach 🌿A zipline day in Phuket, inland from the beaches 🗿Phang Nga Bay & James Bond Island 🏞️Hong Island’s hidden lagoon ⛵Railay Beach, normally reached by boat 🏖️Koh Kood, the island most first-time routes leave out 🛶A floating market & a train market, the same morning 🍜A Michelin food tour through Chinatown 🌆The Mahanakhon SkyWalk, glass floor and all Nights Per Stop Stop Nights Bangkok (arrival) 3 Chiang Rai 2 Chiang Mai 4 Bangkok (connector) 1 Koh Samui 3 Koh Phangan 2 Phuket 4 Koh Lanta 3 Ao Nang 3 Koh Kood 3 Bangkok (finale) 2 Total 30 How the Month Flows 1 Bangkok & Ayutthaya Days 1–3 2 Chiang Rai & Chiang Mai Days 4–10 3 Gulf Islands Days 11–15 4 Andaman Coast Days 16–25 6 Bangkok Finale Days 29–31 Temples & history → mountains & culture → islands & beaches → the quiet stop → back to the city Day-by-Day at a Glance Days 1–3 Bangkok & Ayutthaya Landed in Bangkok, a night tuk-tuk tour, the Grand Palace, a Chao Phraya dinner cruise, Ayutthaya’s ruins Day 4 Bangkok → Chiang Rai Flew north, resort evening Day 5 Chiang Rai The White Temple, the Blue Temple, the Golden Triangle Day 6 Chiang Rai → Chiang Mai Van transfer south Days 7–9 Chiang Mai Doi Inthanon, Mae Kampong village, an ethical elephant sanctuary Day 10 Chiang Mai → Bangkok Connector flight south Day 11 Bangkok → Koh Samui Flew to the islands Days 12–13 Koh Samui Koh Tao & Koh Nang Yuan snorkelling, an ATV day Day 14 Koh Samui → Koh Phangan Ferry across Day 15 Koh Phangan No plan on purpose Day 16 Koh Phangan → Phuket Ferry & minibus Days 17–19 Phuket Phi Phi & Maya Bay, a zipline day, Phang Nga Bay & James Bond Island Day 20 Phuket → Koh Lanta Transfer south Days 21–22 Koh Lanta Two slow days, a scooter and the coastal road Day 23 Koh Lanta → Ao Nang Railay Beach along the way Days 24–25 Ao Nang Hong Island, the Krabi 4 Islands tour Day 26 Ao Nang → Koh Kood The long crossing east Days 27–28 Koh Kood The hidden Gulf gem, no schedule Day 29 Koh Kood → Bangkok Back to the capital, a Michelin food tour that night Day 30 Bangkok Floating market, train market, a spa evening Day 31 Bangkok Jim Thompson House, the Mahanakhon SkyWalk, flew out that night Bangkok for temples, food and the river. Ayutthaya for the one day of real history on the whole route. Day 1 Land in Bangkok Traditional Thai pavilion inside Suvarnabhumi Airport’s duty-free concourse, Bangkok Landing evening was the easy part, a taxi to the Tarawish, a shower, then straight back out again before jet lag could talk me out of it. A night tuk-tuk tour picked up a couple of hours later, and Bangkok at night from the back of an open three-wheeler is a different city than the one you land into on a map, gold temple gates lit against the dark, food stalls throwing enough smoke and noise into the street that you could smell dinner three stalls before you could see it, markets that don’t fully wake up until the sun’s already gone down. Pro Tip Add breakfast when you book, at every hotel on this route, not just this one. It’s a small amount against the room rate and it’s one of the better parts of a Thailand trip, fresh fruit, real coffee, eggs or khao tom made to order, a proper start before a day of tours rather than a rushed one. Day 2 Full-day Bangkok city tour 🏠 Day trip Grand Palace is a must visit in your Bangkok trip. The city tour covered the ground I’d expected, the Grand Palace’s rooftops stacked in gold and green ceramic tile catching the sun at every angle, Wat Pho’s reclining Buddha too large to take in from any single spot in the room. Wat Arun is the most beautiful temple in Bangkok. A short ferry across the river added Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, its central spire encrusted with broken porcelain that catches the light in a way no photo quite gets right, close enough to climb partway up for a view back across the water at everywhere we’d just come from. What I hadn’t expected was how much the day would soften by evening. The Chao Phraya dinner cruise pulled away from the pier just as the sky turned that particular shade of orange-into-purple Bangkok does so well, and for two hours the whole chaotic, brilliant city slid past the window instead of surrounding you, bridges lit up overhead, temples glowing gold from across the water, the noise of the streets replaced by the sound of the river itself. 📍 Overnight in Bangkok: Tarawish Hotel Day 3 Ayutthaya, full-day tour from Bangkok 🏠 Day trip Ayutthaya is Bangkok’s opposite in almost every way. Where the capital stacks itself vertical and loud, Ayutthaya spreads low and quiet across the plain where it once stood as Siam’s capital for four centuries, brick temple spires broken and sun-bleached, a stone Buddha head grown into the roots of a banyan tree at Wat Mahathat in a way no photograph quite prepares you for. It’s an hour and a half outside Bangkok and it feels like a different country’s worth of centuries, not just a different town. Back in the city by evening for one more night before flying north. 🛕 Day trip from Bangkok Ayutthaya Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, full-day tour Reserve your spot → 📍 Overnight in Bangkok: Tarawish Hotel Mountains, temples and cooler air, a real change of register from anywhere else on this route. Day 4 Fly Bangkok → Chiang Rai 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after I flew from Bangkok to the north of Thailand, Thai Vietjet VZ132, 1:30pm to 2:55pm, and Chiang Rai felt like a decompression from Bangkok before I’d even left the airport, mountains instead of skyline, the air noticeably thinner and cooler the moment the plane doors opened. Resort transfer straight from the airport, nothing scheduled for the evening on purpose. Day 5 Chiang Rai private custom tour 🏠 Day trip Ten hours with a driver, and it covered ground I’d only ever seen in photos: the White Temple, all mirrored glass and bone-white plaster catching light like something underwater rather than built, then the Blue Temple’s deep cobalt interior doing the exact opposite, swallowing light instead of throwing it back. The Black House, Baan Dam, is the pairing most guides skip past, forty-some teak buildings built by the artist Thawan Duchanee across four decades, animal skulls and horns worked directly into the architecture, read locally as the White Temple’s shadow twin, heaven answered by something considerably darker. Chui Fong’s tea terraces climb a whole hillside outside town, rows curving with the slope as far as you can see, a walk through the plantation itself and a cup of the actual leaf grown on it. A hill tribe village rounded out the afternoon, one of several Karen and Akha communities open to visitors in this part of the north, worth going into with more curiosity than camera. The Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet across the Mekong, is more interesting to stand in than to photograph, from the main viewpoint, three countries visible at once and nothing marking the line between them but water. Travelling solo? There’s a solo-friendly version of the same tour here. 📍 Overnight in Chiang Rai: Diamond Park Inn Chiangrai & Resort Day 6 Transfer to Chiang Mai 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after A private van, 11:30am to 2:30pm, three hours south into a different register of the north again, less mountain drama, more old-city calm, the kind of place where the pace drops noticeably the moment you’re inside the moat walls. Day 7 Doi Inthanon private tour 🏠 Day trip Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, from an earlier trip to Chiang Mai, not part of the route documented here. Thailand’s highest point, a full day of cool air and cloud forest that felt almost alpine, twin royal pagodas set into the mist near the summit, waterfalls dropping through jungle so dense the sound reached you before the view did. Worth knowing before you plan your own version of this day: Doi Inthanon and Doi Suthep are two completely different mountains despite the near-identical names. Doi Suthep, the golden temple visible from much of Chiang Mai itself, is the city’s single most iconic landmark, and I didn’t get to it on this trip. If you have the extra half-day, it’s worth building in as its own stop rather than assuming Doi Inthanon covers it. This one’s a private tour, priced and sized for a group of four. Travelling solo or as a pair? A better-priced individual option is here. 📍 Overnight in Chiang Mai: Ban Chang Tong Day 8 Mae Kampong Mountain Village 🏠 Day trip The opposite scale entirely from the day before, a single small village built into a hillside around a stream, wooden houses on stilts, the whole place smelling of woodsmoke and the specific local coffee the village is known for. 📍 Overnight in Chiang Mai: Ban Chang Tong Day 9 Elephant Sanctuary Experience 🏠 Day trip The one day of this whole stretch I’d built real expectations around, and it still outdid them. No riding, no performances, just walking beside these animals through the jungle at their own pace, close enough at one point to feel the air move as one shook water off after a river crossing. Pro Tip If an elephant experience anywhere in Thailand still offers riding, that’s your sign to book somewhere else, but no riding alone doesn’t prove an operation is ethical. Look for places that let the elephants set the pace, skip performances and forced bathing, keep visitor numbers small, and are upfront about where the animals came from. 📍 Overnight in Chiang Mai: Ban Chang Tong Day 10 Fly Chiang Mai → Bangkok 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after Thai AirAsia FD3438, 8:25am to 9:35am, one connector night in the capital before flying south to the islands the next morning. A night train between Chiang Mai and Bangkok is also a real option, closer to twelve hours, sleeper cabins, and a completely different way to watch the country go by than an hour in the air. I flew, purely for speed, but if the train sounds better for your own trip, here’s where to check schedules: Pro Tip A connector night doesn’t have to be a write-off. Bangkok’s malls run late and air-conditioned, an easy way to spend an evening without committing to anything. Siam Paragon and CentralWorld sit right next to each other in the Siam district, both open past 10pm, and ICONSIAM on the river is the more atmospheric choice, an indoor floating market built into the ground floor instead of a standard food court. Snorkelling, easier weather, and the first real slowdown of the month. Day 11 Fly Bangkok → Koh Samui 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after Bangkok Airways PG107, 7:10am to 8:15am, and after two and a half weeks of temples, mountains and elephants, the trip finally exhaled. Cinnamon Beach Villas sat close enough to the water that the first night’s sleep came with the sound of it through an open window. Flights to Koh Samui aren’t the cheapest domestic route in Thailand, Bangkok Airways runs most of them and prices it accordingly, but they’re really the only practical way in. A road-and-ferry route exists on paper, a long drive south followed by a ferry crossing, but it eats most of a day for a saving that rarely justifies it. This is one leg worth just booking the flight. Day 12 Koh Tao & Koh Nang Yuan snorkelling 🏠 Day trip The boat out is a long one, but Koh Nang Yuan is worth every minute of the ride, three islands joined by a single sandbar narrow enough to walk across with water on both sides, the kind of view that photographs well and still undersells the real thing. Snorkelling around Koh Tao itself is excellent too, some of the clearest water on this whole route. If you dive, this is also one of the best and cheapest places in the world to do it, and there’s a dedicated diving day later in this itinerary on Day 15 if you’d rather trade a second Koh Tao trip for that instead of doing both. 📍 Overnight in Koh Samui: Cinnamon Beach Villas Day 13 ATV Adventure & exploring Samui 🏠 Day trip An hour on the ATV, then the rest of the day exploring the other side of the island at whatever pace felt right, the first real slow day since landing. One thing I’d add if I did this stretch again: Koh Samui’s Big Buddha, Wat Phra Yai, the 12-metre golden statue on its own small island off the northeast coast, visible from the air on the way in and probably the single most photographed thing on Samui. I never made it there this trip, the ATV day and the beach won out, but it’s an easy add if you’re basing yourself anywhere near Bophut. 📍 Overnight in Koh Samui: Cinnamon Beach Villas Day 14 Ferry to Koh Phangan 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after Lomprayah high-speed ferry, 10:30am, hotel pickup included. Koh Phangan runs at a noticeably different pace than Samui, quieter beaches, fewer resorts stacked along the shore, obvious the moment the boat docks. This is the island most people picture when they think Full Moon Party, Haad Rin Beach specifically, which is also real enough now to have shown up as a filming location in The White Lotus season 3. Day 15 Koh Phangan, no plan on purpose 🌴 Free day The first full day of the whole month with nothing booked at all, and by this point that felt earned. It went to the beach directly below the resort and not much else, which was exactly the right call after eleven straight days of flights and tours. Pro Tip Catching the Full Moon Party isn’t something you stumble into by accident, it takes real planning around the date. If that’s part of why you’re coming, check the official full moon calendar before you book and make sure your Koh Phangan nights actually land on it. My own stay here didn’t, a quiet beach day worked better for where I was in the month, but the island runs on a completely different rhythm on those nights, louder, more crowded, and priced accordingly, worth knowing either way. If a beach day isn’t enough, a 1-day diving experience is bookable from here too, no previous diving experience required. It runs out to the same waters around Koh Tao as the snorkelling trip on Day 12, so if this sounds better than a second boat day, cut that one and do this instead rather than doubling up on the same stretch of sea. 📍 Overnight in Koh Phangan: Absolute Beachfront Resort Part 4: The Andaman Coast, Phuket, Koh Lanta & Ao Nang Limestone cliffs, boat days, and the country’s most dramatic coastline. Railay Beach is the one stop here I’d tell someone not to skip. Day 16 Ferry & minibus to Phuket 🚐 Full travel day Patong Beach, Phuket, crowded sand and turquoise water backed by green hills Phantip Ferry, 11:30am to 7:30pm, a long travel day that ended with Phuket announcing itself as a bigger, busier island than anywhere so far the moment the ferry docked. Not many people realize Koh Phangan to Phuket is doable in a single day at all, most routes send you through Surat Thani or back via Bangkok, but this direct ferry and minibus combination gets it done, just not quickly. Day 17 Phi Phi, Maya Bay & Khai Islands 🏠 Day trip Approaching Koh Phi Phi Don by boat — one of those sights that stops you mid-sentence Phi Phi is outstandingly beautiful, no exaggeration needed to sell it. Maya Bay is the beach from The Beach, the 2000 Danny Boyle film with Leonardo DiCaprio, and it’s just as striking in person as the film made it look, cliffs dropping straight into water so clear the boat seemed to be floating on nothing. It’s also the most crowded and most expensive stop on the whole route, to my liking anyway, boats queuing for a landing slot, prices well above what the same money buys anywhere else on this trip. I did it as a day trip and didn’t stay overnight because of exactly that. If the crowds bother you less than they bothered me, staying over is a completely reasonable call, plenty of people do it and don’t regret it. 📍 Overnight in Phuket: Diamond Cliff Resort & Spa Day 18 Zipline at Hanuman World 🏠 Day trip A different register entirely from every beach day around it, the one full jungle-canopy day of the whole month, inland from the coast and cooler for it. 📍 Overnight in Phuket: Diamond Cliff Resort & Spa Day 19 Phang Nga Bay & James Bond Island 🏠 Day trip The postcard everyone’s seen without knowing its name, limestone karsts rising straight out of flat green water, James Bond Island itself smaller and stranger in person than the films ever let on. The kind of landscape that makes a boat feel like the only sensible way to be looking at anything. 📍 Overnight in Phuket: Diamond Cliff Resort & Spa Day 20 Transfer to Koh Lanta 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after Long Beach in Koh Lanta: Peaceful, and scenic! After Phuket’s scale, Koh Lanta felt like the trip deliberately slowing itself back down, quieter roads, fewer resorts stacked on top of each other, obvious from the moment the speedboat pulled in. This leg runs by speedboat or ferry rather than road, there’s no bridge connection this far south, so the whole transfer happens on the water. Days 21–22 Koh Lanta, two slow days 🌴 Free day Lighthouse at Koh Lanta National Park. You will get some of the amazing views from here. No fixed plan beyond a rented scooter and the coastal road, and Koh Lanta is one of the easiest places on the whole route to do that, rental is simple, the roads are quiet, and traffic never became the thing I had to think about. It’s an island I’d already written up in more detail elsewhere on this site, worth reading alongside this if you want the fuller picture rather than just the flavor of it here. If you’d rather turn one of these days into something booked, a Koh Rok and Koh Haa snorkelling tour runs from Koh Lanta and covers two of the clearer, less-visited reef spots in this part of the Andaman. 📍 Overnight in Koh Lanta: Rawi Warin Resort and Spa Day 23 Koh Lanta → Ao Nang 🧳 Travel day · time to explore after Longtail boats at golden hour — the kind of image that makes you want to book the flight immediately Ao Nang sits in Krabi province, though it’s a world away from Krabi Town itself, there’s not much real reason to base yourself in the town, almost everything that actually draws people to this stretch of coast happens along Ao Nang instead. And it earns the trip: limestone towers rising straight out of the sea, jungle thick enough on the cliffs above that a dinosaur wouldn’t look out of place walking out of it, stunningly dramatic in a way photos undersell. An afternoon at Railay Beach along the way, normally reached by boat from Ao Nang, worth the short ride for the limestone cliffs alone before checking in at Ao Nang for the night. Day 24 Hong Island 🏠 Day trip Hong means “room” in Thai, named for the lagoon at the island’s centre, a collapsed cave now ringed by limestone cliffs that a longtail boat can only enter through a narrow gap in the rock, timed to the tide. The day started at 9am with snorkelling, then into the lagoon itself, water so still and enclosed it barely feels like the open sea anymore. Hong Island doubles as a working bird’s-nest collection point too, nests harvested straight from the cave walls for bird’s nest soup, one of those small local industries you’d never guess was happening around you until someone points it out. A picnic lunch followed at Koh Lao Lading, foreign visitors mostly just call it Paradise Island since the real name doesn’t roll off the tongue, and the name isn’t an exaggeration. One more stop at Pakbia Island rounded out the afternoon before the boat brought us back into Ao Nang by 3pm. 📍 Overnight in Ao Nang: Centara Ao Nang Beach Resort & Spa Krabi Day 25 Krabi 4 Islands 🏠 Day trip These limestone towers look like they belong in a fantasy novel — not real life Snorkelling by longtail boat, the slower, more traditional way to move between islands, and a good last full day on the Andaman side before the long journey east. The four stops earn the name: Phra Nang Beach first, limestone cliffs and a cave shrine right on the sand, then Chicken Island, named for a rock formation that really does look like a chicken’s head from the water, snorkelling straight off the boat into a reef busy with fish. Between Chicken and the next stop, Thale Waek, “the separated sea”, appears at low tide, a sandbar you can actually walk across with open water on both sides, the kind of thing that photographs like it shouldn’t be real. Poda Island closed out the day, the calmest water of the four and the easiest place to just sit on the beach for a while before heading back. 📍 Overnight in Ao Nang: Centara Ao Nang Beach Resort & Spa Krabi The one stop on this route built entirely around having nothing to do. Day 26 Ao Nang → Koh Kood 🚐 Full travel day Road in Koh Kood – ragged yet beautiful The longest crossing of the whole month, most of Thailand’s width covered in one go. Every other stop on this route, you could find versions of on a dozen other Thailand itineraries. Koh Kood is the one most first-time routes leave off the page entirely. It sits in the eastern Gulf near the Cambodian border, far enough from the usual Samui–Phangan–Tao cluster that it rarely makes the cut, and that distance is exactly what keeps it the way it is. Pro Tip The journey from the Andaman coast to Koh Kood is a real one, most of the country’s width in a single day. Worth knowing going in rather than being surprised by it, and worth treating the arrival evening as a rest day, not a sightseeing one. The other option, flying back to Bangkok first and then on to Koh Kood, costs more but trims that overland-and-ferry day into two considerably shorter ones, worth it if the length of the direct route is the bigger concern. If the direct crossing sounds like too much, there’s a second alternative worth knowing about: flying instead of driving the whole way. There’s no direct flight from Krabi to Trat, the airport nearest Koh Kood, but a short connection through Bangkok gets you there, then a road transfer and a ferry finish the trip from Trat to the island itself. Leg 1 Krabi → Bangkok → Trat No direct flight exists, a short transit through Bangkok connects the two. Leg 2 Trat Airport → Koh Kood A short road transfer to the pier, then a ferry across to the island. Days 27–28 Koh Kood, no schedule 🌴 Free day No big resorts stacked on the coastline, roads dark enough at night that the stars actually show, water clear enough that the boat seemed to hover rather than float above the sand. After Phi Phi and Railay’s very real, very earned crowds, two days on a beach that felt markedly quieter than anywhere else on the trip made this feel like a different country’s version of Thailand. Same as Koh Lanta, a rented scooter is the easiest way to see the island, easy to pick up, easy to ride, and the roads stay quiet enough that it never feels like a decision you have to think twice about. If you’d rather spend one of these days in the water, a snorkelling day trip is bookable from Koh Kood too. Koh Phi Phi The famous one, and it earns it Easy to reach, frequent boats in season Crowded, especially Maya Bay Built up, resorts and bars everywhere Koh Kood Barely on most routes at all A real commitment to reach Quiet, some beaches entirely empty Undeveloped, no big resort chains Ao Phrao Beach Most Beautiful Beach in Koh Kood I’ve written the fuller version of this island separately, what to actually do there, where to stay, the ferry logistics in more detail than fits here. 📍 Overnight in Koh Kood: The Beach Natural Resort One last full day of food, markets and the sights the first stretch didn’t have time for. Day 29 Koh Kood → Bangkok 🚐 Full travel day Koh Kood Express Ferry – you need to take one of them to get in or out of Koh Kood Coming back to Bangkok after two and a half weeks of islands felt disorienting for the first hour, the noise and scale of it rushing back in all at once. The Michelin food tour that evening, through Chinatown, more than fifteen tastings deep by the end of it, was the right way back in, moving between small, specific, exceptional plates rather than one long sit-down meal. Pro Tip Bangkok street food deserves its reputation, and Chinatown’s Yaowarat Road is the single best place to test that for yourself, even outside a booked tour. From around 6pm the whole street turns into an open-air kitchen, wok flames, charcoal grills, steaming baskets, queues that tell you exactly where to eat without needing a guidebook. Jay Fai, the first street food vendor in Thailand to earn a Michelin star, cooks a few streets over, hours-long queue included, but the stalls around her are excellent and a tenth of the wait. Take the MRT to Wat Mangkon station and walk straight into it. Day 30 Floating market, train market & a spa evening 🏠 Day trip The floating market ran on a completely different rhythm than anywhere else on the trip, boats stacked with fruit and cooked food weaving between each other on water barely wider than the boats themselves, vendors calling out and passing food hand to hand between vessels rather than across a counter. The train market attached to the same day is its own kind of strange, stalls packed right up to the rails, awnings folding back like a held breath every time a train comes through and the whole market resets itself within minutes. By evening, after a month of flights, boats, hiking and one very long transfer day, the Thai massage was less an activity than an actual necessity. 📍 Overnight in Bangkok: Asia Hotel Day 31 Jim Thompson House, Paknam Temple & the Mahanakhon SkyWalk 🏠 Day trip In Jim Thompson House Museum, a Thai girl is weaving in traditional Thai attire. The last day tried to fit in everything the trip hadn’t gotten to yet, and mostly managed it. Jim Thompson’s teak house sits improbably calm behind its garden walls a few minutes from some of the city’s busiest streets, silk looms and art collected across a life that ended in genuine mystery. Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen’s soaring 69-metre golden Buddha and the cooking class that followed gave the day a second wind before the last stop of the whole month: the Mahanakhon SkyWalk, glass floor included, the entire month’s route laid out somewhere below in a city that had felt enormous on day one and, by then, felt more like something I understood the shape of. Flight out that night. My flight was late enough for a full last day to work without any real risk. If yours leaves earlier in the evening, move the cooking class or the SkyWalk to Day 30 instead and keep Day 31 lighter, rather than gambling a day this packed against an international departure. This post contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Every hotel and tour listed on this page is one I actually paid for and used. Accommodation is the one number I can give you with real confidence, everything else on this route varies too much by which tours you actually book to put a single figure on. Category Estimated total Notes Accommodation $1,200–$3,000 30 nights at $40–$100/night, the real range across all 10 hotels on this route Domestic flights Varies 3 flights: Bangkok–Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai–Bangkok, Bangkok–Koh Samui Ferries & transfers Varies 7 legs, from short island hops to the long Ao Nang–Koh Kood crossing Tours & activities Varies 20 bookings across the month, from a half-day elephant sanctuary visit to a full-day reef boat trip Food Varies Street food most days, one Michelin tasting tour in Bangkok The accommodation figure is real, calculated directly from the nightly range and night count on this page. The other rows need actual receipts to fill in properly rather than industry-average guesses, worth adding once those numbers are in hand. 📋 Check the visa rules before you book I used the standard 60-day visa exemption for this trip, in place since 2024. That scheme is now being withdrawn, Cabinet-approved and formally signed into Ministry of Interior notifications in August 2026, taking legal effect 15 days after Royal Gazette publication. Once it’s in force, most previously-eligible nationalities move to 30 days, some to 15, a few to Visa on Arrival only, and some lose the exemption scheme entirely. A trip this length is exactly the problem case: 31 days still leaves zero margin under a 30-day exemption. Check the official current rule for your specific passport and travel date, this is a real moving target, not something to trust from a blog post written months before your trip. If you need the full month and your passport is affected, look into the Tourist Visa (TR), applied for in advance, currently a longer stay than the incoming exemption, though visa terms can change too, so confirm the current option through an official Thai source rather than trusting a fixed number here. 🌦️ Three seasons, not two I did this route in July, and it’s easy to assume “Andaman coast” and “Gulf coast” as the only two seasonal zones, but Koh Kood breaks that split. It sits on the eastern Gulf, exposed to the same southwest monsoon as the Andaman side, so it was wet season there too, not the better window Koh Samui and Koh Phangan were in. Three zones in practice: the Andaman coast, wet roughly May–October; Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, which run on a different calendar and stay drier through much of that same stretch; and Koh Chang and Koh Kood, which follow the Andaman’s timing despite sitting in the Gulf. Most guides assume a November–February trip and skip this entirely. If you’re travelling outside the dry season, it’s worth checking which of these three your specific stops fall into, not just picking a coast. ✈️ Bangkok has two airports Bangkok has two airports, Suvarnabhumi (BKK) and Don Mueang (DMK). Which one you use depends on the airline and route, not a simple north/south rule, and that can shift over time. Check the actual airport on your ticket before booking a hotel or a transfer, rather than assuming. 🚐 How this route actually moves Domestic flights for the long jumps, 12Go Asia for vans and ferries between everything else, Grab or tuk-tuks within cities. No rental car anywhere on this route, though if you’d rather set your own pace on a piece of it, particularly a slower stretch like Koh Lanta or the north, a rental is a real option, just not one I used. 🛕 Cover shoulders and knees at temples Every temple on this route, the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Ayutthaya, the White and Blue Temples, enforces a real dress code. A light long-sleeve layer and something to cover your knees earns its space in the bag many times over. 🧳 Pack for humidity, not just heat Lightweight, quick-dry clothing does more work than anything else on a month this long. A light rain layer earns its place in July especially, and temple-appropriate coverage doubles as protection from the sun on the boat days. 💧 Don’t drink the tap water Tap water in Thailand isn’t safe to drink straight, but bottled water is cheap and sold everywhere, corner shops, 7-Elevens, hotel lobbies. Most hotels on this route left a couple of free bottles in the room each day, and a refillable bottle plus the occasional big bottle from a 7-Eleven covered the rest. 🔌 Bring the right adapter Thailand runs on 220V, and sockets accept types A, B, C and O, most hotel outlets are hybrid and take all four without needing anything special. A universal travel adapter covers it, and it’s worth packing before you land rather than hunting for one once you’re here. Pharmacies are everywhere, easy to spot by the green cross, and sell plenty over the counter that would need a prescription elsewhere. For anything more serious, private hospitals in Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Koh Samui are excellent and well used to treating travellers, though not cheap without insurance, which is exactly why it’s worth having for a trip this long. Is 1 month enough for Thailand? More than enough to do it properly rather than rushed. This route covers Bangkok, the north, both coasts, and one island almost nobody else visits, at a pace that never required back-to-back travel days more than once or twice. You could easily spend longer, but a month is enough to stop feeling like you’re racing the clock. How much does 1 month in Thailand cost? Accommodation alone runs $1,200–$3,000 across the month at this pace and this hotel tier, $40–$100 a night, mid-range, not backpacker. Flights, ferries, tours and food add a meaningful amount on top of that, and how much depends heavily on which of the tours in this itinerary you actually book. Do I need a visa for a 31-day Thailand trip? Possibly. The short version: Thailand’s exemption scheme is mid-change, and a 31-day trip is exactly long enough to fall on the wrong side of it depending on your passport and travel date. The full detail, what’s changing, when, and what to do about it, is in the Practical Tips section above. Worth reading before you book, not after. Andaman coast or Gulf coast? Depends on when you’re going, and it’s actually three zones once you factor in Koh Kood, not the usual two. The “Three seasons, not two” card in Practical Tips above breaks down exactly which stops fall into which window. This route touched all three and worked, but it meant accepting wet season on part of the trip rather than chasing dry weather everywhere. Is Koh Kood worth the journey? Yes, and it’s the one stop on this route I’d tell someone not to skip if they’re deciding what to cut. It’s a long, real commitment of a crossing to get there, but it’s also the one place on the whole month that felt like nobody else had found it yet. What’s the best time of year for this itinerary? Dry season, November to April, for the most reliable weather on both coasts at once. I did this route in July, deep in the Andaman coast’s wet season, and it didn’t stop a single tour, but it’s worth going in with clear eyes about which half of the country is in its better window when you travel. North first, or islands first? North first is the better order, and it’s the order this route follows. Culture and altitude before beach heat, cooler mountain air while you’re still adjusting, then the islands as the trip winds down rather than the other way around. Where’s the best place to exchange money? Bangkok, and it’s not close. SuperRich, the orange and green branches are separate competing companies, not two locations of the same one, clusters around the Ratchadamri and Ratchaprasong area, and Vasu Exchange near Nana BTS on Sukhumvit both consistently post better rates than anywhere else on this route. Skip the airport counters entirely, they’re reliably the worst rates in the country, and bring your actual passport, not a photo of it, licensed exchanges require the original. Change what you’ll need for the islands and the north while you’re still in Bangkok on Day 1 or 2, rather than hunting for a fair rate once you’re away from the capital. Thirty-one days, six regions, one country that felt completely different depending on which week you asked me about. Bangkok’s noise and Chiang Rai’s quiet mountains and Koh Kood’s empty beaches don’t feel like they belong to the same trip, and that’s exactly why the full month works better than any shorter version could, there’s room for all of it to actually register rather than blur into a highlight reel. If you’re building your own version of this, protect the north and Koh Kood first, they’re the two stretches I’d be most reluctant to cut, but that’s my own priority, not necessarily yours. What you’d actually cut depends on what you’re building the trip around: If you’re prioritizing… Keep Cut first Culture and food Bangkok, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai One or both southern coasts Beaches and snorkelling Koh Samui/Koh Phangan or Krabi/Koh Lanta Chiang Rai, Mae Kampong, one southern coast Quiet islands over busy ones Koh Lanta and Koh Kood Phuket, the Phi Phi day tour, one Gulf island First-time highlights Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Krabi or Phuket Koh Kood and the Gulf islands Fewer transfers Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Koh Samui, one direct flight each Chiang Rai, and the island-hopping chain after Samui, Koh Phangan through Koh Kood Every guide on A Walk in the World is written to help you have the best possible trip. I only recommend hotels, tours, and experiences I’d choose myself, and where I haven’t personally done something, I’ve said so plainly rather than blurring the line. This post contains affiliate links, if you book through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Every hotel and every tour on this page is one I actually paid for and used. Source link Post navigation Quito Travel Guide: History, Culture & Honest Safety Tips Best Hiking Trails and Routes in Europe: Personally Tested Day Hikes and Treks