Discover the country of smiles, Thailand [Complete 15-days itinerary]
Thailand, one of the must visit places of Asia. This trip was our first contact with the Asian continent and with that different culture. And we know the difficult it can be to organize a trip to a country with that many important points to see and with a time limitation (holidays in this case), so that’s why we bring you this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand.
Thailand has everything you would like to find in a trip. Big cities, adventure, good gastronomy, incredible beaches and nature, so we are sure that every person that visits the country would want to go back. In our case, we decided to travel for 15 days in the country, with a planned route and with the advantages and disadvantages that we are going to explain you below.
Let’s go!
First day of this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand started, as it can’t be different, in the capital and main city, Bangkok. This is a huge city of 10M of personas and a metropolitan area of 14M and many points of interest.
After 14 hours of flight from Barcelona, we reached the hotel at midday, tired for the journey and the time difference. We were sleeping at the Furama Silom Hotel, a 4-star hotel with a reasonable price and near the city center. From this point, we had many options to move in the city. The same afternoon of the arrival, we started visiting the city in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
Chinatown is in the Samphathawong area. From our hotel, we took the bus number 1 to stop in the Yaek Song Wat stop, in the door of Chinatown. This area of the city, as many you can see in Bangkok, is a very commercial area, with many chinese street food places so the ideal approach in this area is to walk around the streets and get lost in the multiple places and stores it has.
Day 2: Bangkok - Grand Palace and Wat Pho
The second day in Bangkok was dedicated to visit the main palaces of the city. To reach them from our hotel, we took a taxi boat. At this point we were ripped for the first time in the trip. We wanted to take the official taxi bus of the city and when we reached the place a group of people indicated us where to take the pass to go into the boat. As we didn’t check the information in the Internet before (big error), they charged us more money and we went in a more exclusive boat but also more expensive. To avoid that, here you have the official taxi boats website with the schedule and prices.
Our first stop was the Bangkok’s Great Palace. This is a building complex inaugurated in the 1782 and that served as the royal residence for more than 200 years. The main visits inside the Palace are the Emerald Buda Temple, Chakri Maha Prasat and Dusi Maha Prasat.
It’s a very touristic place, so you will see lots of people visiting the palace mainly in the high season, so our recommendation for this visit is to get up early and go when the doors open. The price is 500 THB (14 €) and you can buy in the tickets box office or in the official Royal Palace website. The schedule is 8.30 to 15.50.
After this visit, we went to Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha temple. This temple is near the Great Palace, so if you have time is recommendable to visit both in the same day. It’s a curious temple as it has the big reclining Buddha and it has some patios with cool structures. The price is 5-6 euros and the schedule is 8-17h.
After the whole day visiting temples, we spent the afternoon walking and we went to Khao San Road, the backpackers street. This is a very crowded street with lots of tourists and bars / pubs where you can have a great time. That’s the reason why it’s also a must visit in this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand.
Day 3: Bangkok - Chatuchak market and MBK Center
In the third day of this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand, we went to more commercial areas as it’s a main and key point to understand Bangkok.
The Chatuchak market is the biggest and most famous of Thailand and one of the biggest markets in the world. It just opens on the weekend, so if you want to visit it, you have to be in the city on the weekend. It has 27 different sections, so the best way of visiting it is to get lost in the different streets and stores. In our opinion, it is worth to visit as the markets are a very important concept in this country and, being the most important one, you can understand better the thai culture.
After visiting Chatuchak in the morning and lunching there, we went to the MBK Center, one of the most important places of counterfeits and haggling. It is a big mall with many floors where you will find a great offer of counterfeits. It’s true that in the last years, the thai government is controlling that, but when we were there (2018) this business was still alive.
Finally, we ended the day walking in one of the most famous parks in the city, the Lumphini park. It’s a big green area inside this chaotic city that gives you a little bit of piece inside the overwhelming Bangkok. It has a lake and you can visit it from 5 am to 21 for free.
Day 4 - Ayutthaya
The fourth day of the trip was fully dedicated to visit the historical park of Ayutthaya. This is a must visit in your trip to Thailand and one of the key points on our complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand.
Ayutthaya is a set of temples and ancient palaces located 80km from Bangkok and considered Human Patrimony.
Those are ruins of an ancient civilization that dominated the Asian Southeast between the XIV y XVII centuries. The main points of this place are the Wat Chai Watanaram, Wat Mahatat (famous temple with Buddha’s head in a tree), Wat Prasisanphet, Wat Lokayasutharam and Wat Yai Chai Mongkol.
In order to visit this place you can do it on your own or booking a guided tour. We chose the second option as it was a place outside Bangkok and knowing the chaotic traffic of Bangkok we prefer to with local people. Our tour was booked in GetYourGuide of 1 complete day in Ayutthaya that guided you through the different key points with a private driver. We really recommend to do it like this, it was awesome!
They left us in the hotel in the afternoon, moment that we used to rest as we had to travel next day to Chiang Mai.
Day 5: Chiang Mai
Next stop in our complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand is one of our favorites, Chiang Mai. It’s the biggest city in the north of the country and it’s located in a mountain region, so it’s ideal to spend some days trekking and enjoying the nature. In this city we saw lots of travelers so it’s a really attractive place to spend some days in.
This city is in the north of the country and to reach it from Bangkok is recommended to take a local flight. In our case, we flew with Nok Air and it took us one hour from Bangkok’s airport.
After landing in Chiang Mai in the morning, we went to our hotel in the city centre. The hotel was the Kate and Hasu Boutique Chiang Mai and it was amazing due to the kindness of the people working there.
After leaving the things in the room, we walked around the hotel and the streets of the centre of the city. It’s something we use to do to know where we are, what interesting things are near our hotel and see the environment that the city has. Moreover, you also can find some small local temples that are worth to visit as they are far from the intense experience in Bangkok temples.
After having lunch and res, we decided to visit the famous Night City Market (Chiang Mai Night Bazaar). It’s a small market but very charm and nice that it’s just active from 18h to 24h. It’s recommended also to go to Ploen Ruedee Night Market as it’s a foodtruck market with different types of food.
Day 6: Chiang Mai - Elephant Jungle Sanctuary and Doi Suthep
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary
Our second day in Chiang Mai, started very early in the morning as we had a visit to one of the elephant sanctuaries of the region. We booked this activity directly in the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary website, that some friends recommended us as they were day years ago. This is a half day activity as the place is far from Chiang Mai and they drive you in a jeep to the jungle.
We decided to visit it as they strongly recommended that to us and it had very good references due to the kindness with the animals and the task they were doing there. The way they treated the animals and their conditions were good, we didn’t see any strange behavior. The problem was that when we arrived to Chiang Mai and we saw that there was lots of different places that said to be elephant sanctuaries. That made us doubt if that was a tourist activity or they really save this animals. With that, we don’t want to say that they are not doing a great task, but we don’t really know the truth behind all this world. We decided not to contribute to any animal related tourism in our next trips!
Doi Suthep
In the afternoon, we asked in the hotel which activity we could do and they strongly recommended us to go to Doi Suthep with a local driver and we decided to accept. This temple (called Wat Phra That) is located in the top of a mountain and was built in the XIV century. It’s one of the more venerated temple by the buddhism and one of the more important in the country.
That was one of the best experiences in this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand, as we were lucky to have a driver that spoke a perfect English and that wanted to be our guide in our visit to Doi Suthep. It was super interesting as he explained us the Buddha’s story though a set of paintings in the temple walls and we discussed about the religion and the effect it has in Thailand and in the European countries. Luckily, we also had the change to see how the buddhist monks were meditating and praying. Lastly, from the temple you have an incredible view of all the city and the surroundings.
The price of the ticket is 30 BTH per person with an additional charge of 20 if you want to go by funicular (there are many many steps). The schedule is from 6h to 20h.
Day 7: Phuket
The 7th day of this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand, began with a new flight, from Chiang Mai to the turistic island of Phuket, in a 2 houts flight done by Thai Smile.
This area of the country is very popular among tourism as it’s offering a mix between beaches and attractive leisure areas. Under our idea, it is the place of the country that we enjoyed less, as everything was too tourist oriented. If we did the trip again, we would have changed this part of it and we would have stayed one extra day in Chiang Mai doing a mountain trekking and sleeping in the mountain or maybe the Krabi area. With that being said, that doesn’t mean that Phuket don’t have many attractive things to do.
We didn’t have much time to visit things on this day, as we arrives at midday and we were directly to the hotel and lunch. We stayed in the Malika hotel and it was great, well located, clean and with a nice swimming pool.
During this day, we walked around the hotel area and we looked for a tour for the next day. Our idea was to go to the Phi Phi islands, but it wasn’t possible due to wind storm, so we booked a complete tour to James Bond Island and some small islands of the area.
Día 8: Phuket - Tour de James Bond Island
The next day, was fully dedicated to do the James Bond excursion and some close islands in Phuket. The tour we did is the one here.
We started in a ship that drove us to James Bond Island (Ko Tapu). This is an island that got famous in 1974 after James Bond film “The Man with the Golden Gun” was shot. The island itself is not a great attractive. The most important thing is the big rock placed in the middle of the bay. It’s a very overcrowded island and depending on your schedule, it can be a little bit overwhelming.
After the visit we keep our visit and we did a kayak activity. That was a very funny point and spectacular as we went to some virgin islands called Hong Islands.
Next to that we visited and lunched in Koh Panyee, a muslim and nomad fishermen island. It’s curious to see the muslim religion in a country where the buddhism is the key of everything.
Our assessment of the tour is quite good as it was better than expected. It was funny and we could see some interesting places. If you decide to visit Phuket, it’s a very interesting option to enjoy a beautiful day.
Day 9: Trip from Phuket to Koh Tao
After more than a week in the country, we reached one of our most expected moments in the trip, Koh Tao and Koh Phangan islands. There are three famous islands in Thailand Bay, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui. We decided to visit the two first ones due to the activities we saw we could do in both islands. The most famous and biggest one is Koh Samui, so we have an excuse to go back to Thailand to visit it 😉
The journey from Phuket to Koh Tao was not easy, as there’s no direct flight, so we opted to do the trip by bus to reach Surat Thani + take a ferry to Koh Tao (we booked in 12 Go Asia website). Another option would have been to fly to Koh Samui and take a ferry from there, but we wanted to save some money at this point of the trip. All the journey was well organized and we did the trip on time, but it took us 10 hours to make the whole journey. We must confess that we didn’t know that at this point, but it was good to have one day for rest!
After all the day, we reached this incredible island and we went directly to our hotel. We decided to sleep in the Koh Tao Bamboo Huts by Charm Churee, a villa built near the sea and in our room we had a balcony where the waves crashed. That was an incredible experience for us!
Day 10: Koh Tao - Diving baptism
And in the 10th day of this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand, we had one of our favorite days, the diving baptism. This island is known to be one of the most important diving points of the country, so we decided to test this sport for the first time in our lives. And we did that in a highly recommended school, Pura Vida Koh Tao.
It was an amazing day. We started with a theoretical class of the principles of diving, needed to do the activity safely. Next to that, we started to do some basic immersion maneuvers in a place near the beach shore to start being familiar with all the concepts. And after this, we went to the ship and did the first real immersion. The sensation was incredible and the sea bottom was nice as we could see lots of different marine fauna.
After this first immersion, we had some rest and lunch and we moved to another place to do the second one (10m of depth).
To finish the day, they return you to the school and they prepare an Argentinian barbecue and they make some games and you can know the instructor better and ask them to tell you some interesting stories.
The price of this activity was 80€ per person with 2 immersions. For us, it was completely worth it due to the persons that manage the center, the nice sea views and the freedom you can feel when you dive in open water.
Day 11: Koh Tao - Beaches
This day was dedicated to visit the most famous places of the island. The reality is that it is a small island and you can rent a transportation or even do the visits by foot. We decided to walk through the island, but unfortunately we had bad weather with some torrential rain (2 hours) so we couldn’t enjoy as we wished the nice beaches and sea of the island.
The first beach we visited was Jansom Bay, located near our hotel. It is a small beach with calm water where you can have a calm moment as it’s not overcrowded at all. After this, we went to the Shark Bay beach and the Chalok Baan Kao Bay. The reality was that as we were unlucky with the weather, we couldn’t do snorkel in Shark Bay, as it’s one of the best places in the country to do it.
Due to the rain, we had to go into a restaurant in Shark Bay and stay there for 2 hours. After the rain, we decided to walk for 1 hour to reach our hotel, have some rest and have our dinner in the restaurant as we were tired.
Day 12: Koh Tao - Koh Phangan
Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to the incredible Koh Tao island to go to our last stop in Thailand, Koh Phangan, in the 12th day of this complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand.
We went from Koh Tao to Koh Phangan by in ferry in 1h30 and it costed 500THB (14€) per person and we booked it in 12GoAsia.
Finally, we reached Koh Phangan at midday and we went by taxi to our hotel, the Baan Manali Resort. The truth is that is a highly recommended hotel with a small beach and pool and a very good breakfast.
As usual, the first afternoon we enjoyed the surroundings of the hotel and we walked in the near beaches to our hotels. It was a great area and with few people, so we were able to relax a lot!
At night, we walked through the Thong Sala Village and we saw the night food market, the Phantip Night Food Market. You could enjoy a great local market food of very good quality. It was great!
Day 13: Koh Phangan - Bike excursion
The next day of our complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand, we decided to do a complete jungle excursion by bicycle, and we could see the central part of the island.
In that tour, we could see how the coconut island harvest was made, we went inside the jungle by bike (an amazing adventure), visit some local and very interesting temples and try some of the typical fruits of the country, as the Durian or Mangostan. The truth is that it was a great experience, as the guides were so nice and the excursion was perfectly organized. It took us 5 hours, all the afternoon, so if anyone wants to do a similar activity we recommend to be in a good shape as the terrain is not flat and you must be keen on biking.
The tour can be made in the morning or afternoon and the company is called Phangan Bicycle tour (located in Thong Sala).
Day 14: Koh Phangan - Bottle Beach excursion
sadly, the last day of our trip arrived. But it was a great day, as we spent it in one of the most famous beaches of the island, the Bottle Beach. In order to do this excursion, we went to Chaloklum from Tong Sala in tuk-tuk.
There, we booked in situ a tour that they were offering from the same Chaloklum beach that took us half a day and they drove you to a great snorkeling place and then to the Bottle Beach. It was a great day, as Bottle Beach is a very nice place, one of the best beaches you can see in Thailand. Moreover, we had an incredible weather, so the day was perfect.
In case of going to Koh Phangan, we would recommend you to book this kind of tour as this beach is one of the best you can see there. You can also visit it doing a trekking from Chaloklum.
Day 15: Back to Bangkok
All good things come to an end, and there is were our complete itinerary of 15 days in Thailand finished. We said goodbye to this wonderful island to go back to Bangkok and be prepared to take our flight to Barcelona on the day after.
In order to go back to the capital city, we took a ferry from Koh Phangan to Surat Thani and we went to the airport from there. It was a 1 hour flight to Bangkok and we slept near the airport. We won’t recommend this hotel as it was a very bad experience (the food was terrible and we had many insects in the room, so we couldn’t rest well).
Maps
Here you can see the maps of the places we visited, one per city.
Bangkok
Chiang Mai
Phuket
Koh Tao
Koh Phangan
Thailand is a country that you will fall in love with. In addition, if you never visited Asia before, it’s a perfect place to start in this continent. That is perfectly adapted for the tourism and it’s really easy to travel for free inside it.
If you have any doubt about the itinerary, don’t hesitate on asking us in the comments or in the social media. 🙂
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