16 of the best places to visit in Thailand – Times Travel
SRC:https://www.thetimes.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/thailand/best-places-to-visit-thailand Thailand Best Beaches
Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles for a reason. From white-sand beaches, stunning rainforests and temples to night markets, shops and big city hubbub, there’s something for everyone. Whether you want to scuba dive round some of Thailand’s 1,430 islands, explore the countryside or bar-hop in Bangkok, you’re certainly spoilt for choice. To help narrow things down, here we round up some of the best places to visit.
Main photo: a floating market in Bangkok (Getty Images)
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1. Chiang Mai
A 90-minute flight north, Thailand’s second city, Chiang Mai, remains resolutely everything that Bangkok is not: smaller, cooler, artier, ringed with verdant temple-topped hills and bursting with beautiful and distinctive wooden buildings. Stay on the quiet eastern edge of town for the better spa hotels with dreamy Ping River views. Browse the craft and night markets and wander round the wooden temples (Wat Chedi Luang is laced in filigree carving every bit as riotous as Versailles’ rococo). Wake early to watch saffron-swathed monks collect alms in the misty morning light around the mountain-top temple at Doi Suthep. Then make for the mountains – cooling hill-forest hikes have been a Chiang Mai staple since the ’70s.
Chiang Mai’s smaller sister, Chiang Rai, is within driving distance, with its spectacular White Temple and longboat rides on the Kok River. Adventurers can go white-water rafting at Pai, while culture fans will love the 13th-century ruins of Sukhothai, the teak houses of Nan and historical Phrae.
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2. Bangkok
Bangkok is a buzzing, baffling and mesmerising melange of ancient and modern, palaces and temples, gleaming skyscrapers and crowded alleys. Among the big-hitters, wander among the gilded roofs and ornate murals of the Grand Palace, the revered jade sage at adjacent Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and the vast reclining Buddha at Wat Pho (make time for a traditional treatment at its respected massage school), then bar-hop or shop through the travellers’ enclave of Khao San Road.
Escape the capital’s crowds by exploring Bangkok as it used to be. It’s still there along the river, in the early-morning marigold markets and the narrow alleys and canals of Thonburi district, where the city began in the 1780s. You’ll find fruit sold from dug-out canoes and locals playing mahjong in teak-wood shop-houses. Allow at least half a day to visit Thonburi by bike or take a river boat. Then go ultra-modern with a Blade Runner view from a sky bar.
Khao Yai National Park in Isan is an easy-access wilderness, doable in a day trip from Bangkok. As well as housing cheeky macaques and muntjac deer, there’s nowhere better in Southeast Asia to see wild elephants.
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3. Ko Khao Phing Kan
This toothy outcrop in the waters of Phang Nga Bay, northeast of Phuket, often goes by a more memorable moniker: James Bond Island. Ever since its starring role in the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun, it’s been a hit among visitors hoping to relive Roger Moore’s romps across beautiful beaches with Britt Ekland, and following the trail of Christopher Lee’s evil assassin, Francisco Scaramanga, through dense jungle. The location is every bit as dramatic as it is in the film and a day-trip by boat is a serene way to experience it. Departing from the Thai mainland, a Phang Nga Bay trip takes you across a sea seemingly equal parts milk and mouthwash, below cliffs that drip limestone like melting wax, around bays of cookie-tan sand. And the only shady characters you’ll see are those hiding from the sun under the palms.
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4. Phuket
Thailand may have smaller, remoter islands, but it’s the largest island, Phuket, clinches it for diversity, from food to wildlife and serene sands to design hotels. The Pearl of the Andaman has long been a magnet for jet-setters and celebrities, who come to hang out in design-forward luxury hotels, be polished and pummelled in swanky spas and sip champagne cocktails on bright white yachts. It’s palm-fringed boulder-studded beaches are some of the best in Asia. Seek out Nai Harn, a swirl of turquoise Andaman Sea sweeping around a crescent bay; slender, silky-white see-and-be-seen Surin beach; and Layan with its cherry-red sunsets and cool beach clubs Phuket Botanic Garden (is a seldom-visited jungle tamed into dozens of tropical biospheres, each alive with butterflies and lizards. Think orchid gardens, human-size ferns and a herb garden pungent with Thai basil. Kids can go bananas here (and even pick them from a tree!).
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5. Ko Phangan
These days, you don’t need a backpack and a kindly disposition towards mosquitos to immerse yourself in the Thai wilderness. Hidden in a quiet corner of Ko Phangan island and accessible only by boat, Haad Yuan’s half-moon of fine white sand comes with a savage, unkempt beauty – but without a hint of discomfort. It’s easy to get back to nature here: wake in your boutique-hotel villa to the sound of cicadas in the trees and waves beating on the beach; stroll a few metres along the sand to wave-sculpted granite rocks where a rainbow of reef fish greets snorkellers; or clamber up winding mountain paths that cut through the pristine forest immediately behind Haad Yuan, and you’ll soon find tinkling waterfalls and cool freshwater pools. Aim east for laid-back shores dotted with old-school beach bars, local seafood restaurants and a Jack Johnson soundtrack that make the Koh Samet vs Koh Phangan decision easier every time. Spend mornings walking along golden sands spotting farmers taking their prized water buffalo for a dip, afternoons meditating under casuarina trees, and nights practising moonlight yoga on the beach and you’ll feel miles away from any beach parties.
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6. Ko Samui
One of the best established Thai islands, Ko Samui is the kind of place that can be whatever you want it to be – laid-back beach heaven, fitness destination, family hangout, jetsetter’s paradise. There’s no shortage of things to see and do, from sailing around Ao Thong National Marine park to eating at night markets to Muay Thai boxing sessions and hours’ long spa rituals at some of the world’s best wellness retreats. Choose a resort in the hills of the island’s quieter south or west, or next to the unspoilt beaches of Bo Phut or Mae Nam. Samui bristles with boutique hotels and boho bars but the most vaunted beaches (at Chaweng and Lamai) can feel crowded.
Those in the know head north to spread their sarongs on Mae Nam – a four-kilometre stretch of creamy-white sand dotted with resorts of low-level bungalows. Here, you can laze in your hammock and marvel at hypnotic views of craggy Ko Phangan island. As the afternoon sun turns the sand burnished gold, take a wander to the fishing village on neighbouring Bo Phut beach, some three kilometres away. For posing, don a sarong and strut along cheeky Chaweng: a long half-moon of coral sand, it’s all beach bums by day, Miami-style hedonism by night. Take things down a notch and nip round its southern cove for a sunlounger at Samui Yacht Club on the island’s crowd-free secret bay, Thong Takian. Explore the untouched islets of the Ang Thong Marine Park archipelago, just west of Samui, trimmed with rice-white beaches and kaleidoscopic coral. The highlight is the vivid green lake on Ko Mae Ko, so protected you’re not allowed to swim here.
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When is the best time to visit Thailand?
7. Ko Mook
Enclosed by towering limestone cliffs, washed by a Listerine-green lagoon and reachable only at low tide by swimming or taking a small boat through a dark and dripping sea cave, the beach of Hat Morakot was a pirate lair until the early 20th century. A handful of tourists now visit on day trips from Ko Lanta, far to the north, but you can avoid them by bedding down a mere swim away from this extra-special stretch of sand. Ko Mook island makes for a photogenic pitstop on a longer holiday, surrounded by clear waters and high limestone cliffs. Wake with the dawn, hire a long-tail boat for pennies, then whizz from your hotel to deserted Hat Morakot in the refreshing morning breeze, long before the Ko Lanta boats arrive.
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8. Ko Hong
Everyone does the Phi Phi islands, so head instead for Ko Hong. Book the right boat and its skipper will take you for a swim in the secret lagoon encircled by rock face at the island’s centre, before depositing you on fine, gold sand, under imposing, vine-tangled cliffs. The beach should be quiet, but up your chances by going in the shoulder season (late November or May). Idle the rest of the day away, paddling into that jade bay, seeking shade under puffy trees or jutting rocks and picnicking with your group. Come 4pm, you’ll struggle to leave, but all must head back to the mainland. Happily, there you’ll find more beaches that are slightly less heart-fluttering than the one you’ve just left.
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9. Railay
It’s that classic Thai stretch you’ve seen in pictures – wooden fishing boats on a glassy-green sea, a white-pepper-fine sandy beach overlooked by towering forest-covered crags. It’s owl-and-the pussycat idyllic, but comes with comfy low-key resort hotels (chic air-con beach shacks with a pool) and a choice of decent alfresco restaurants, too.
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10. Koh Yao Noi
Despite its location in the heart of Phang Nga Bay, spliced between two of Thailand’s most popular tourist hubs – Phuket and Krabi – Koh Yao Noi and its sister island Ko Yao Yai are astonishingly serene. Cycle around Yao Noi’s little coastal road and you’ll find little more than some crepuscular rubber plantations and a few ramshackle fishing villages, as well as comets of soft white sand beaches washed by calm, cosmically blue-green seas and views out over Phang Nga Bay’s limestone sea-stacks.
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11. Similan Islands
Made up of nine palm-painted isles, a 90-minute speedboat ride from Khao Lak, the remote Similan Islands are gobsmackingly gorgeous. Stop at one and you might find rock formations shaped like Donald Duck; at another, ice white sands that squeak under foot and gin clear waters. But it’s the marine life you won’t want to miss – giant purple star fish, pink brain coral, flocks of parrotfish, families of clownfish playing in anemones and, if you’re lucky, an encounter with green turtles.
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12. Ko Tarutao
Languishing on Thailand’s most southerly shores close to the border with Malaysia is one of Asia’s top beauty spots; a tropical wilderness drizzled with jungle-tucked isles twitching with monkeys, mouse-deer and banana-beak hornbills. The luminous green waters surrounding the island are dotted with coral reefs shaking with golden lionfish, green turtles and blue-spotted stingrays. Tarutao’s remote location, plus the fact that it’s part of a national park only open from mid-October to mid-May each year, have kept it in near pristine condition.
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13. Koh Kood
A ravishing rural setting with not a jet-ski, 7-11 or ATM in sight makes life on Koh Kood feel like it’s slowed down to somewhere around the 1980s, when Thailand’s beaches were the deserted sun-drenched stuff of legend. Snuggled against the east coast of Thailand, this large mountainous island is webbed with jungle lagoons, sparkling waterfalls and empty beaches where you can sling your hammock between a couple of palms and fall asleep to the sound of the lapping Gulf of Siam.
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14. Ko Lanta
It’s not the easiest island to reach but once you sink your toes into that crystalline sand, the journey will all seem worth it. Lanta’s vibes are laid-back and its beaches a delightful mix of warm shallow waters and labyrinth-like rock pools teeming with candy-striped bannerfish, flouncy red lionfish and grumpy-looking grouper – but it’s the scuba diving that most people come for, whether it’s to take a Padi at one of the island’s many dive schools or the chance to spot leopard sharks and manta rays.
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15. Ko Tao
Ko Tao is one of Thailand’s smallest islands. But, what it lacks in size, it makes up for in chilled vibes. Divers swim with sharks and rays who come out to play in its rainbow-tinted coral, while bottle-green jungle beckon keen hikers looking for something beyond its icing sugar-white beaches.
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16. Sukhothai
The country’s most romantic ruins are in Sukhothai, in central Thailand – the part everyone misses when they fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. But take the morning train to Phitsanulok, the nearest city to the ruins, and you’ll see the city malls and high-rises merge with rice fields and lonely temples. Visit the Sukhothai ruins and stay right next to them in one of a dozen decent hotels. The next day, visit the lichen-covered 13th-century palaces, giant Buddhas and temples of Si Satchanalai Historical Park, lost in a rainforest garden where hornbills outnumber tourists.
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