Are you travelling to Thailand in 2022? We got you. Recently we spent just over a month travelling around Thailand at absolutely loved it. We visited both the south, including most of the islands, and the north of Thailand and learnt a few things along the way that we wish we knew before we started our travels there.
First of all we will start with the things we think are essentials to pack if you are visiting Thailand!
What to pack
A cover up for temples
Thailand is full of temples and religious statues and often we didn’t realise that we were going to stumble across one. In Thailand they ask that you dress respectfully when you are near or in them. This means your shoulders and legs need to be covered, whether you are a man or a woman.
Sun Cream
Sun cream can be quite expensive in Thailand and often contains whitening chemicals. We wish we had packed more sun cream with us so we could have saved some money!
Insect repellent
There are a lot of mosquitoes in Thailand, especially if you are going to be in the jungle or on the islands. If you do forget to bring some or run out don’t worry as it isn’t hard to find.
Microfibre towels
We bought microfibre towels with us and they really came in handy. They are lightweight and dry quickly so were great when we were visiting the beach or waterfalls or even for when there had been a downpour and we needed to dry off. Almost all hostels and hotels provide towels but you aren’t often allowed to take them out and about with you, so they really come in handy.
Rain macs and backpack covers
We visited Thailand in June, which is the start of their rainy season. There were a couple of times that we were caught in a large downpour and rain macs and waterproof bag covers really came in handy here to keep us and our stuff dry.
Other than the things we have mentioned above, remember to back plenty of clothes for warm weather, swimwear and hiking outfits.
Now we will move onto a few things that we learnt whilst travelling around Thailand and what we wish we knew beforehand.
Things to know before visiting Thailand
Everyone is really nice!
One of the first things we noticed when we got to Thailand is just how nice the people are there. They always wanted to help us and make sure we were having a good time. Sometimes we even felt suspicious at how nice people were being, but its just their culture and how happy they are to have tourists back after the pandemic.
Most beauty products have lightening chemicals in them
Unfortunately, whiter skin is seen to be desirable in Asian countries, which we were told is because it makes you appear richer as you don’t have to spend as much time in the sun. Because of this most of the beauty products have lightening chemicals in there. You need to be careful when buying things like sun cream whilst away as it isn’t always obvious that they do contain those chemicals and we were caught out a couple of times. Look for words like ‘bright’ or ‘white’ on the bottle.
Toilet paper is scarce
The plumbing in Thailand is not as robust which means you are not allowed to put anything, including toilet paper, down the toilet. This means there often isn’t toilet paper even available in the bathrooms, so its always best to carry a bit of your own around with you. Just make sure you put it in the bin after using it.
Shoes off please
A lot of restaurants and shops will ask that you take off your shoes before entering. Look for signs or for other shoes outside to know if you should be doing the same.
Grab and bolt can be used to get around
The Grab app is similar to Uber. You can order food or transport on the app. However we often found that bolt ended up being the cheaper option. Having said this the cheapest way to get around is by tuk tuk, so only use those apps if you really need a car or if you are in a remote area where you can’t just pick up a tuk tuk.
12 Go and Bookaway are great for booking transport
If you are looking to book coaches, ferries or trains then both 12 Go and Bookaway are a great place to do this online. You can compare times and price differences on there too. However, if you can’t find what you are looking for on there, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, so make your way to a bus or train station to find out more.
Allow some extra money in your budget for taking out money at an ATM
ATM’s in Thailand charge around 220 baht for each withdrawal, no matter what ATM you use or how much you are taking out. We decided to start getting higher amounts of money out at a time in order to avoid getting this charge as many times.
Temples are everywhere
This one might seem super obvious, but unless you are very familiar with the area, there is a big chance that you might stumble upon a religious statue or temple even when you weren’t expecting it. This means you should be dressing respectfully. It is always useful to have a coverup in your bag to pull out at these moments. We had to miss out on some things because we didn’t want to be disrespectful.
Lines don’t really exist in Thailand
There doesn’t seem to be much of a line culture in Thailand compared to countries in Europe. We mainly observed this most in shops, where we would line up behind the person paying for there stuff and others would just walk right past us to an empty till area and someone would come and serve them from there.
Go with the flow when you are travelling
Travel in Thailand can be quite interesting to say the least. It is highly likely that whatever you have booked won’t leave on time. The processes, such as getting on a ferry is quite chaotic and sometimes stressful but you just have to trust that they will get you to where you want to go.
Food will not come at the same time in a restaurant
This was quite a weird one for us. In the UK if you are eating at a restaurant, usually the food of everyone at the table comes at the same time. In Thailand we found that often one of us would have finished their food before the others meal even came.
There is always more room in a tuk tuk
This one is a bit light-hearted, but we were shocked at how many people they would ram into a tuk tuk before driving off. This mainly happened when we were either getting off a bus at a bus station or getting off a boat and there were quite a lot of people looking to get to their accommodation. It led to some very cosy drives with strangers!
Thailand completely blew our expectations out of the park and we absolutely loved every second of being there. We loved the island and beach life in the south and the jungle side of the north. If you would like to find out what route we took and our recommendation of an itinerary for a months trip in Thailand we will be uploading that soon.
Without A Paddle Travel 