Our first tip is that Thai taxi drivers often have NO IDEA where your accommodation is despite having a full address. We picked up a metered taxi from the airport but he had no sat nav so he had to stop twice to ask for directions. Having unrestricted data on my phone would have been a big help (see phone and app tips below!)

Bangkok’s River tour

We decided to stay up when we arrived and took a tuk tuk down to the river to explore. We got chatting to a couple of the Sky train who suggested we get on the Chao Phraya River Express Hop on Hop off boat. Tickets are £3 each for the day and you can cover all the major sites including the Grand Palace. On the day we were exploring the Grand Palace closed at 3 pm so check ahead what time it closes!

We visited a couple of stunning temples and the markets. It was also my kid’s first experience of being asked for photos by Thai locals – their blonde hair attracted a lot of attention and we were stopped by families, guards, and monks for pictures!

High on my daughters to do list was the Unicorn Cafe so we jumped in a tuk-tuk and headed off to Sugar Heaven! The menu basically consists of waffles, chocolate, pancakes, ice cream etc and the portions were huge! In Sophie’s words “the best bit was I could dress up as a unicorn to eat my chocolate ice cream”. It was a bit of fun as a family and the food wasn’t actually priced that badly. I think it’s best as somewhere to go for a dessert. Note my son is not in any of the photos 😉

Bangkok to Chiang Map is Thailand most popular train route and its only 881 baht (£18 ) one-way by an overnight sleeper. The children’s tickets had half of their ticket refunded once the staff at the station has seen they are under 16.  The new Chinese-built high-quality sleepers on trains 9 & 10 are excellent, and of course, the sleeper train itself is really fun, a real Thai train with a chance to meet Thai people. We went 2nd class and were really impressed with the good sized bed, pillows, sheets etc.

TIP: When we tried to book the return train to Bangkok it was completely full for the whole Summer so we had to fly instead. If you do want to book the train do so as much in advance as you can to guarantee your place.

One of the first day trips we booked in the UK was a day at the Elephant Sanctuary in Chiang Mai.  Before leaving I did as much research as I could into the elephant experiences and this particular company came up over and over again. This camp rehabilitates elephants which have been ridden and focuses on teaching visitors about how they live.  This was probably one of the highlights of the entire trip and the kids were blown away by being able to get so close to these amazing animals.

The site is a free-roaming environment which is both safe and sustainable. Located beside a Karen village in a densely forested mountainous region, the Sanctuary is surrounded by spectacular jungle scenery. The day cost around £290 for the 4 of us but it was WORTH EVERY PENNY I could not recommend it more.

See the video below to see just how close you get to these amazing animals!! 

Rated as one of Thailand’s best activities we had pre-booked flight of the Gibbon from the UK. This company is known now for its safety and is also based in a jungle region where you might see Gibbons in the canopy. After zipping we had a lovely lunch in the village (which was included) and a stop off at a waterfall on the way home. Again this is one experience I would not miss if you are in the Chiang Mai region.   See 2 minutes of highlights in the video below 

We decided to head to the Grand Canyon water park after the kids saw a sign for it in Chaing Mai city. The park is around 30 minutes from Chiang Mai Centre and we just found a red car to take us there. The entrance was 300 baht (under £10) and it’s basically I man-made quarry filled with inflatables and slides. I had read online before about some people having safety concerns but we wore life jackets and we stayed with the kids all day. As with any waterpark, there are risks (the same as any in the UK) and I felt the safety standards were no different than at home. It was a really cloudy day and this is where you have to be careful as we all got sunburnt!  I would really recommend this for a day and with younger kids, mum & dad would just need to go into too.

As part of our family backpacking trip, we were really keen to spend time with a Thai family. I was hoping that our children could experience how they really lived and worked every day. We were incredibly lucky to find Pikun who was hosting families via Air b’n’b who lived in the Muang Khong area of Chiang Dao National Park. We got a local bus from the Chiang Mai gate (North side) to Chiang Dao and she came to collect us from the bus station.

Before we arrived she messaged us asking if we would like to do some activities and what food we would like. She kindly arranged to take us to her families rice farm for the morning, organised bikes for us so we could explore the local area and cooked us the most amazing local food.  We also went with Pikun’s sister and Aunt to fish in the local river and then they taught us to build a BBQ from bamboo in the jungle (see photos below).  She could not have made us feel more welcome and we felt like a part of the family by the time we left. This was probably the highlight of our entire trip for me. Pikun was a local primary school teacher and she invited us to the school one day so our children could meet theirs. My daughter showed the girls how to do gymnastics and my son played football.

The area itself is beautiful and the house (which Pikun built herself) was right on the river, next to a herd of buffalo that her Mum looked after. Her dad ran the local shop so it was a real family business. You can get an idea of the home and local area in the 2-minute video below.

The link to her listing on Air b’n’b is here

As we were unable to book onto the overnight sleeper train we ended up paying £59 per person to fly from Chiang Mai to Phuket. We opted for the cheapest flight so flew at 1 am in the morning 🙂 We booked online using the Air Asia app as we found it cheaper to book directly than using any of the travel agents.

I have to be honest, Phuket was a culture shock after the authenticity of the North and our immediate impression wasn’t great! We stayed in a family hostel (which was superb) on Karan beach called the Karan Living room.  We had a huge room with 2 double beds, fridge, and even a sunken bath. Tea /coffee and toast were always free downstairs and they did a mean banana pancake for breakfast for a couple of pounds.

Karan beach itself was very warm but also cloudy and windy making the waves very high. There were a couple of areas marked for swimming but to be honest the waves were so strong you couldn’t go very far. The kids enjoyed a couple of days on the beach but we decided to move on quickly as we did feel it was a little too commercial for us.  If I were to do our trip again I would probably not go to Phuket and instead fly straight to Krabi or Koh Samui.

Our house on Bang Po beach, Koh Samui

We rented an apartment via Air b’n’b with a swimming pool. Our plan was to acclimatise back to real life, do a bit of gift shopping and then we would only have a 2-hour drive back to the airport for our overnight flight home.  We met a couple of other families at this stop, including an English family who have lived in Bangkok for 15 years as school teachers. We had a really great few days and the kids enjoyed making friends and getting to hang out with them for a few days before we went home.

Booking Accommodation 

I was surprised at just how much accommodation was available when we arrived. In general, the country didn’t feel too busy (likely because of the rainy season) and the type of apartments/ home stays or family hostels we wanted to stay in had good availability. I kept a number of apps on my phone but booked the majority of our bookings were made via Airbnb and booking.com

Booking planes, trains, and automobiles 

To find travel options we often used the website 12go. We booked our train tickets from the UK via this website and they were excellent. When we collected our train tickets they did look at flights for us but they could not beat booking direct with Air Asia. In the end, I booked directly via their app on my phone.

For our bus and boat travel, we used Lomrayah. We found there was less waiting around than booking with other travel companies, and the high-speed catamaran was much quicker than the standard ferry.  You can also book tickets online a couple of days before (which I would advise). Please be aware you have to PRINT your tickets so book them where you are staying somewhere that has a reception that can do this for you.

Staying Connected – Wifi 

It turns out that Thai wifi is even better than the UK!. Every restaurant, bar, and hotel have free wifi and we even had wifi in our homestay right up in the North.  I bought an EE package before I left which included only included calls and texts and to be honest it was a total waste of money! Anytime we wanted to message people we did it on the wifi and the cost of data was far too high to warrant buying any.

TIP: Most of the people we met travelling just bought a Thai Sim Card straight off the plane (you can buy them in any garage, 711 and at the airport). You can buy a sim for £15 which has unlimited data for 1 month. We often needed data whilst we were away from our wifi for directions. 

A number of families have been in touch and asked how we found the food with a 7 & 10 year old. I will start by saying our kids are pretty good at trying new things and their only real concern was that the food wasn’t too spicy. Where we travelled, the locals tended not to have a similar breakfast to us and will, for example, eat rice with pork early in the morning. We found it best to bring in our own breakfast which we often bought from the 7-11. We made pancakes, toast, cereal or eggs. For lunch and dinner, we mostly ate rice with either pork or chicken and fruit. Chicken fried rice with an egg on top and fried chicken became a staple for the kids. My son would eat the red and green curry but it was a little too hot for my daughter. I photographed the menu from our favourite market stall so you can get an idea of the most common dishes. 40 baht is £1 and nothing was over this price.

For lunch and dinner, we mostly ate rice with either pork or chicken and fruit. Chicken fried rice with an egg on top and fried chicken became a staple for the kids. My son would eat the red and green curry but it was a little too hot for my daughter. I photographed the menu from our favourite market stall (see below) so you can get an idea of the most common dishes. 40 baht is £1 and nothing was over this price.

Up in the North, the food was very simple and mostly included noodles, chicken or pork and vegetables. One of our favourite meals was deep fried whole fish which the kids loved so much they ordered a second.

Finally, we learnt that if the sign says Spicy then it means really really spicy. My husband and I braved a couple of dishes and, despite liking our food hot, we couldn’t finish the entire dish 🙂

On average our accommodation was around £25 a night with breakfast and lunch in our apartment it was around £10 a day. Dinner was around £10 a night including drinks.  We did everything we wanted to and honestly never felt that we were restricted by our budget. Probably the biggest proportion of our spend was on trips to the elephant sanctuary, zip wiring, and our internal flight but it was worth the money.