Mistakes I Made Visiting Thailand for First Time With Family

admin

5 days ago

Mistakes I Made Visiting Thailand for First Time With Family

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider
subscribers. Become an Insider
and start reading now.

My family and I visited Bangkok for the first time and made a few key mistakes along the way.
We definitely misjudged how the heat would affect us and should’ve structured our days differently.
I also wish we’d allocated enough time to explore Thailand’s beautiful islands.

In January, my family and I spent four days traveling around Bangkok for winter break. We stayed in the Siam Square neighborhood, also known as the shopping district, and thoroughly enjoyed tasting the street food and exploring the Buddhist temples.

Looking back, however, our trip could have been even better if we’d avoided these five simple mistakes.

Table of Contents

Toggle

We misjudged the heat.

My family and I weren’t prepared for the heat in Bangkok.

Amrita Bhasin

A photo from a bridge in Bangkok. — My family and I weren’t prepared for the heat in Bangkok.

Amrita Bhasin

During our trip, temperatures stayed at 96 degrees Fahrenheit and above. As Northern Californians used to temperatures closer to 55 to 75 degrees during the winter months, we weren’t prepared for the extreme heat.

We ended up having to travel back to the hotel midday to rest and recharge, which we don’t typically need to do on trips. Looking back, I would prioritize building more breaks into the day to help avoid heat exhaustion.

I’d also recommend wearing loose clothing such as elephant pants, which are popular throughout Thailand because they’re comfortable and appropriate for temples where you need to cover up.

I wish we’d known how long we’d have to wait for ride-hailing transportation.

Wait times for ride-hailing apps were upward of 30 minutes.

Amrita Bhasin

When preparing for the trip, I saw tour guides recommended using ride-hailing apps such as Grab, an alternative to Uber.

When we arrived in Thailand, however, we learned it could take upward of 30 minutes to get a ride, especially in crowded tourist areas like where our hotel was.

So, we took advantage of Grab’s ride-schedule feature to plan all our rides to the temples and other attractions the night before — but scheduling rides provided less flexibility because we had a timed itinerary to adhere to. Still, I appreciated the assurance that we wouldn’t be stuck waiting for a car.

We spent too much time in malls.

I wish we would’ve spent less time at the mall.

Amrita Bhasin

Our hotel was in the shopping district, so we inevitably wandered around the malls quite a bit. They were great for taking a break from the heat, and the decor and plant markets were impressive.

However, it was too easy to spend an excessive amount of time there and miss out on other parts of the city.

I wish we’d allocated enough time to explore Thailand’s beautiful islands.

Next time, I’d like to explore the Phi Phi Islands.

Dmitry Rukhlenko/Shutterstock

Next time I return to Thailand, I’d like to spend a few days exploring islands such as Koh Samui and Koh Phi Phi.

It would’ve been nice to experience a tropical beach destination on what was otherwise a city vacation.

We tried to pack too much into a day.

We learned that visiting more than two attractions in a day was a stretch.

Amrita Bhasin

There are so many temples and sites to visit in Bangkok, and some are more elaborate and time-consuming than others.

We spent the first day following an itinerary we’d planned ourselves, and we thought doing a few activities each day would be perfect.

But we found that visiting more than two attractions was both difficult and stressful because we didn’t have enough time to explore everything, learn about the history, and take pictures.

So, the following day, we only picked two temples to visit, which was a much more satisfying choice.

link