TRIP DETAILS

Trip length (including travel days) - 11 days

Time of year - November

Countries visited - Thailand

Cities/Locations visited and time in each:

• Bangkok - 4 nights

• Phuket (Kata Beach, Phi Phi Islands, Phang-Nga Bay) - 5 nights

PATH WE TOOK

Fly from Denver thru Tokyo to Bangkok International Airport (17.5 hours of flying time, plus a layover)

Tuk Tuk, Taxi, Water Taxi, and walking around Bangkok

Fly from Bangkok Domestic Airport to Phuket International Airport

Hotel shuttle from airport

Walking, Taxis, and Tour Shuttles around Phuket

Fly from Phuket to Bangkok Domestic Airport

Taxi to hotel for the night

Depart for home from Bangkok International Airport

HIGHLIGHTS

We loved our time in Thailand and would go back in a heartbeat!

Our highlights from the trip were:

• Guided sea kayaking through caves into the hollow center of a round island in Phang-Nga Bay. You can only reach these areas during low tide, otherwise the caves are filled with water!

• Exploring the famous beach from Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie “The Beach”, called Maya Bay which was later closed from 2018 until January of 2022 to allow the plant and animal life to recover after years of over-use. You can now visit again, but we’d imagine you need to book early as visitors per day are extremely limited!

NOTES

If we’d had enough time on this trip, we would have visited Chiang Mai. Unfortunately our time didn’t allow for both Phuket AND Chiang Mai (both plane flights from Bangkok), so we had to pick one. This will be a priority when we eventually go back!

OUR NOT-SO-FAVORITE THING

The big commitment for this trip was the approximate 24 hours it took to get there (from Denver) and back. We took a direct 12 hour flight from Denver to Tokyo, followed by a couple hour layover, and then a 7.5 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. So, this one is not for the faint of heart!

WHY WE PICKED THIS LOCATION

It was somewhere new for us (we’d never been anywhere in Asia)

It was difficult to get to in terms of long flights (so we figured better sooner than later)

It was likely to change due to human influence (and as noted above, we got SO lucky to see Maya Bay before it closed to tourists!)