KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
Best Time of Year to Travel: The weather in Thailand can make your travel plans tricky. Their “cool season” if you can even call it that because it will be warmer than anything you are used to here, is from the months of late November until early April. Our trip was mid-March and the weather was in the upper 90’s everyday with a high humidity. Be wary of their rainy season that runs from July until early November.
Visas and Immunizations: Passport Health is my go-to in knowing when visas and immunizations are needed when traveling to a foreign country. This is something you can be less concerned about in Europe, but I always like to double check when traveling to other parts of the world. Luckily, for Thailand your visa is admitted to you when you arrive. This is called “Visa Upon Arrival” and I have done this in the past in St. Lucia and Tanzania. You go through customs with your valid passport and as long as your passport does not expire in the next 6 months, you get a Visa that is valid for 15-30 days based on the length of your stay. Sometimes there is an associated fee with your Visa on Arrival but in Thailand we did not pay an extra fee. Then when you fly out of the country, you hand them your Visa and you’re on your way. If you lose it (like my sister did) you can easily refill one out.
Currency: Flights to Thailand might have you rolling your eyes at how could you ever afford to live once you get there after a flight that expensive. The good thing about Thailand is that you can afford to live in absolute luxury while spending next to nothing. Depending on how much you are willing to spend you can find a basic hotel room for $50 a night at a nice property or spend up to $200 a night for the biggest room in the resort.
Tourists: Something interesting to note is who is traveling to Thailand. The primary countries tourists were traveling from was Germany, Australia, England and China. We saw almost zero American tourists, not to say they aren’t around, but most our excursions even had German tour guides because so many people spoke German.
Language: Which brings me to my next point, language. The language spoken in Thailand is Thai but almost everyone speaks English. Even our taxi drivers were very knowledgeable and could hold a conversation. We also found interesting the tourists where English was not a first language would speak to the locals in broken English so they were both communicating in a language that was not their first language.