Thailand travel tips

Budget travel in Thailand

What a visitor's money does in Thailand: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.

Good value average across 13 guides · 5 is very cheap

Money

Thai Baht (THB) · 1 USD = 33.3 THB · 1 EUR = 38.2 THB

Best rates at SuperRich (orange or green) exchange offices — much better than airports or hotels. Bring crisp, new bills for better rates.

ATMs

Avoid: Euronet, hotel lobby machines, ATMs inside malls run by non-banks

Use: Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn, Krungsri, SCB

Every Thai ATM charges a flat 220 THB to foreign cards regardless of amount — withdraw the maximum in one go.

Getting around

A short ride in Bangkok: 60–150 ฿ across town — cheap

From the airport: Suvarnabhumi to central Bangkok 400–600 ฿ by app, 45 ฿ on the Airport Rail Link

A metered taxi is cheaper still if the meter is used. The app exists so that it is.

City by city, cheapest first

Bangkok Very cheap

Street food is the real deal — look for stalls with long queues of locals. Pad Thai on Khao San Road is tourist-grade; find it on side sois instead.

Chiang Mai Very cheap

Khao soi is the northern Thai dish to seek out — a curried noodle soup unique to this region. The Sunday Walking Street market and Chang Phueak night market are where locals actually eat.

Ayutthaya Very cheap

Boat noodles at the Chao Phrom market, and river prawns — the town is known for them and they are a fraction of Bangkok prices.

Chiang Rai Very cheap

Northern food, which is not the Thai food most people know: khao soi in coconut curry broth, sai ua sausage heavy with lemongrass, and nam prik ong eaten with sticky rice by hand. The Saturday walking street is where to eat it.

Kanchanaburi Very cheap

River fish is the local speciality — pla chon grilled in salt crust, and hoy khraeng cockles. The floating restaurants are aimed at coaches; the good ones are the shophouses on Ban Nuea road, where the town eats.

Pai Very cheap

The walking street turns into a food market every evening and is the cheapest good eating in northern Thailand. Northern sausage, sai ua, is the thing to try.

Phuket Good value

Phuket Town has the island’s best and cheapest food — the beach strips charge triple. Try the local Hokkien-influenced dishes: mee hokkien and o-aew dessert.

Koh Samui Good value

The night markets are where the island eats — Fisherman’s Village on Friday, Lamai on Sunday. Ask for som tam Thai unless you want it at local heat.

Krabi Good value

Krabi Town’s walking street market on Friday and Saturday is far better and cheaper than anything on the Ao Nang strip. Southern Thai curries here are hotter than in Bangkok.

Koh Phangan Good value

Thong Sala night market on any evening beats the beach restaurants on both price and quality. The island has an unusually good vegetarian and raw food scene, a legacy of its long-stay yoga crowd.

Koh Tao Good value

Mae Haad has the cheaper local kitchens; Sairee is priced for divers. The 995 THB open water course lunch is usually included — ask, because it is often the best value meal of the day.

Koh Lanta Good value

The stilted seafood restaurants along the Old Town pier are the island’s best eating and cost a fraction of the west-coast resorts. Southern Thai curries here run hot, and much of the island is Muslim, so halal food is easy to find and pork is not.

Koh Phi Phi Mid-range

Everything is shipped in, so the prices are Bangkok’s with a boat ride added. The night market behind Tonsai is where the island eats — grilled fish by the kilo, pad thai, and roti with condensed milk after.

The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.

The guides in Thailand

orange temples during daytimeBangkokThailandTemples, street food, and organized chaosThe isthmus from the viewpoint, with the village between a bay on each side — the one view that could only be Phi PhiKoh Phi PhiThailandLimestone walls straight out of the sea, a village with no cars in it, and the loudest beach in Thailandfive brown wooden boatsPhuketThailandThailand’s biggest island, from party beaches to quiet covesbird’s-eye view of white temple surround by treesChiang MaiThailandTemples, mountains, and Thailand’s digital nomad capitalwhite boat dock on seashore near green trees during daytimeKoh SamuiThailandCoconut palms, quiet beaches, and villas with a poolBeach with limestone cliffs and longtail boatsKrabiThailandLimestone cliffs rising straight out of the Andaman SeaRocky coast meets turquoise water and lush greenery.Koh PhanganThailandJungle, empty northern beaches, and the Full Moon Partytopless man sitting on cliff rock viewing Ko Nang Yuan isalnd, houses, and buildings under white and yellow skyKoh TaoThailandWhere half the world learns to divea very tall building with many spires on top of itAyutthayaThailandThe ruined capital of a kingdom that once dwarfed Londona group of people standing in front of a buildingChiang RaiThailandA white temple built like a hallucination, hill villages, and the corner where three countries meetpeople walking on train rail during daytimeKanchanaburiThailandThe bridge on the River Kwai, a seven-tier waterfall, and a war cemetery kept immaculateSunny beach in Ko Lanta, ThailandKoh LantaThailandLong quiet beaches and an old town on stilts, at the pace Thailand used to move atPai CanyonPaiThailandA mountain valley of hot springs, waterfalls and slow days