The 10 best things to do in Thailand

From Chinatown's oyster omelets and neon alleys after dark to a limestone peak temple designed to mirror seven levels of Buddhist enlightenment

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Thailand’s appeal as a travel destination is broad enough to accommodate almost any type of traveler: the beaches are genuinely spectacular, the temples number more than 40,000, the street food is world-class, and the infrastructure for independent travelers is among the best in Southeast Asia. Bangkok is the most visited city in the world, not just in Asia, and the country’s low costs, generally safe travel conditions, and high concentration of remarkable things to see and eat explain why so many travelers who arrive for a week end up extending by another week.

The experiences on this list reflect that breadth. Some are iconic Bangkok activities that no first-time visitor should miss. Others require reaching the northern highlands, the ancient capitals along the Chao Phraya River, or the island archipelagos of the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Together they cover the full range of what makes Thailand worth the journey, from snorkeling coral reefs and cycling ancient ruins to eating oyster omelets in Chinatown at midnight and hiking to a temple that mirrors the seven levels of enlightenment on its way up a limestone cliff.

The 10 experiences below appear in Lonely Planet, covering Thailand’s most rewarding experiences from Bangkok to the southern islands. The country’s tourist infrastructure is good enough that most of these experiences are accessible to first-time visitors without specialist local knowledge, and the transportation connections between the major destinations are reliable enough that multi-stop itineraries work as planned. Thailand’s airport network, with international hubs in Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai, and domestic connections to dozens of regional airports, makes it practical to begin and end a trip in different cities without backtracking. Thailand’s train system connects Bangkok to both Chiang Mai in the north and the southern peninsula toward Malaysia, providing a slower but more scenic and often more affordable alternative to domestic flights for travelers with flexible schedules.

1. Thailand’s temples run from iconic to genuinely eccentric

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Thailand has more than 40,000 temples, and the challenge isn’t finding a good one: it’s choosing which ones to prioritize across a range that runs from universally celebrated to deeply strange. Bangkok’s Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Arun, and Wat Pho are among the most spectacular temples in Asia and require no justification for a visit. Wat Pho specifically doubles as the birthplace of Thai massage, and the monastery’s massage school takes appointments alongside its famous reclining Buddha image.

Beyond Bangkok, Chiang Rai’s Wat Rong Khun, known as the White Temple, is one of the most striking contemporary religious buildings in Southeast Asia: a bridge of rebirth spanning a sea of ceramic hands representing human suffering leads to a main hall entirely white and encrusted with mirror glass. Chiang Mai’s old city contains a concentration of temples in the northern Lanna style, including Wat Chedi Luang, whose 14th-century ruined chedi still stands nearly 60 meters high.

The genuinely eccentric end of the spectrum includes Phetchabun’s Wat Phra Thad Son Kaew, where a series of giant Buddha images sit in each other’s laps like Russian nesting dolls surrounded by Gaudí-esque mosaics, and the Sanctuary of Truth near Pattaya, Thailand’s largest wooden building, painstakingly carved using traditional techniques from floor to ceiling. Both require more effort to reach than the Bangkok temples, but produce experiences that no one who visits them forgets quickly. Thailand’s Buddhist temple architecture spans a thousand years of continuous development, and the regional styles, Lanna in the north, central Thai in Bangkok, Isaan-influenced in the northeast, are distinct enough from each other that temple-visiting across regions produces a cumulative understanding of the country’s geography that few other single activity types can match. The temple conservation standards in Thailand are generally high, with the Fine Arts Department maintaining major sites and levying reasonable admission fees that fund ongoing preservation work. Booking a traditional Thai massage at Wat Pho’s massage school, which the Lonely Planet writers specifically recommend as an appointment rather than a walk-in, produces an experience that is simultaneously therapeutic, historically grounded, and specifically connected to a living practice that has been taught at this temple complex for centuries.

2. The Andaman Sea delivers Thailand’s best island scenery

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The Andaman Sea coast features some of the world’s most dramatic island scenery, with limestone karst formations rising from celadon-green water in shapes ranging from massive to needle-thin. The most accessible base for exploring the Andaman islands is Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, from whose twin marinas chartered boats and organized tours reach the Phang Nga Bay archipelago and its most famous feature: Ko Khao Phing Kan, the island that appeared in the 1974 James Bond film The Man With a Golden Gun and is now visited by so many tourists daily that the crowds have become part of the experience.

Ko Phi Phi’s Maya Bay, made famous by the 2000 film The Beach, was closed to tourists for several years to allow coral and fish populations to recover from the damage caused by extreme visitor numbers. The conservation-managed access that has resumed produces a significantly better experience than the pre-closure visits described. The karst islands around Krabi and Trang, farther south, draw fewer visitors and reward the additional travel time with genuinely quieter beaches accessible by long-tail boat from the mainland.

Chartering a long-tail boat for a full day to explore the hidden beaches under the limestone cliffs of Phang Nga Bay is the most memorable way to experience the Andaman’s island scenery. The smaller operator boats give access to beaches that the large........

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