Thailand stamp

This trip came about because I wanted to travel in January to someplace warm and sunny, to escape the winter blues of Seattle. But I hadn’t been intending to go back to Asia again so soon. My first trip to Asia had just been in September to Bali, which was quickly followed by Singapore in November.

There were several factors contributing to my decision:

  • Since I had gone to Bali in September, then Las Vegas three weeks later, then Paris/Singapore three weeks later, without deciding anything about my January trip, I didn’t have much time to make a decision.
  • I would be going solo again. I’d already booked a trip with my family in August 2017, for a Baltic cruise (i.e. Scandinavia, Russia, and Northern Europe). It was pretty pricey compared to our normal trips, so my parents decided not to do a second expensive trip this year.
  • I really wanted to go to Patagonia (the mountains in Chile/Argentina), primarily for hiking. But by the time I got serious about making a decision, I knew I wasn’t in good enough shape and didn’t have enough time to get in shape, especially considering the rainy Seattle winter. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable going solo.
  • My second thought was to go to Tahiti and Bora Bora (which is actually part of Tahiti’s archipelago of islands). I happened to see a picture of Tahiti that was gorgeous, and I’ve been wanting to go to Bora Bora since I saw it on The Amazing Race a few years ago. But when I researched hotel prices, it seemed so incredibly expensive compared to Bali.
  • My next step was to Google warm places to visit in January. But for most of the suggested destinations, I either didn’t know much about them and would need to do a bunch of research (e.g. Canary Islands), or I didn’t feel comfortable going solo without doing a bunch of research first (e.g. South Africa, Brazil).
  • The one place that kept standing out was Thailand. Although I really did want to go someplace other than Asia. But I knew Thailand was one of the top travel destinations in Asia. I also knew that Amazon Prime had recently added Kindle Unlimited books to its benefits (i.e. so I could download Kindle Unlimited books for free). So I went to the Kindle Store and discovered that the Lonely Planet Thailand guidebook was a Kindle Unlimited book. I downloaded it and within an hour or two I had enough information to decide that I was going to Thailand!

So this is what appealed to me about Thailand:

  • The temples! While I loved the temples on Bali, they were mostly stone and very similar throughout the entire island. But in Thailand the temples looked larger than life, with many varieties, and ornate decorations that looked unreal.
  • The beaches! Thailand has many islands and many gorgeous beaches, with sparkling green water and limestone cliffs jutting straight out of the ocean.
  • The food! I love Thai food.
  • The jungle! Thailand has a lot of jungle with lots of birds and animals.
  • The elephants! You can’t really see them in the wild, and as a whole elephants aren’t treated humanely in Thailand, but there are elephant sanctuaries you can visit.
  • The public transportation! The one thing I didn’t like about Bali was that there was basically no public transportation. So you had to hire a driver to go anywhere, and have a route pre-planned. I like to be very independent when I travel, and be flexible in my plans. But Thailand is a much more developed country than Bali. There are planes and trains between the major cities, a metro in Bangkok, ferries to the islands, and plenty of buses to more remote areas.

Basically, it appeared that Thailand would live up to its spectacular reputation, and I now felt completely comfortable travelling there solo.

In the end, though, my friend Jessica was able to come with me!

Thailand Route Map

This in an interactive custom Google Map where you can find all the hotels, restaurants, and sights referenced in the individual blogs. View it in full screen to access a list of all these places.

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