Thailand July 2023 - any recommended tour operators?

[thesugarbumfairy]

Hi.
We are hoping to do a 'big' holiday this year. It will have to be July to early August time. 10-14 days type thing. Teens 16 and 13. We don't mind rain. Flying from one of the London airports.

I'm not sure I have the capacity to sort it all out myself so I was hoping to book a tour which includes flights. £2500 pp sort of thing. I've heard Koh Samui is the place to be but I don't necessarily want to stay in one place the whole time. It would be lovely to see Bangkok too although I realise the two are far apart. And elephant sanctuary's have been mentioned as well as snorkelling!

Are there any recommendations for a company that does this (There are loads out there I know - but we haven't ever been further than Europe as a family and I've never booked a package before so I don't know where to start) I was looking at travelbag or maybe theadventurepeople but just not sure.

Travel Local.

www.travellocal.com/en-gb/thailand/tours

thanks. having a look now

I'm looking at similar for next year. Not used them but heard good things about trail finders

We are going this summer with 14yo dd. I started off looking at family packages and places like intrepid travel but soon realised that they all kind of do the same thing. And you can book the same stuff yourself. We are doing Bangkok, then elephant Hills and then Koh Samui. But if you want snorkelling you might be better off with one of the neighbouring islands.

Although Elephant Hills is expensive, they include transfers from either Phuket or Surat Thani - and will also take you to Koh Samui afterwards.

Not sure if that helps?

And should have added, trailfinders do trips to elephant hills so definitely worth a chat with them if you really don’t want to do it yourself. And you need to get booking as prices are rising really quickly.

We booked with Trailfinders for Thailand as, although we’ve been there with work, we’ve never had chance to do tourist stuff and felt we would need a bit of a handhold. Thanks to Covid we didn’t actually go in the end but Trailfinders were great at keeping us informed and refunded us very quickly. I’d book with them again.

We did it last year with Audley travel (David Wake was the Thailand expert). Was all very efficient with a few nights in Bangkok and a day trip with a private tour guide who was great with our teens, 2 nights elephant hills including a night in a floating tent and then off to Koh Samui where we all enjoyed shopping and entertainment at the night Market, swimming and watersports at the hotel and a daytrip snorkelling. A lot of complex travel arrangements and it all went off perfectly so would definitely recommend Audley. Hope you have a lovely time, lovely country.

Another recommendation for trail finders. We booked Thailand with them and were very pleased

Trailfinders. Always booked Thailand with them. So knowledgeable and very straightforward.

We have used kuoni and freedom Asia for Thailand in the past. Both have been great.

Bangkok and koh samui make for a great combination.

I’d second Trailfinders. Really go above and beyond to design an itinerary that suits. We had a holiday cancelled due to Covid and like pp, got money back promptly with no fuss.

thank you, I have trainlfinders, Audley, kuoni and freedom Asi to look at.

Just to say, i visited Trailfinders on wednesday and basically gave the bloke very little to go on other than ' i want to go to thailand' . He managed to squeeze enough info out of me to get a package together. I went back in today amd booked it. Hurrah!

That’s great news! Being nosey, what’s your itinerary?

Basically 3 nights bangkok, 4 nights chiang mai and 5 nights koh samui. All far nicer hotels than weve ever stayed in before 😁 still looking at day tours etc

Chang Mai is brilliant, you should definitely go there.

We went to Koh Pha Ngan and the Koh Phi Phi islands too, which were amazing.

That's very like our itinerary.

We upgraded the city hotels to club suites which means that you can have a glass of wine/beer and canapés around 4pm. Also meant you could have breakfast in a quieter restaurant. Well worth it.

One of the best meals we had - possibly ever- was in the B Sam Cooke restaurant in Chiang Mai. They even gave us a lift home because it was raining! Very unassuming but the food is out of this world (although we did not have a bad meal at any time in our Thailand trip. Amazing food)

Thanks for extra info. I'm trying to figure out what we do in each place.
Its tricky. DS1 will complain about too much activity - he just wants to eat 24/7. DS2 wants to do everything everywhere all at once. DH will just complain about being too hot and barely eats a thing. And my mobility isn't the best (way better than it was as I just got a new hip - but other joints are a bit dodgy!) so I can't do full day tours unless they are seriously broken up with sitting down options.

Will look up B Sam Cooke.

We are staying in Mode Sathorn in Bangkok
Dusit D2 in Chiang Mai
Bo Phut resort in Koh Samui
They all include breakfast.

Just jumping on for advice, I'm off to Thailand in 7 weeks - I'm coeliac and getting worried I will struggle to eat ?...

I went to Thailand last October for my honeymoon. Booked with Affordable Luxury Travel. They were great! We stayed I'm 3 places including elephant hills. We wanted a bit of everything so stayed a week on phi phi islands for relaxing, then a week in phuket and 2 nights at elephant hills safari camp. Was so good that we are looking at going again with them.

@notapizzaeater theres a facebook group I'm on which is really useful www.facebook.com/groups/136807173553840 (Thailand advice and travel tips) and if you search for coeliac then other people have asked this question before so it should be useful for you

@thesugarbumfairy ty for this, I've joined 😀

I know OP is sorted now (and it looks like you'll have a great time!), but for others... I found it really very easy to plan Thailand trips only own and saved quite a bit. Book flights to Bangkok first because they only ever get more expensive. There are generally lots of options for internal flights to eg Phuket, Krabi, Chiang Mai or wherever you want to go, so you can leave that until later if need be. Likewise with accommodation. I just booked in advance for the first few days, then we decided if we wanted to stay there or move on. If you contact hotels direct you can often get a better rate than via booking.com or Agoda, but phoning is best as it can be hard to get an email response!
Thailand is such a vast and beautiful place and so easy to get around, I think it's a missed opportunity to commit to one area and hotel for 2 weeks - but it depends what you want to do. I have enjoyed jungle hikes, visiting an elephant sanctuary, visiting lots of national parks, island hopping etc.

For trips, there are some great Thai agencies which specialise in booking excursions in advance for tourists. The Facebook group that @thesugarbumfairy has linked above is run by one, and another I've used on multiple occasions is www.facebook.com/groups/342588120487084/. It's generally a lot cheaper than arranging through a UK based travel agency and they can give you more detailed advice on planning an itinerary.
Pick up a Thai SIM at the airport - I got 16 days unlimited data with AIS for under £20. If your phone doesn't have dual SIM capability then consider taking an old phone or Mifi device to use as a hotspot.

We just came back did a similar itinerary Bangkok, Chang Mai and Krabi.
Definitely book the Blue Elephant in Bangkok it was fabulous and really very affordable.
We went to B Sam cook ,it wasn't really for me if I'm honest but I was feeling unwell so I'll put it down to that.
We stayed at Chaka number 6 in Change Mai and the restaurant there was really nice. it's easy to walk everywhere in Chang mai , have a great time

Hello, just did a search and this thread came up. We are going to Thailand in July, like you did. How was the weather - was it manageable? Thanks