Boutique Thailand in 12 days: four hotels, no fillers
Thailand has more good hotels than any country in Asia and a great many expensive ones that are not good. The gap is mostly a matter of whether the design is a facade over a package property, and you cannot tell from photographs.
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar
- From
- $3,480 per person
This route is built the other way round from our usual method. Normally we choose the places and then the hotels. Here we chose four buildings we think are worth the rate, and built the days around them: a converted riverside house in Bangkok, a Lanna estate in a valley north of Chiang Mai, a lodge on the edge of the northern hills, and a bay on the Andaman coast that you reach by boat.
Who it suits: travellers who care where they sleep, and who would rather have four nights in one exceptional room than eight in two adequate ones.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive in Bangkok. Private transfer to the river. The hotel is a small property with a courtyard and a boat jetty rather than a tower, which means a slower check-in and a better week. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Bangkok, curated. Private guide from eight: the Grand Palace and Wat Pho before the heat. Then the part most itineraries miss, an hour in a converted shophouse district looking at contemporary Thai design and textile studios. Afternoon free. Evening on a private longtail up the river, then dinner at a restaurant that we book three months ahead because there are twenty seats.
Day 3: Bangkok, at your speed. Nothing before eleven. A morning at Jim Thompson’s house, which is where the modern Thai design conversation started, or the new galleries in the Charoenkrung district. Afternoon spa. Evening free.
Day 4: Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Late morning flight, an hour and fifteen. Then 45 minutes north into the Mae Rim valley to a Lanna estate: teak pavilions, rice terraces under cultivation, and a pool that faces a hill rather than a car park. Afternoon free.
Day 5: The north, guided lightly. A private morning in the old city, three temples chosen for being quiet rather than famous, and a northern lunch. Back to the valley by mid-afternoon. Evening at the estate, where dinner is worth eating in rather than driving for.
Day 6: The elephant day. A full day at the observation-led project we use outside Chiang Mai. A herd watched across open ground, food carried in, no riding, no bathing, no performance. We name the project in your proposal so you can check it. The hotel packs the lunch.
Day 7: Chiang Mai, free. A private craft day in San Kamphaeng with a lacquer master and a silversmith, a cooking session at the estate’s own farm, or nothing at all. All three are in your document and you decide over breakfast.
Day 8: Chiang Mai to Phang Nga Bay. Direct flight south to Phuket, around two hours, then a private speedboat across the bay, about 45 minutes, to a hotel on Koh Yao Noi that faces the limestone towers. You arrive at a beach, not a pier.
Day 9: The bay, privately. Your own longtail and captain for a full day: sea caves at Koh Hong, a lagoon entered through a tunnel at low tide, an empty beach for lunch. Out at seven thirty, which is the whole difference between this day and a shared tour.
Day 10: Free. Bicycles across the island, a spa afternoon, or the sandbank that appears at low tide off the north end.
Day 11: Free. Deliberately empty.
Day 12: Departure. Speedboat to Phuket in the morning and your flight home, with the room held to midday where the schedule allows.
What is included
Suites, pool villas or the best category we think is worth paying for at each property, with breakfast throughout, both domestic flights with a real baggage allowance, private speedboat transfers across Phang Nga Bay in both directions, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on all mainland transfers, private guides on three days, the evening longtail in Bangkok, the full-day private longtail in Phang Nga Bay with lunch, the full-day elephant project, restaurant reservations that need booking months ahead, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our representatives in Thailand for the whole trip.
Honest notes
What we left out and why. Two of the most photographed luxury hotels in Thailand are not in this itinerary. One is a beautiful building with service that has slipped and a rate that has not, and one sits on a beach with heavy boat traffic that the photographs are careful to crop. We will name both if you ask us directly. We are not going to publish them.
Boutique does not mean big. Three of the four hotels here have under forty rooms. That means no third restaurant, no shopping arcade and occasionally no lift. If you want a resort with six outlets and a kids club, this is the wrong route and the family itinerary is the right one.
Four hotels in twelve days is the ceiling. Every additional property costs you an afternoon and a morning. We are asked regularly to add a fifth and we usually push back, because on a twelve-day trip a fifth hotel is a whole day of transfers for one night in a room you will barely see.
Season. This route runs on the Andaman coast, so it belongs to November through March. From May to September we move the ending to the Gulf coast, which has the opposite season, and the hotel we use there is different but not worse.
Value. Boutique in Thailand at around 290 dollars per person per day buys a genuinely exceptional room. The step from there to the luxury tier roughly doubles the cost and, in our honest opinion, improves the trip by rather less than that. We will price both and let you decide.
Built by Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast Asia specialist, with every hotel on this route stayed in by our partner team.
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