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Affordable Thailand

Raman Kumar Raman Kumar

How to see Thailand without breaking the bank.

Best for Culture: Bangkok

Thailand’s rascal capital of 14.5 million has exceptional shopping, nightlife and attractions-a-plenty. It could also be Asia’s best food city.

Sleep
Starwood’s first Aloft (doubles from 2918 Baht, or $91.50) for South East Asia is modelled on a W hotel, but without the price tag.
Jazzy décor and all the mod cons make this new 296-room tower on the mildly boisterous bar street, Sukhumvit Soi 11, a favourite with the young and plugged-in party crowd.
More subdued, The Atlanta (doubles start at $22) was the favoured hangout for foreign correspondents during the Vietnam War.
It’s fading, and the staff are reliably tetchy, but with a lush garden, swimming pool, a stunning art-deco lobby and strict no-sex-tourism policy, it’s great value.

Play
Spiceroads (tours from $31) offer guided bicycle trips in and around Bangkok, including the narrow lanes through Chinatown and Phra Pradaeng, a corner of forested, rural Thailand on the Chao Praya River that is otherwise known as the city’s “green lung".
Discover the Kingdom’s burgeoning art scene at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre on Siam Square.
The snazzy, 7600-square-metre not-for-profit space – designed by US architect Robert Boughey – opened in early 2009 as a platform for young and up-and-coming artists.

Eat & Drink
Bangkok is all about the street food. The best and most accessible eats are at Pratunam, on the corner of Phetchaburi and Ratchaprasong Roads. Come for legendary dishes like grilled fish, som tam (raw papaya salad) and sweetened rice with mango.
A step up in comfort and service is Home Kitchen (94 Soi Lang Suan, +66 2 253 1888). This two-storey restaurant on fashionable Lung Suan makes exceptional Thai salads, including yum gai (grilled chicken) and yum taikai (lemongrass with anchovies).
Bangkok’s best drinks are at Moon Bar (21/100 South Sathon Road), an el fresco bar on the roof of the five-star Banyan Tree Hotel with 360-degree city views.

 

Best for the Beach: Hua Hin

The original Thai beach resort, Hua Hin is still the most laidback and languid. The King lives here; the name of his palace, Klai Kangwon, means “far from worries".

Sleep
Five minutes north of the city centre, the Anantara Hua Hin (doubles from $105 for a three-night stay) has 187 rooms set in lush gardens that tumble down to a sandy beach.
The rooms are a little tired, but great value with private balconies and bathtubs. Best of all are the facilities: a spa, gym, tennis courts, water-sports, restaurants and bars.
Set back from the beach, the Ibis Hua Hin (doubles from $34) opened in February this year. The 200 guest rooms are small but make up for it with perks like satellite TV and internet. There is a small pool and restaurant on site.

Play
Hire a car or motorbike and drive to Pranburi for the day. This coastal village half an hour south of Hua Hin has un-crowded beaches and seaside shacks serving ice-cold beer and snacks.
While there, stop by Kaeng Krachan National Park and spot wild elephants and tigers, or Hua Hin Vineyard (1037 Nong Ta Taem) for a glass of Colombard, a white wine originally from Bordeaux whose grapes grow remarkably well in Hua Hin.

Eat & Drink
Hua Hin’s bustling night market offers a variety of eats, with everything from stalls serving quick-fix dishes like pad thai, to sit-down barbecue restaurants with crab, king prawns, mussels and lobster.
Koti Restaurant (Phetkasem Rd, Dechanuchit Junction; +66 3251 1252) is popular for deep-fried crab sausages and stir-fried fish with crispy ginger.
Outside of town, Sopa Seafood (Khao Takeab Village; +66 8188 0771) is a dinky seaside shack on Hua Don Beach with superb yum talay – spicy seafood salad – and ginger-fried fish.

Best for Adventure: Chiang Mai

The former capital of the Lanna Kingdom, cool and cosmopolitan Chiang Mai is surrounded by mountains, jungles, and vibrant tribal people.

Sleep
Set amid rolling hills and rice fields, the Mai Siam Resort (doubles from $56) has three bungalows with balconies and hammocks overlooking a garden. Use their free mountain bikes to explore the countryside.
In the city, Vanilla Place (doubles from $28) has 15 bargain basement rooms with teakwood furniture, TV, air-conditioning and internet.
A few steps up in style and comfort, Dusit D2 (doubles from $104) has 131 sleek rooms with access to hotel facilities, including a lovely big pool, spa and rooftop gym.

Play
If you’re travelling with kids, they’ll love the gentle giants at the Elephant Nature Park , a rescue and rehab centre where you can volunteer to take care of the animals.
Hire a car and drive to the Golden Triangle – the infamous border area with Burma and Laos that was once the heart of the opium trade.
The $10 million Royal-sponsored Hall of Opium Museum (+66 5378 4444) outside of Chiang Saen showcases the opiate’s 5000-year history.
Back in Chiang Mai, Baan Thai Cookery School  can help you impress the folks back home with hands-on daily classes cooking Thai curries.

Eat & Drink
Chiang Mai’s illustrious khao soi – noodles in coconut curry topped with lime, pickled cabbage and shallots – are best at Samoer Jai (+66 5324 2928), a tiny diner near Wat Faham. For Sai ua, or northern-style herb and pork sausages, go to Damrong (+66 5323 4661) at Warorot Market; eat with raw chilli to release the flavours.
More upmarket, family run Huen Phen (112 Rachamankha Rd; +66 5327 7103) specialises in nam prik ong, a spicy pork dip served with fresh vegies.
Then join the throngs at Riverside (9-11 Charoenrat Road), a breezy outdoor restaurant on the Ping River, for live music with a beer or two.

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Raman Kumar

Raman Kumar

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These community homestays are changing how travellers experience Nepal

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    After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers? 

    In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.  

    Tharu dance
    Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

    Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?  

    Nepal gray langur
    Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?  

    How tourism is changing in Nepal

    Bardiya National Park
    Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.  

    Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.  

    “Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.   

    Local men in Bhada village
    Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”  

    Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.” 

    CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.  

    A new generation demanding more

    Dalla Town Hall
    Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

    The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”  

    We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”  

    Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels
    Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

    In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you… 

    bouda stupa prayer flags
    Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

    The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.  

    Boudha Stupa vendors
    Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

    A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.  

    A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi
    A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

    Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.  

    Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.  

    Life unfiltered in the Terai region

    tharu woman
    Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

    The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.  

    Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.  

    safari through Bardiya National Park
    Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

    We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.  

    Marigolds
    Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    “The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.  

    On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.  

    community homestay entrance
    A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.  

    The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.  

    In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.  

    food at community homestay
    Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

    Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.  

    The power of community homestays 

    community homestay owners in Nepal
    Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.  

    “I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?” 

    The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed. 

    Sonara community room
    An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

    Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.  

    Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.  

    CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.  

    “Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.  

    Elephant watch
    Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

    In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.  

    Gathering greens
    Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

    “We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.” 

    Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”  

    Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal. 

    Affordable Thailand - International Traveller Magazine