Two weeks in Thailand, routed by the month you are going
Thailand's two coasts have opposite wet seasons and the north has a smoke season. The 14 day route changes with the month, and here is how.
Photo · Balazs Simon · Pexels
Most two-week Thailand itineraries name the same three places in the same order and never mention the month. That is the flaw in almost all of them, because Thailand's two coasts have opposite wet seasons and the north has a smoke season, and no month is good for all three.
The shape is right: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, one island group, three nights, four nights, six nights. Which island group is a function of when you go, and getting that wrong is how people end up with a week of rain on a beach.
Thai baht. Convert any figure on this page into your own currency at today's published rate.
Open the currency converter →The month decides the route
Three separate weather systems are in play.
The Andaman coast (Phuket, Krabi, Koh Lanta, Koh Phi Phi) takes the south-west monsoon and is at its best from about mid-November to April.
The Gulf coast (Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao) sits in a rain shadow from that monsoon and has its own wet season, roughly October to December, with November the wettest month of the Samui year. Its clearest, sunniest months are February and March.
Northern Thailand has the burning season. Agricultural and forest fires fill the Chiang Mai valley from about February to April, and in 2026 the province banned open burning from 1 February to 31 May and still logged over 2,090 fire hotspots by late March, with Chiang Mai ranking among the most polluted cities in the world on several days.
Put those three together and the picture is uncomfortable but useful:
| Window | North | Andaman | Gulf | Route |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov to mid-Jan | Clear | Good and improving | Wet | Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Andaman |
| Feb to Mar | Smoke | Very good | Best of the year | Either coast, shorten the north |
| Apr | Worst | Good, hot | Good | Skip the north, Gulf or Andaman |
| May to Oct | Hot then wet | Monsoon | Variable, cheapest | Gulf, and accept some rain |
There is no fortnight in the Thai year where all three are at their best. Anyone telling you otherwise has not looked at the north and the south in the same sentence.
Before you book anything: the arrival paperwork
The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is required, and it is free. Every foreign national entering by air, land or sea files one on the Immigration Bureau's own portal. It costs nothing. There is a small industry of sites offering to file it for a fee, and they are selling you a form.
The 450 baht arrival fee is not being charged. A national committee endorsed a flat 450 baht for all foreign arrivals in August 2026, replacing an earlier proposal of 300 baht by air and 150 by land and sea. It goes to a 30 day public hearing, then back for Cabinet approval, and collection is not expected before the first quarter of 2027. If anyone is collecting it from you now, that is not the government.
Visa-free · 60 days, on all five passports we check.
Short tourist stays only. Checked 21 Aug 2026; rules change without notice and the government page is the source of truth.
Check your own passport →Days 1 to 3: Bangkok
Three nights, and resist the urge to make it two.
Day 1 is a write-off and should be planned as one. Land, get to the room, and do one easy thing: the river. The Chao Phraya express boats are public transport that happens to be the best sightseeing in the city, and an orange-flag boat costs a fraction of a tourist cruise.
Day 2 is the old city. Get to Wat Pho at opening, cross to Wat Arun on the cross-river ferry, and be done with temples by early afternoon, because the heat and your legs will both have opinions by then. Lunch somewhere with air conditioning. Late afternoon at Jim Thompson House or the shophouse streets of Talat Noi.
Day 3 is the modern city and the markets. Chatuchak if it is a weekend, because it only runs Saturday and Sunday and it is genuinely one of the world's great markets. If it is a weekday, take the BTS out to a neighbourhood instead and eat your way along it.
Where to stay in Bangkok is the area breakdown, and the short version is that being on the BTS or MRT matters more than the neighbourhood, because Bangkok traffic is a genuine tax on a short stay.
Days 4 to 7: Chiang Mai
Get there by air or by sleeper. The flight is about an hour and is often the cheaper of the two. The train is the better story.
Train 9 leaves Bangkok around 18:40 and reaches Chiang Mai about 07:15, and a second class sleeper berth runs roughly 1,050 baht for a lower bunk, checked September 2026. First class sleeper tickets go on sale 30 days ahead at 08:30 Thai time and sell out in minutes, which is the detail that decides whether this is an option at all. Book on the State Railway's own site or through an English-language agent.
Day 4 arrives and settles. Walk the Old City inside the moat, which is flat and about 1.5 km on a side, and eat khao soi, which is the dish the north is for.
Day 5 is the mountain. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, early, by shared red songthaew from Chiang Mai Zoo or Chang Phuak Gate for roughly 40 to 60 baht a person, or a chartered truck for 300 to 500 baht for the whole vehicle.
Day 6 is a cooking class or a day out to the countryside. Both are better here than anywhere else in Thailand and both are all-day commitments, so pick one.
Day 7 is deliberately empty, or it is the Sunday Walking Street if the day lines up. If you have added a fourth destination to this trip, this is the day it has eaten.
On elephants, plainly: the gap between a genuine sanctuary and a camp with a sanctuary's name is real and it is not visible from the marketing. If riding, bathing or performances are offered, that answers the question. If you cannot find out how the animals are kept when visitors are not there, skip it.
Days 8 to 13: one island group, chosen by the table
Fly south. Bangkok is the hub for both coasts and the internal flights are cheap and frequent.
If the month says Andaman: Krabi and Koh Lanta over Phuket. Phuket has the airport and the infrastructure, and it also has the traffic and the development. Krabi puts you on the same limestone coast with a fraction of the noise, and Koh Lanta is the one to book if what you want is a long flat beach and nothing much happening.
If the month says Gulf: Koh Samui for comfort and connections, Koh Phangan for a quieter version of the same island with a party at one end of it, Koh Tao for diving, which is the cheapest place in the world to certify.
Getting to the Gulf without flying to Samui: fly to Surat Thani, then the ferry. The crossing to Samui runs about 1 hour 50 minutes, there are up to fourteen sailings a day, and the combined ticket is a fraction of the Samui flight.
Six nights on one island beats three nights on two. Island hopping in Thailand looks efficient on a map and costs you a morning and an afternoon each time, on boats that do not run in bad weather.
The islands guide ranks them properly by who each one suits.
What this page cannot show you: none of Thailand's islands are in our catalogue yet, so there is no live room shelf for Krabi, Lanta, Samui, Phangan or Tao on this page. The Bangkok and Chiang Mai shelves above are real rooms for your dates; for the islands we have given you the ranking instead of a shelf for somewhere else.
Day 14: back to Bangkok, or straight out
If your flight home leaves before about 2pm, come back to Bangkok the night before. Thai domestic flights are reliable until they are not, and a same-day island-to-international connection is the single most common way a good trip ends badly. A cheap airport hotel night is the insurance.
Check which Bangkok airport you are using. Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang are on opposite sides of the city and an hour and a half apart in traffic. Budget carriers use Don Mueang. This catches people out every week.
Checked 21 Aug 2026.
Everything we check for Thailand →What to skip
A fourth destination. Two weeks, three places. Adding Ayutthaya, Pai, Krabi and Samui to the list above does not make a richer trip, it makes four travel days.
Both coasts in one fortnight. They are on opposite sides of a peninsula and in opposite weather. Pick the one the month is kind to.
The Full Moon Party as a reason to route the whole trip. If it lands in your dates, go. Rearranging six nights of a fourteen-night holiday around it is a poor trade.
Booking islands in October or November on the Gulf. That is the wettest window of the Samui year, and it is also when the ferries are least reliable.
Tuk-tuks in Bangkok for anything the BTS reaches. They are slower, dearer and hotter than the train, and the ones waiting outside temples are running a fixed price.
Chiang Mai in March. Covered at the top. It is the one month we would actively restructure a trip to avoid.
Before you book
Where to stay in Bangkok and where to stay in Chiang Mai are the area breakdowns for the two anchors, and the best islands in Thailand is the third leg. Bali or Thailand is the comparison worth reading before you commit, and where to stay in Singapore covers the stopover a lot of these flights make anyway.
The Bangkok city guide, the Chiang Mai city guide and the Thailand country guide carry the practicalities, and there is more in the itineraries hub. When you are ready, Bangkok rooms are here and the bookable half is here.
Fares, train times and arrival rules checked September 2026. The arrival fee is an open policy question and the sleeper train timetable changes seasonally, so Thailand's immigration portal and the railway's own site are the sources to trust over any guide, including this one. Here is how we research and re-check guides.
