Thailand has been selling holidays to the Western world for decades.
And rather successfully.
There are beaches. Temples. Street food. Luxury resorts. Tuk-tuks. Long-tail boats. Elephants. Massages. Night markets. Bangkok.
And somewhere along the way, Thailand acquired the slightly unfortunate reputation of being a destination that can be summed up in a brochure photograph of a palm tree leaning over turquoise water.
It deserves rather better than that.
Thailand is complicated, fascinating, gloriously chaotic and occasionally exhausting. It can be impossibly sophisticated one minute and wonderfully scruffy the next. You can spend an extraordinary amount of money on a hotel that gets everything right—or remarkably little money eating something from a plastic stool that you'll remember for years.
That's the Thailand I'm interested in.
I'm not here to tell you that Bangkok has temples or that Phuket has beaches. You can find that in a thousand guidebooks.
I'm interested in what happens when you actually arrive.
Is that luxury resort genuinely luxurious?
Is the famous restaurant worth the queue?
Has the supposedly undiscovered island already been discovered?
And when someone tells you that somewhere is "paradise", should you believe them?
Thailand, Without the Brochure
I've travelled extensively through Asia and spent decades working within the travel industry, watching destinations change as travellers discover them, return to them and occasionally overwhelm them.
Thailand is a particularly interesting example.
It has become extraordinarily good at tourism. Some of its hotels and resorts are among the finest in the world. Its hospitality can be exceptional. Its food needs very little introduction. And its ability to cater to almost every kind of traveller is remarkable.
But popularity has consequences.
Some places are now busy where they were once tranquil. Some beaches have become victims of their own beauty. Some experiences have become so heavily packaged that the original magic can be difficult to find.
And yet Thailand still has an extraordinary ability to surprise.
Beyond Bangkok and the better-known islands are old towns, mountains, markets, national parks, remarkable food, extraordinary cultural experiences and stretches of coastline where you can still find yourself wondering whether somebody forgot to tell the rest of the world.
That's what I want to explore.
What You'll Find Here
The Thailand pages of The Walking Critic will take you beyond the obvious.
I'll look at Bangkok, Phuket, Koh Samui, Krabi, Chiang Mai, the islands, beaches and lesser-known corners of the country, along with the hotels, resorts, restaurants, cruises, attractions and experiences that make travelling here worthwhile.
I'll tell you what I think is worth your time.
I'll tell you what I think is worth your money.
And if something has been wrapped in enough marketing that the reality no longer quite matches the promise, I'll tell you that too.
Because I'm not here to sell you Thailand.
I'm here to tell you what I found when I went there.
And after all these years of travelling, that's still the bit I find most interesting.
