Bangkok Pattaya Tour Package, 4N/5D

1. Day 1

   Arrival, and the river at dusk

   • Airport meet and private transfer into Bangkok
   • Chao Phraya by boat at dusk
   • Wat Arun from the water
   • Talat Noi and Yaowarat on foot

   You are met at Suvarnabhumi and driven into the city. Nothing is scheduled for the afternoon beyond checking in and shaking off the flight. The day opens properly on the water: out onto the Chao Phraya as the light goes, Wat Arun lit on the Thonburi bank, then back onto dry land for dinner in the lanes around Talat Noi and the top of Yaowarat, where the shophouse kitchens only really start once it is dark.

2. Day 2

   The old city, on foot and by longtail

   • Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, first thing
   • Wat Pho and the reclining Buddha
   • Thonburi khlongs by longtail
   • Jim Thompson House, if you want it

   An early start, because the Grand Palace is calm for about an hour after opening and the courtyards turn into a griddle by mid-morning. Shoulders and knees covered here, for the palace and for Wat Phra Kaew inside it. Then the short walk to Wat Pho, the reclining Buddha and the massage school behind it, and a longtail into the Thonburi khlongs, where the city drops away into stilt houses, water taxis and the occasional monitor lizard. The afternoon is yours: the Jim Thompson House if you want one more thing, the hotel pool if you do not.

3. Day 3

   Down the corridor to the coast

   • Erawan Museum, Samut Prakan
   • Muang Boran, the Ancient City
   • Check in on the Pattaya coast
   • Evening free at Jomtien or Bali Hai

   Check out after breakfast and take the motorway southeast toward Chonburi. Two stops keep it from being a dead transfer. The Erawan Museum at Samut Prakan first, for the crypt and the stairway under the three-headed elephant, then Muang Boran, the open-air Ancient City, where you can ride a bicycle between full-scale and scaled rebuilds of temples and palaces from every region of Thailand, most of an afternoon if you let it be. You reach the Pattaya coast in time to swim before dinner, with the evening free along Jomtien or down at Bali Hai.

4. Day 4

   Ko Larn, then the coast behind Pattaya

   • Bali Hai pier and the crossing to Ko Larn
   • Ta Waen, Samae or Tien beach
   • Sanctuary of Truth, Laem Ratchawet
   • Pratamnak hill and Wat Phra Yai at sunset

   Out to Bali Hai pier for the crossing to Ko Larn, the island most people mean when they say Coral Island. Ta Waen for the busy end of it, Samae or Tien if you would rather swim with fewer people around you and eat where the boats do not stop. Back on the mainland after lunch for the Sanctuary of Truth, the all-teak hall on Laem Ratchawet, still being carved after decades and joined without a nail in it. Sunset from Pratamnak hill, with the big Buddha at Wat Phra Yai above the bay.

   More on the island day: Coral Island Tour, Pattaya
5. Day 5

   The road back, unhurried

   • Morning free on the coast
   • Ang Sila market and Bang Saen, if the flight allows
   • Transfer to Suvarnabhumi

   A slow morning on the coast and a late checkout where the hotel will give one. The drive back to Suvarnabhumi is planned around your flight rather than around the clock, so if the day has room in it we leave the motorway and take the old coast road: the seafood market at Ang Sila, the workshops that still cut granite mortars by hand, a last plate of crab at Bang Saen. If the flight is early, we simply go straight up the motorway and you are at the terminal with time to spare.

• Comfortable

  Central Bangkok hotels within a short walk of a Skytrain or metro station, and a Pattaya resort a street or two back from the sand. Straightforward rooms, kept properly, breakfast included.

• Superior

  Riverside and heritage hotels in Bangkok, the sort with their own boat shuttle across to the Skytrain pier, paired with a beachfront resort on the quieter southern stretch of the Pattaya coast.

• Premium

  The city's top riverside and garden addresses, and a low-rise beachfront resort with its own sand toward Na Jomtien. Suite and pool-villa categories wherever the property has them.

We do not publish hotel names on this page. The properties for your tier go into the written proposal instead, so you approve each one by name, with its rate and its cancellation terms, before anything is booked.

• Phi Phi Island Tour

  See the plan and send an enquiry.

• Coral Island Tour, Pattaya

  See the plan and send an enquiry.