Have I mentioned that one of my best friends from college will be joining me for the first month of my trip yet? Guys, I am super excited (as you can see) to have a partner. Chris is going to be the absolute best travel buddy, I just know it. Mostly because if he isn’t, y’all will hear all about it and he knows that. Anyways, he has been pestering me lately, wanting more details about where exactly we are going, for how long, by what mode of transportation and unimportant things like that. His barrage of questions has burdened me with the responsibility of planning a one month itinerary. Make the travel blogger plan the trip, cause she doesn’t have anything else to do, right?

The first thing I would like to point out is that if I was only going to spend one month in Thailand, this is not the itinerary I would follow (sorry Chris). However, I do think it is the best way to start a longer exploration of this region. I have been reading travel blogs for a couple of years now and it seems to be inevitable that every travel blogger will end up in Thailand at some point. The number of articles I have read about this region is simply unfathomable. The itinerary I created for my trip to Thailand was based on not one, but every article I have ever read on the subject. I compiled a huge list of places that I wanted to see and mapped it out using Trip Line, which is my favorite online mapping site. I knew that the list was way too large to see everything in a single year, so I started to downsize. Instead of cutting out the places that I had seen mentioned only once or twice, I started cutting out the places that had been mentioned most frequently. Eventually I narrowed down the list to be somewhat manageable.

Every trip to Thailand seems to start in Bangkok. This could be because it is the cheapest international airport to fly into, or it could be because everyone wants to begin and end their trip in Thailand. I am sure I will find out why. The determining factor for me was price. I scored my one way ticket from Seattle to Bangkok for $474.

Day 1-2 : Bangkok, Thailand

Finally out of the airport. After 20 hours of flying, and likely multiple children kicking the back of my seat, we will have arrived in Bangkok. My goal is to stay awake as long as possible to ensure that I beat the jet lag. Mind you, this doesn’t always work, but I would rather spend my day tired, cranky and exploring than in a coma in my hostel.

Day 2-3: Travel to Koh Tao, Thailand

This is going to be a longggg day folks. The trip takes approximately 11.5 hours and involves a bus, train and ferry. Expect to see angry travel Snapchats. But just keep in mind that at the end of this travel day, we will be on a beautiful island in Thailand.

Day 4-9: Koh Tao, Thailand

Since people tend to associate Koh Tao with diving, that is exactly how we will be occupying our time on this island. Koh Tao is second only to Cairns, Australia for number of Scuba certifications per year. The course that we will be taking is the Open Water Course from Simple Life Divers. There are wayyyy too many shops to choose from, but this shop was recommended to me by Nomadic Matt, and the class sizes are around 4 people per instructor which makes me feel a bit safer. Days 8 & 9 will be dedicated to the beach, a hammock and a book. After all, this is a vacation, right?

Day 10: Travel to Ko Lanta, Thailand

Since the goal of this trip is to see how cheaply I can travel in Thailand for a full year, we will be opting for the 15 hour travel day, as opposed to flying which is substantially more expensive. I figured we would stop in Krabi, stay overnight and do some rock climbing on Day 11. If we fall in love with Krabi, maybe we will stay a couple of extra days and participate in a multi-day rock climbing package. C’est la vie.

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