After a Month in the Sun, Thailand Left Me With Some Mixed Feelings

Thailand, a beloved destination for many travelers across the world. A land of beautiful nature, vibrant cities, and some of the friendliest and most welcoming people you will ever meet. However, despite all of these positives does the destination suffer from an at times seemingly inescapable wave of badly behaved tourists ?

A hill top sunset in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

Back in 2018 I embarked on my first ever proper backpacking trip, a three week inter-railing jaunt across Europe and from the time stepped off the plane in Europe I could feel the travel-bug take hold of me to the point where in the seven years since, my life has revolved around travel and the idea of maximizing the amount of time I can spend on the road. The feelings of personal autonomy and unchained curiosity hit me like a drug and I became addicted to trying to plan when I could leave for my next journey and feel this rush again. While retrospectively, I wouldn't say that western and central Europe are the most "exotic" places in the world, at the time it was all brand new to me. The people, the food, the architecture, the geography, the cultures, the languages, and just about everything in-between were all things I had never experienced before. It may sound Naïve, but nineteen year old me felt like some version of Indiana Jones or Anthony Bourdain taking the train from city to city across Europe and I believe that this introduction of new and unfamiliar sensations is at the nexus of why these feelings driving my love for travel have stuck with me so strongly in the years since.

When returning from Europe I immediately got to work on planning my next trips for the upcoming years and from the onset Thailand was one of the countries near the very top of my bucket-list. From the research that I did, Thailand checked all of the boxes for me. It was a land where the culture was vibrant and unique, the food on offer was delicious, the people were friendly, costs were low, and the geography was world-famous. This summer after years of planning to go, I finally made it to Thailand, and well, all of these things that made Thailand such an appealing destination turned out to be true. So why, after spending a month traveling across the country was I left with mixed emotions...

Understanding the risk of coming off as "high & mighty and over-enlightened" travel in my eyes does not necessarily equate to vacation. In fact, I would say it would be more accurate to call it a form of education. The reason I fell in love with traveling on my inter-railing trip to Europe was not because I was eating out at fine dining and going out to get shit-faced drunk every night. Rather, instead of spending my days hungover and my nights off in a bar. Each day was mostly spent aimlessly strolling through city streets, going to museums, picnicking in public gardens, people watching, and finding any number of ways to make my own adventures day to day. Thailand in contrast felt like a vacationers paradise, but in someways lacked the sense of adventure and spontaneity that I had come to love.

To rip the band-aid off, Thailand in many aspects feels like if you took a 19 year old ketamine addict's fantasy vacation and mashed it together with a generic travel agencies' package beach vacation they are trying to push on first-time vacation goers. Despite being such a far off destination, I frequently found Thailand to feel as though it was missing that sense of adventure and unfamiliarity which I so craved. This leads me to my first point. The demographic problem. I found there are two main groups of travelers you will encounter in Thailand. In first place and by far the overwhelming majority are young (think 18, 19, 20 year old) first time backpackers. I have certainly met plenty of young backpackers that I vibed well with. However, a lot of my fellow travelers in Thailand felt particularly immature and due to sheer volume, hard to escape. For every person I really got along with it felt there were about twenty others who appeared to have come to Thailand under the premise of huffing laughing gas, getting hammered drunk, going to ping pong shows (google it), and doing cheap drugs on a nightly basis. Now don't get me wrong I am not above having a night out, but if I wanted to go to dirty frat parties with a bunch of recent high school graduates I could have simply gone back to my old University rather than fly all the way to Thailand.

The second demographic of traveler that I noticed a high proportion of were old sugar daddy types who came to Thailand for the purpose of sex tourism. At one point in my trip, I was staying in a fairly upscale hotel on the beach and (no exaggeration) at least 80% of the people I saw staying in the hotel were middle aged to advanced middle age Russian, German, or some other European men with Thai girls who were half their age. So, between the pervert old men and raucous teenagers, why is it this way ? While I don't think the blame falls on the Thai people, I believe in certain regards the country markets itself towards these demographics. This is not to say that the official Thai board of tourism is putting out messaging saying "come Thailand to get wasted and meet hookers". However, once you are actually in the country there are a lot of these shady businesses with some very frequent and in your face advertising. In this age of social media the word has quickly spread that Thailand is the place to go if you are into this sort of debauchery.

Further compounding this issue, I found outside of Bangkok and Chiang Mai it was a bit difficult to make friends or have genuine interactions with the local Thai people. This was especially true in the south of the country. Don't get it twisted Thai people are very friendly and welcoming across the country. However, tourism is such an integral part of the economy and this region is so over-run by tourists, it is hard not to have exclusively transactional interactions with the local people . Which I mean, I get it. However, what that has resulted in is a clear divide in the foreign visitors and the locals which made it a bit difficult to just sit, chat, and make friends with people. Unlike my times in India, Nepal, and Cambodia where many of the people I hung out with and made friends with were locals, in Thailand I found it a bit more difficult to make genuine connections.

This leads me to my next point, Thailand can feel too tourist centric. I appreciate Thai hospitality and am fully aware of the hypocrisy within this statement as I am part of the problem myself. However, I do feel like it must be said that some areas of Thailand are so taken over by tourists that they almost resemble somewhere closer to Disney-Land rather than a real place where people actually live. Take the picturesque island of Koh Phi Phi for example. Genuinely one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. Yet the serenity of this tiny island nestled in the Andaman sea has been severely hampered by the sheer amount of tourist infrastructure on the island. Despite geographically not being much more than a roughly two-kilometer long sandbar sandwiched between two rugged mountains jutting up from the sea, the island is absolutely packed full of restaurants, bars, hotels, and souvenir shops.

During my stay on the island, the lack of a form of local culture and authenticity was felt. In an effort to do a bit of exploring on the island, I went for a couple runs were I looped the length of the main sandbar a few times. What I saw was that if there had been any local communities on the island they had all been pushed out to make way for new tourism developments. In fact, what I found quite sad was that instead of local communities with a vibrant and persevering culture, many of the Thai nationals actually living on the Island were hotel staff living in housing compounds hidden behind the resort they worked for. I forget where, but at one point during my stay I came across a business with pictures of the island in the 1970s. Despite never being there at this time it brought me a sense of somber nostalgia seeing what the island looked like then. What was now a strip of bars and restaurants, was then a lush forest of palm trees. There were pictures of what village life was like with fishermen preparing for a day out on the sea. I am not against economic development, but in Koh Phi Phi as well as some other destinations I visited in Thailand, this development appears to have come at the expense of the locals. What was once a quiet fishing community in Koh Phi Phi, now resembles something along the lines of bourbon street in New Orleans.

Koh Phi Phi Pictured in 1987

Another observation was that there was a plain lack of respect for the land and local communities by many of the people visiting Thailand, and with the sheer amount of tourists in Thailand it felt unavoidable at times. It cannot be disputed that Thailand possesses some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. However, it was extremely disheartening to see trash littered in the sand and even floating in the water at many of these beaches. In addition, there were instances where the ambiance of these gorgeous beaches was shattered by people taking drugs out in the open, people who were so blackout drunk that they were puking in the sand, or the presence of a bar (or multiple bars) with booming loud music just feet away from the beach. For me, if I am going to the beach it is to unwind and relax and at times in Thailand I found this to be a bit difficult to achieve due to the atmosphere created by the people who I was sharing the space with.

Many of the hostels I found also shared this unruly atmosphere. While I am someone who enjoys hostels with a good social atmosphere where you can meet new people. Many hostels in Thailand just felt too centered around drinking and partying. In some instances, this was so much so that there was a sense of negativity or pressure given to you if you were in the hostel and not participating in drinking. Many places I stayed would incessantly pester me to buy a drink or sign up for the nightly pub crawl, and on the topic of pub crawls, holy shit there are so many pub crawls in Thailand. In Bangkok this was less of an issue as there is a lot to do. However, down south there appears to be an endless loop of sitting on the beach doing nothing all day, followed by drinking all night in pub crawl. Many people I met seemed to have been caught up in this loop for days and sometimes weeks at a time. A particularly disheartening group I took notice of in Thailand were the 'hostel-volunteers' who's entire time traveling had been eroded down to, hanging out aimlessly in the hostel day after day and leading a pub crawl night after night. To call back to what I previously mentioned, I do understand why some people would prefer a chill holiday. For me, however, after a couple days spent like this I quickly began to feel as though I was wasting my time.

So with all of this off my chest now, would I go back to Thailand ? Well, yes. I think in many regards I traveled Thailand wrong, or at the very least like a beginner and thats on me. The first mistake I made was not really deviating from the traditional Thailand backpacker trail much during my stay. This was particularly true during my trip down to the south of the country. During this leg of my trip I visited Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi, Railay, and Khao Sok. Each of these destinations are regarded as some of the most popular destinations in the country, so I am to blame for picking such a standard itinerary. Knowing what I know now, I think Thailand is absolutely a country where putting in a bit of extra leg work and finding/going to some of the lesser known spots would greatly elevate my enjoyment on any subsequent trips. On top of this, despite all of the bitching and moaning I've done in writing this, there is genuinely a lot to like about Thailand. The moments where my adrenaline was pumping and I could tap into my inner Indiana Jones really standout. Zooming through the busy city streets of Bangkok in one of the city's trademark supercharged tuk tuks was exhilarating, and road tripping up to a quiet village in the mountains to the North of the country are memories that will stick with me for a lifetime.

Moreover, the local Thai people were always very welcoming and in the cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai I had some great times hanging out with Thai people. On top of that Thailand is probably the second most affordable country I have traveled to behind only Nepal and what really elevates Thailand in this regard is the quality vs cost you can find. Somewhere like India for example, has cheaper options than Thailand. However, often times paying for the cheapest option in India would be either unbearable or unsafe. Whereas in Thailand, you could always find extremely cheap food to eat without too much worry of getting sick as well as plenty of cheap, but also well-kept accommodation and transportation options. Finally, there is a reason Thailand is such a highly frequented destination for tourist. It does have some of the most stunning nature I have ever seen and for those looking to unwind for a few days or weeks on the beach you can do just that here affordably and comfortably. However, for anyone who would like to get away from hoards of party going westerners and tourist trap restaurants and gift-shops, I would recommend you put in some research before setting off for the country.