I’ll never forget the moment a security guard politely turned away my friend Marcus at Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai because his cargo shorts came two inches above the knee. He’d researched “temple dress codes in Thailand” but somehow missed that the Chiang Mai temple dress code for men and women is actually stricter than … Read more
I’ll never forget the moment my flight touched down in Bangkok for the first time. I was 26, had only traveled within Europe and North America, and I was absolutely terrified. My mom had sent me a list of diseases I might catch. My friends had warned me about elaborate scams. I’d read forum posts … Read more
If you’ve been searching for what to wear to temples in Thailand, you’re not alone — it’s one of the most Googled questions before visiting the country. The good news is that the rules aren’t complicated. Once you understand a few key principles, putting together the right outfit for temple in Thailand is actually pretty … Read more
Picture this: you’ve just sweated through a 45-minute tuk-tuk ride across Bangkok, you’re standing at the entrance of the Grand Palace, and the guard is looking at your strappy sundress like you’ve personally offended the monarchy. A small crowd of equally underdressed tourists shuffles beside you toward a sarong rental booth, wallets out, dignity slightly … Read more
The school year ended and I sat in an empty classroom for twenty minutes just listening to the silence. Then I went home and looked up flights. Teaching summers off exist for a reason — and somehow, every search kept pulling me back to Thailand, specifically to those ancient temple complexes that looked almost too … Read more
I found a fare alert on a Thursday afternoon that made absolutely no sense to ignore. By Friday morning I had a ticket and no real plan — which turned out to be the best way to approach the whole thing. Thailand has a way of rewarding that kind of spontaneity, whether you’re wandering through … Read more
I quit my career in finance to become a landscape photographer, and before I started that new chapter, I gave myself one month: no meetings, no performance reviews, no deliverables — just go somewhere that would remind me why I made the switch. Thailand wasn’t a calculated choice so much as a gut feeling, the … Read more
I booked this trip at 11pm on a Tuesday after a meeting where someone used the phrase “synergize our deliverables” for the third time in an hour — my corporate brain needed an escape hatch, fast. Fifteen minutes later I had a one-way ticket to Bangkok, a mild panic attack, and absolutely no plan. As … Read more
When I left my job without another one lined up, everyone thought I was having a breakdown. I was. But I was also buying a one-way ticket to Bangkok, and it turned out those two things were connected — because Thailand has a way of resetting something deep in you, especially when you arrive with … Read more
