After 5-6 months of living in Bangkok, Thailand last year, I have a feeling it will always be my second home. Culture, food, people, weather, and cost of living- all appeal to my very western upbringing seeking a radically different travel experience. I continue to be surprised by how my travel critic peers tend to agree with my love for Bangkok, even while the city is the center of a political firestorm that has flared up too often as of late. Namely, Travel + Leisure named Bangkok the number one city of 2010despite its political issues, with its northern, much smaller sister Chiang Mai taking #2 on the list.

There have been a plethora of posts on Bangkok’s ‘Top 10’, one of my favorite being from CNN: 50 reasons why Bangkok’s the world’s greatest city. However, many people have asked me about my trip lately (i.e. during interviews) and I’ve tripped up a few times in my efforts to succinctly sell my experience in the World’s greatest city in 2 minutes. So with some reflection, here are the top 10 reasons answering the question “Why travel to Bangkok?”

1. Thai People

Straight chill waves. Peaceful, nice, accepting, and relaxed. Perfect, Western-friendly culture for confused travelers. There are obviously scams and touts like everywhere in Asia, but just use common sense.

2. Food

Say goodbye to too-sweet $15 American pad thai, and hello to $1 street Pad Thai glory. A decent diet can be made up of a rotation between noodle dishes, rice dishes, street fruit, and plentiful international cuisine.

3. Cost of living

Overall, there’s an extremely friendly cost of living for those interested in living like a Thai while traveling. However, if you prefer to live like an American or European in Thailand while in Bangkok, costs will be slightly lower or at par with your homeland. Pretty much a win win.

4. International - Rough Hybrid

Bangkok is an extremely International city in parts, yet extremely Thai everywhere in between. Their interesting economic history plays a large part in this, as extremely rapid expansion in the late 90’s was on pace to transform them into a Seoul, South Korea until the Asian financial crisis originated in Bangkok in 1997 and almost sent them back to the stone age. I attribute the lovability of Bangkok to the extreme visual and cultural contrasts to the volatile economy left behind in the form of city layout and buildings.

5. Weather

Well, weather is hit or miss. Let’s just assume you go during high season November - January. Weather is a solid 75-85, humidity more than manageable,and sunny. The islands, always much nicer as well. Hard to beat that.

6. Travel Center

Bangkok is theeee epicenter for travelers in Asia. Khao San Road sees the most of the backpacker vibe. Even if you hate the backpacker overload, you’ll appreciate the services that come along with it - dirt cheap buses departing Bangkok, cheap hostels, tons of travel services, and a sense of comfort.

7. Hawt Threads

Shopping in Bangkok is awesome, coming from someone who hates shopping. As a thrifty shopper trending towards quality rip off merchandise, Bangkok is spot on. Malls and markets full of decent, negotiable clothing and merchandise are awesome. ALSO, Bangkok it is a necessity to get some clothes tailored when in Bangkok - some shirts at the very least, but suits recommended. Just be wary of touts and scams and do real research before choosing a tailor.

8. Cheap flights

As a travel center of Thailand and Southeast Asia, Bangkok serves as the hub for most Southeast Asian flights. Flights from Europe has some of the best flights to Bangkok coming from London, and airfares coming from US are consistently affordable as far as Asian destinations go.

Even better, Air Asia uses Bangkok as it’s second hub (after its HQ in Kuala Lumpur) servicing almost every Southeast Asian destination possible.

9. Sense of Lawlessness - A sense of anything goes and lawlessness in Bangkok is refreshing to a Midwestern audience used to getting $150 police tickets for driving 10mph over the speed limit. Traffic is crazy, the rules that do exist only do to be broken, and you feel like you’re living on the edge even though it’s really not that crazy. Favorite example of this ‘lawlessness’ –> motorcycle taxis & moped rentals. Nothing pleases me more than motorcycle taxis taking me on sidewalks and renting mopeds for $6/day.

10. Well documented

My IT background may be shining a little to brightly here - but Bangkok is an easy travel destination partly due to its documentation. There are a gagillion amazing travel resources for Bangkok online. TravelFish.com, TravelHappy.info, and Bangkok.com to name a few along with the legendary WikiTravel.

Oh, India. Backpacking through India is a budget traveler’s dream I’ve been fortunate to have experienced firsthand. December – January 2010, I spent 3 weeks on a fairly typical route through India. I embarked from Bangkok, Thailand with a 1200 CL backpack (glorified school bag), US Visa, Traveler’s checks, bank cards, and a ragged out dated Lonely Planet: India from Khao San Road.

When I decided to spend a few weeks following my studies on a large trip, India was the only option in my mind. Its mystique, massive population, rapid economic growth and prowess, and completely foreign culture drew me in quickly.

When I tried reading up on India and getting started, I immediately realized I knew very little about the place and how manageable a solo trip would even be for 3 weeks. So here, I’ll quickly cover the main points and to help you plan and prepare for an extended trip through India and let you use my trip as a quick case study….the point you to a few resources to continue your due dilligence.

India Big Picture:

India is huge. A billion people, and pretty diverse landscapes and peoples. As a former British colony, everyone speaks English, so fear not knowing Hindi, Urdu, or one of the other 67483 Indian languages.
With a few weeks, you’ll likely wish to explore a combination of the following, major areas.

Dehli – Agra
Dehli is a likely entry point as it’s the capital and a huge city. Tons of typical urban things to do in the massive, ruthless urban center. A hop skip and a jump away is Agra, relevant because of a little attraction called the Taj Mahal. It’s worth the hype especially after escaping a big city.

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So I have been a bit vague on where I have been so far on my journeys throughout Thailand and abroad. As mentioned previously, I’m in living and studying in Bangkok, which I’m finding is the best launching pad in maybe all of Asia for traveling. More on this later.

Where I have been

So far I’ve had an amazing experience. I’ve tried to balance my traveling with assimilation into Bangkok since I love the Thai people, city, and culture. If that wasn’t a case, leaving every weekend would happen because everything is so cheap, available, and easy.

• Hong Kong
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Gulf of Thailand Islands - Samui, Tao, etc
• Southern Thailand Phuket area, Phi Phi
• Malaysia

Where I will be going

• Nakhon Si Thammarrat, Thailand (off the tourist trail, finally/hopefully)
• Cambodia
• India

A pretty good list now that I look at it which I’m pretty satisfied with, except for the exclusion of Laos which I will have to travel to on a later trip due to the amazing stories my friends have relayed back to me.

India

I just recently booked my flight to India. I’m going to be making an 18 day journey from Dehli to Mumbai, easily the most ambitious travel venture in my life. I’ll be going alone and zig zagging quite a bit with trains. I’m super super excited, but anxious a the same time.

Overall, I’m so so impressed with Southeast Asia and urge everyone to travel here. While many young aspiring budget travelers opt for Europe out of fear of the unknown, I urge you to reconsider using Bangkok as your hub to Asia. It really is really really easy. I would argue moreso than Europe even.

But if anyone has any great resources or tips for traveling to India, please share!

And finally, get ready for some kickass articles and content when I start to settle down after all of this.

Just a quick update as I’ve been really busy lately with poor/non reliable internet access the past few weeks. Here are some quick updates I’ll use an excuse for my lack of updates recently - My 4 night trip in Hong Kong went pretty well and I arrived in Bangkok the 1st of August to stay at a guesthouse near Khao San Road for a few nights. Once Thammasat University activities and orietnation started up, many other exchange students and I found a very nice, affordable apartment to reside in for the semester until January.

In the meantime, I’ve learned tons about culture, traveling, Thailand, and Europe (via my fellow European exchange students and friends). Both alone and with others I’ve explored Bangkok fairly extensively for the short time I’ve been here so far, and this past weekend some friends and I went to the islands and beach at Koh Samui to relax and see the sun for five days.

It’s been a wild journey so far and I expect it to continue. I’ll surely be maximizing my time here the next couple weeks which will definitely be reflected into the posts that will follow later on.  In the short term, I apologize for infrequent updates, but I hope to return to regular helpful updates once I find a routine and get settled in here in BKK. In the meantime, you can follow my more personal blog for the Thailand trip specifically at Bangkoking.com.

In a week I will be beginning my Asian trek slash study abroad adventure to Bangkok, Thailand, but I will be kicking off the semester abroad with a short stay in Hong Kong for 4 nights. I’m hoping to fly by the seat of my pants for most of the time I’m there, but there’s still much preparation needed (to my dismay).

Hong Kong’s a very expensive city relative to its Asian epicenter counterparts, so traveling on a shoestring in Hong Kong might be a challenge. However, I’ll be documenting every expense meticulously and reporting it here. In the end, every future explorer to Hong Kong should be able to laugh at and learn from my mistakes, and I’ll end up with a fairly comprehensive budget and expense model that any other future budget travelers will hopefully find pretty valuable.

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Now that my itinerary is set for my living and traveling abroad experience in Thailand starting in July, I have finally started consolidating my lengthy to-do lists so I have no excuse not to get a moving on my preparations.

Particularly, packing and choosing clothing to bring to Thailand is somewhat tricky.  Nearly every source I’ve read says ‘don’t pack a lot of clothes for Asia and Thailand‘ Good quality clothing that will fit your needs is plentiful and very affordable in Thailand, so in reality it’s easier and best to pack lightly on clothing and just buy your clothes in Thailand.

Then, however, disclaimer time comes along: Be aware that Asian and Thai clothing and footwear is obviously smaller due to the physical difference between Thais and Westerners… (more…)