Thailand Travel Tips 2026: 25 Things To Know Before You Go

One table before the detail. Every figure below is explained further down, and the rupee amounts use an approximate rate of Rs 2.85 to 1 baht. Check the live rate before you exchange.

Yes. Thailand is one of the safest destinations in Asia for tourists, including solo and first-time travellers and women travelling alone. Violent crime against visitors is rare. What you will actually meet is petty scams, overpriced taxis and the odd pushy tout, and those are annoyances, not dangers. Travel with the same street sense you would use in any big Indian city and you will be fine.

• Thailand is safe, so plan around scams, not fear. Save the Tourist Police number, 1155, in your phone the moment you land. The officers speak English and handle exactly the tourist problems you might hit, from a taxi dispute to a lost wallet. General emergency is 191 and an ambulance is 1669.
• Buy travel insurance before you fly, and this one is not optional. The single biggest cause of serious trouble for visitors is a motorbike accident, and a foreign hospital bill without cover can run into lakhs. A basic Thailand policy from India costs a few hundred rupees a day and covers medical, theft and flight trouble. Buy it, then forget about it.
• For solo and female travellers, the ordinary rules are enough. Use Grab or a metered taxi at night rather than an unmarked car, keep an eye on your own drink at Full Moon parties and beach bars, and dress modestly at temples and in smaller towns. Female travellers consistently report Thailand feels easier and less stared-at than much of the region.

Visa and entry: what Indian passport holders need

This is the part every other ‘Thailand travel tips’ guide skips, because they are written for US and UK passports. Here is the version for an Indian passport.

• You do not need a visa in advance. Under the current exemption, Indian passport holders can enter Thailand visa-free for tourism for up to 60 days. Your passport must be valid for at least six months, and immigration can ask to see a return or onward ticket and proof you can fund the trip. Rules here have changed more than once since 2023, so confirm the day-count on the Royal Thai Embassy or e-Visa site close to your travel date.
• Fill in the TDAC before you fly. The Thailand Digital Arrival Card replaced the old paper form and is now required for almost everyone arriving by air. It is free and takes five minutes online, and you can file it within 72 hours before your flight. Use only the official government immigration website. Several copycat sites charge a ‘processing fee’ for the same free form, so ignore any page asking for payment.
• Have your proof ready at immigration. Keep a printout or screenshot of your return ticket and your first hotel booking. It is rarely checked, but when it is, having it saves you a long conversation at the counter after a red-eye flight.

Planning the trip end to end is easier once the paperwork is clear. If you would rather have flights, hotels and transfers handled for you, browse Thailand tour packages from India and customise from there.

Money in Thailand: baht, cash and what it costs in rupees

• The currency is the Thai baht, and Thailand still runs largely on cash. Street stalls, ferries, small guesthouses and tuk-tuks want baht, not cards. Withdraw a decent chunk at the airport ATM to start, and keep a mix of small notes for markets and transport.
• Every foreign-card ATM withdrawal costs a flat fee, currently around 220 THB (about Rs 630), on top of your Indian bank’s charge. So withdraw larger amounts less often instead of small sums daily. Forex cards and a couple of Indian banks refund or waive part of this, so check yours before you leave.
• Always choose to be charged in baht, never in rupees. When an ATM or a card machine offers to bill you ‘in your home currency’, that is dynamic currency conversion and it hides a poor exchange rate. Decline it every time and let your own bank do the conversion.

Here is what everyday things actually cost, so you can budget in rupees before you go. Rupee figures use roughly Rs 2.85 to 1 baht.

As a rule of thumb, a backpacker can travel on about 1,000 THB a day, a comfortable mid-range trip runs 1,400 to 2,100 THB, and you can spend a lot more on islands and cocktails without trying. The tables below and our 

Thailand shopping guide break the money side down further if you plan to bring things home.

You will probably meet one or two of these. None of them is dangerous, and all of them fall apart the moment you know the script.

• Never disrespect the monarchy, and treat this as the one hard rule. Thailand has strict lese-majeste laws, and insulting the King or the royal family is a serious criminal offence, not a social faux pas. Stand quietly when the royal anthem plays in cinemas and at some stations, and never deface or step on money, because every baht note and coin carries the King’s image.
• Dress and behave respectfully at temples. Cover your shoulders and knees, take your shoes off before you enter a shrine hall, and keep your voice down. Women should never touch a monk or hand anything directly to one. Our guide to the best temples in Thailand covers the dress code and the etiquette temple by temple.
• Mind heads and feet. The head is the most respected part of the body, so do not pat anyone, even a child, on the head. The feet are the least respected, so do not point your feet at people or at a Buddha image, and do not prop them on seats or tables. A small smile and a slight bow, the wai, is the standard greeting and always lands well.
• Do not buy or carry out Buddha heads or images. Taking a Buddha image or a Buddha head out of Thailand without a permit is illegal, and it is disrespectful regardless. Admire them in place. If you want the story behind Thailand’s reverence for certain symbols, our piece on Thailand and the white elephant is a good primer.

• In Bangkok, take the train and skip the traffic. The BTS Skytrain and the MRT metro are fast, cheap and air-conditioned, and they reach most of the places you want. Buy a stored-value card or tap a contactless card, and use the trains at rush hour when a taxi would crawl.
• Use Grab for everything else on the ground. Grab is the local ride app, it shows the fare up front, and it removes the whole taxi-haggling problem. For tuk-tuks, treat them as a fun short hop and agree the price before you climb in, not after.
• Between islands and cities, plan ahead. Domestic flights on Thai AirAsia, Nok Air and Thai Lion are cheap and quick for long hops like Bangkok to Phuket or Krabi. Island ferries and the sleeper trains sell out over the December to February peak, so book those a few days ahead. If you rent a motorbike, carry an International Driving Permit, always wear the helmet, and photograph the bike before you ride, because the ‘you scratched it’ claim is common at rental shops.

The sweet spot is November to February, when most of the country is cool and dry. March to May is very hot, and June to October is the monsoon, though rain usually comes in short heavy bursts rather than all-day downpours. The catch is that the two coasts run on opposite seasons, so read the table before you lock in islands.

For a month-by-month read, including where to go when the weather turns, see our guide to 

visiting Thailand in November and the rest of the monthly series on the Thailand tourism hub.

Pack light and pack smart. You will live in shorts, cottons and sandals, and you can buy anything you forget cheaply at any market. The things worth carrying from India are reef-safe sunscreen, a modest set of clothes for temples that covers shoulders and knees, a reusable water bottle, any regular medicines with their prescription, and a universal adaptor. Leave heavy fabrics and formal wear at home.

• Eat the street food, and do not be nervous about it. The busy stalls with a queue and a high turnover are usually cleaner and fresher than a quiet tourist restaurant, and they are where the best pad thai, som tam and mango sticky rice live. Drink only bottled water, which is cheap everywhere, and skip ice only in the most remote spots, because tourist-area ice is factory-made and fine. If you want it mild, learn to say ‘mai phet’, meaning not spicy.
• Vegetarian, Jain and Indian food are easier to find than you would expect, which matters if you are travelling from India. Look for the yellow-and-red ‘jay’ sign, which marks strict vegetarian and vegan food, and it is everywhere during the annual Vegetarian Festival. Bangkok’s Phahurat, the city’s Little India near Chinatown, is full of Indian and Jain-friendly restaurants, and Sukhumvit and Khao San have plenty more. Tell any kitchen ‘jay’ or ‘mangsawirat’ for vegetarian, and specify no fish sauce, since it hides in many Thai dishes.

• Sort your data on arrival, or before. A tourist SIM from AIS, TrueMove or dtac costs about 300 to 600 THB for 8 to 15 days of generous data and you can buy one at the airport. If you would rather not swap your Indian SIM, install an eSIM such as Airalo before you fly and connect the moment you land. Data is what powers Grab, Google Maps and your ferry bookings, so do not skip it.
• Learn four Thai words and watch doors open. ‘Sawasdee kha’ (if you are a woman) or ‘sawasdee khrap’ (if you are a man) is hello, ‘khop khun’ is thank you, ‘mai phet’ is not spicy, and ‘tao rai’ is how much. Thai people warm up fast to visitors who try, and a smile does most of the rest.

If this is your first time, here is the order to do things in. The whole plan takes an evening.

• Pick your window and route. Aim for November to February, and for a first trip keep it simple with Bangkok plus one beach area such as Phuket, Krabi or Koh Samui.
• Book flights early. Direct flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad reach Bangkok in about 4 to 4.5 hours. Fares are lowest booked a few weeks out and away from the December peak.
• Check the visa rule and passport validity. Confirm the current visa-free day-count for Indian passports and make sure your passport is valid at least six months beyond your travel dates.
• File the TDAC within 72 hours before you fly, on the official immigration site, and save the confirmation to your phone.
• Sort money and data. Arrange a forex card or baht cash, and buy an eSIM or plan to grab a tourist SIM at the airport.
• Book the big-ticket items. Lock your first hotel and any island ferries or domestic flights over the peak season, then leave the rest loose to improvise on the ground.

Prefer to hand the logistics to someone who does this every day? Compare Thailand tour packages and tell the agent your dates, budget and the islands you want.

Thailand rewards the traveller who arrives prepared, and now you are. Sort the visa-free entry and the TDAC, carry baht, go in the cool season, and treat the scams as trivia rather than threats, and the rest of the trip takes care of itself. If you would rather spend your energy on the beaches and the street food than on the planning, our team can build the whole trip around your dates and budget. Start with Thailand tour packages from India, or read more in the Thailand travel guide.