For the very simplest double room, prices start at a bargain B200 in the outlying regions, around B300 in Bangkok, and B400–500 in the pricier resorts. Tourist centres invariably offer a tempting range of more upmarket choices but in these areas rates fluctuate according to demand, plummeting during the off-season, peaking over the Christmas and New Year fortnight and, in some places, rising at weekends throughout the year.
Guesthouses, bungalows and hostels
Most of Thailand’s budget accommodation is in guesthouses and bungalows. These are small, traveller-friendly hotels whose services nearly always include an inexpensive restaurant, wi-fi and safe storage for valuables and left luggage, and often a tour desk. The difference between guesthouses and bungalows is mostly in their design, with “bungalows” – which are generally found on the beach and in rural areas – mostly comprising detached or semi-detached rooms in huts, villas, chalets or indeed bungalows, and “guesthouses” being either a purpose-built mini-hotel or a converted home. Showers and flush toilets, whether en-suite or shared, are common in both, but at the cheapest up-country places you might be bathing with a bowl dipped into a large water jar, and using squat toilets.
Many guesthouses and bungalows offer a spread of options to cater for all budgets: their cheapest rooms will often be furnished with nothing more than a double bed, a blanket and a fan (window optional, private bathroom extra) and might cost anything from B200–400 for two people, depending on the location and the competition. A similar room with en-suite bathroom, and possibly more stylish furnishings, generally comes in at B300–700, while for a room with air conditioning, and perhaps a TV and fridge as well, you’re looking at B400/500 and up. In the north of Thailand in the cool season, air conditioning is more or less redundant, but you might want to check that your room has a hot shower.
In the most popular tourist centres at the busiest times of year, the best-known guesthouses are often full night after night. Some will take bookings and advance payment via their websites, but for those that don’t it’s usually a question of turning up and waiting for a vacancy. At most guesthouses checkout time is either 11am or noon.
Generally you should be wary of taking accommodation advice from a tout or tuk-tuk driver, as they demand commission from guesthouse owners, which, if not passed directly on to you via a higher room price, can have a crippling effect on the smaller guesthouses. If a tout claims your intended accommodation is “full” or “no good” or has “burnt down”, it’s always worth phoning to check yourself. Touts can come into their own, however, on islands such as Ko Lanta where it can be a long and expensive ride to your chosen beach, and frustrating if you then discover your bungalow is full; island touts may sweet-talk you on the boat and then transport you for free to view their accommodation, ideally with no obligation to stay.
With only a dozen or so registered youth hostels in the country, bookable via 
tyha.org, it’s not worth becoming a Hostelling International member just for your trip to Thailand, especially as card-holders get only a small discount and room rates work out the same as or more expensive than guesthouse equivalents. In addition, there are a growing number of smart, modern, non-affiliated hostels, especially in Bangkok. They usually work out more expensive than budget guesthouses but are good places to meet other travellers.
Thai sales reps and other people travelling for business rather than pleasure rarely use guest-houses, opting instead for budget hotels, which offer rooms for around B200–600. Usually run by Chinese-Thais, these functional three- or four-storey places are found in every sizeable town, often near the bus station or central market. Beds are large enough for a couple, so it’s quite acceptable for two people to ask and pay for a “single” room (hawng thiang diaw, literally a “one-bedded room”). Though the rooms are generally clean, en suite and furnished with either a fan or air conditioning, there’s rarely an on-site restaurant and the atmosphere is generally less convivial than at guesthouses. A number of budget hotels also double as brothels, though as a farang you’re unlikely to be offered this sideline, and you might not even notice the goings-on.
Advance reservations are accepted over the phone, but this is rarely necessary, as such hotels rarely fill up. The only time you may have difficulty finding a budget hotel room is during Chinese New Year (a moveable three-day period in late Jan or Feb), when many Chinese-run hotels close and others get booked up fast.
The rest of the accommodation picture is all about tourist hotels, which, like anywhere in the world, come in all sizes and qualities and are often best booked via online accommodation booking services such as local outfit sawadee.com. Other useful booking sites that specialize in Thailand include true-beachfront.com, which carries all kinds of accommodation as long as there’s no road between it and the strand; and secret-retreats.com, a curated collection of independent accommodation, including some lovely boutique hotels, resorts and villas. One way or another, it’s a good idea to reserve ahead in popular tourist areas during peak season.
Rates for middle-ranking hotels fall between B600 and B2000. For this you can expect many of the trimmings of a top-end hotel – air conditioning, TV and mini-bar in the room, plus an on-site pool, restaurant and perhaps nightclub – but with dated and possibly faded furnishings and little of the style of the famous big names; they’re often the kind of places that once stood at the top of the range, but were outclassed when the multinational luxury hotels muscled in. At these places, breakfast – often referred to as “ABF”, short for “American Breakfast” – is usually included, as noted in our listings.
Many of Thailand’s expensive hotels belong to the big international chains: Hilton, Marriott and Sofitel (and the rest of the Accor group) all have a strong presence in the country, alongside upmarket home-grown groups such as Amari, Anantara and Dusit. Between them they maintain premium standards in Bangkok and major resorts at prices of B3000 and upward for a double – far less than you’d pay for equivalent accommodation in the West.
Thailand also boasts an increasing number of deliciously stylish, independent luxury hotels, many of them designed as intimate, small-scale boutique hotels, with chic, minimalist décor and exceptional personal service and excellent facilities that often include private plunge pools and a spa. A night in one of these places may start at as little as B2500, rising rapidly if indulgences such as private plunge pools and spas are laid on.
Accommodation prices
Throughout this guide, the prices given for guesthouses, bungalows and hotels represent the minimum you can expect to pay in each establishment in the high season (roughly July, Aug and Nov–Feb in most parts of the country) for a typical double room, booked via the hotel website where available; there may however be an extra “peak” supplement for the Christmas–New Year period. If travelling on your own, expect to pay between sixty and one hundred percent of the rates quoted for a double room. Where a hostel or guesthouse also offers dormitory beds, the minimum price per bed is also given; where a place has both fan-cooled and air-conditioned rooms, we’ve given the minimum price for a double in each category. Top-end hotels will add seven percent tax (though this may increase to ten percent) and ten percent service charge to your bill; the prices given in the Guide are net rates after these taxes (usually referred to as “plus plus”) have been added.
Bathroom etiquette
Although modern, Western-style bathrooms are commonplace throughout Thailand, it’s as well to be forewarned about local bathroom etiquette.
Sit-down toilets are now the norm but at public amenities in bus and train stations, and in some homes and old-style guesthouses and hotels, you’ll still find squat toilets. Thais traditionally don’t use paper but wash rather than wipe themselves after going to the toilet. Modern bathrooms are fitted with a special squirting hose by the toilet for this purpose, while more primitive bathrooms just provide a bucket of water and a dipper. Thais always use their left hand for washing – and their right hand for eating. As Thai plumbing is notoriously sluggish, where toilet paper is provided, you’re often asked to throw it in the wastebasket and not down the U-bend. If a toilet is not plumbed in, you flush it yourself with water from the bucket. In really basic hotel bathrooms with no shower facilities, you also use the bucket and dipper for scoop-and-slosh bathing.
As guesthouses have become increasingly hotel-like and commercial in their facilities and approach, many tourists looking for old-style local hospitality are choosing homestay accommodation instead. Homestay facilities are often simple, and cheap at around B300 per person per night, with guests staying in a spare room and eating with the family. Homestays give an unparalleled insight into typical Thai (usually rural) life and can often be incorporated into a programme that includes experiencing village activities such as rice farming, squid fishing, rubber tapping or silk weaving. They are also a positive way of supporting small communities, as all your money will feed right back into the village. Many of Thailand’s homestays are geared towards Bangkokians, so language might be a barrier for overseas visitors. However, as well as the listed homestays that are used to dealing with farangs in Mae Hong Son province, Chiang Rai, Ban Prasat, Mukdahan, Ban Khiriwong and Khuraburi, there are many others bookable through tour operators.
Nearly all the national parks have accommodation facilities, usually comprising a series of simple concrete bungalows that cost at least B600 for two or more beds plus a basic bathroom. Because most of their custom comes from Thai families and student groups, park officials are sometimes loath to discount them for lone travellers, though a few parks do offer dorm-style accommodation from around B150 a bed. In most parks, advance booking is unnecessary except at weekends and national holidays.
If you do want to pre-book, you’ll have to take on the parks departments’ new but cumbersome, uninformative and deeply frustrating website, nps.dnp.go.th. Bookings open sixty days ahead of a proposed stay, though hopefully it won’t take quite that long to navigate through the maze to the payment page. If you turn up without booking, check in at the park headquarters, which is usually adjacent to the visitor centre. In a few parks, private operators have set up low-cost guesthouses on the outskirts, and these generally make more attractive and economical places to stay.
You can usually camp in a national park for a nominal fee of B60 per two-person tent, and some national parks also rent out fully equipped tents from B150, though the condition of the equipment is sometimes poor. Unless you’re planning an extensive tour of national parks, though, there’s little point in lugging a tent around Thailand: accommodation everywhere else is very inexpensive, and there are no campsites inside town perimeters, though camping is allowed on nearly all islands and beaches, many of which are national parks in their own right.