The Tale of Two Travelers

Same money. Same Thailand. One week or two.

Sam and Alex are made up. Everything they spent is not. Every price below is a real January price in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, sourced at the bottom, and the two trips are built from my Bangkok guide and my Chiang Mai guide, which are the same places I go every time.

Here is the setup. Two travelers land in Bangkok on the same Saturday in January with the same budget, about $1,100 after the flight. Sam has one week and drinks the way most people drink on vacation: a few beers in the afternoon, a proper night out two or three times, nothing wild. Alex has two weeks and drinks nothing. Same guesthouses, same street food. Alex takes the sleeper north, Sam flies. Sam flies home on the second Saturday. Alex stays another week on the money Sam spent at the bar. Alex comes home under budget after fourteen days. Sam, after seven, does not.

Sam has a good week. That matters, so I will say it twice. Sam has a good week.

Both trips are written up as travel journals, day by day, if you would rather read those first. Read Sam's journal at traveljournals.app/sam and Alex's at traveljournals.app/alex. The numbers and the lists below are the summary.

The daily spending

Every day's number is everything: the room, food, transport, whatever they did, whatever they drank, plus $20 a day for the small stuff, water, coffee, laundry, a SIM, the odd souvenir. Rooms are the same in both columns: a hostel private near Khao San at about $29, a lower berth on the sleeper, a guesthouse room in the Chiang Mai old city at about $15. Food is the same street food. Transport is the same boats, trains and songthaews. The only line that differs is drinks, and everything that drinks drag in behind them: the coffees in the lobby, the second tuk-tuk, the van instead of the train.

** Plus 8,000 baht, about $243, for the night Sam rang the bell. More on that in Sam's journal.

Look at the drinks line on its own. Sam's bar spending across seven days comes to about $178, and the things the drinks dragged in behind them, a forfeited elephant booking, a van seat instead of a 15 baht train, a tuk-tuk nobody rode, a lot of lobby coffee, another $119. Every activity Alex did in fourteen days, every temple, both cooking classes, the elephants, two massages, the waterfall, the trains, adds up to about $250. A week of ordinary vacation drinking costs more than two weeks of doing everything, before the bell.

Add the bell night and Sam's drinking alone comes to about $421. That is nearly six of Alex's fourteen days, everything included.

The things they did

Photo: Miguel González

Sam, one week. Honest list, in Sam's words where I have them.

• Khao San Road on the first night. Buckets, a guy from Leeds, pad thai at 1 am. "Best thing I have eaten in a year."
• Wat Pho, late afternoon. "Hot, packed, a hundred tour groups." Stood in front of the reclining Buddha for a while anyway.
• Chinatown at night on a plastic stool.
• A rooftop bar on the 60-somethingth floor. "Cocktails that cost more than my room. Worth it once."
• A long-tail boat through the canals, paid the tourist price.
• A walk back to last night's bar to collect the wallet, and an 8,000 baht tab left open at midnight. Rounds for people Sam had known for an hour.
• Two temples in Ayutthaya, by van, at noon, after missing the 8 am train.
• The one-hour flight to Chiang Mai. Slept.
• Zoe in Yellow and two bars Sam cannot name.
• Doi Suthep in the afternoon heat.
• A half day with the elephants, rebooked after sleeping through the 7:30 pickup. "The best thing I did all week."
• Three coffees in a hotel lobby waiting for a tuk-tuk booked for the wrong hour.
• A last night out. The phone did not come home.

That is a real vacation. Sam will talk about the elephants and the rooftop for years. There are nine photos, they stop Friday night, and Tuesday is mostly gone.

On the tab: 8,000 baht is about 243 dollars, and I went easy on Sam. I have seen far bigger. Ring the bell once in the wrong bar, let the lady drinks start landing on your table, and the number on the paper at the end of the night stops being a number you can argue with.

Photo: Alberto Capparelli

Alex, two weeks.

• Wat Pho at eight, ten minutes alone with the reclining Buddha. Wat Arun by the cross-river ferry. An hour at the massage school.
• Chinatown at night, four stools.
• The orange flag boat the length of the river. Wat Rakhang. A shared long-tail through the klongs. Lumpini at dusk.
• Ayutthaya on the 15 baht ordinary train, a rented bike, four temples.
• The Grand Palace at opening. Jim Thompson House. A green curry made from scratch.
• The flower market. The night train, lower berth.
• Khao soi for breakfast at a place with no sign. The old city moat on foot. Tha Phae Gate at sunset.
• The Monk's Trail in the dark, Wat Pha Lat at first light, Doi Suthep with the city under cloud. The Saturday market on Wualai.
• Thanin Market. Two hours reading in a cafe. The Sunday Walking Street.
• A morning at Elephant Nature Park, 7:30 pickup, van home in silence.
• Bua Tong, the waterfall you walk up.
• A full-day cooking class with the market run. A massage, asleep on the table.
• The Samoeng loop on a scooter, a coffee at a viewpoint.
• The same khao soi, the bowl already coming. The same tuk-tuk driver, a handshake.

Sixteen photos. Fourteen mornings. Alex remembers all of them, and the second week cost nothing extra, because it was already paid for at Sam's bar.

Read their journals

I wrote both trips as travel journals and published them on Travel Journals, our journal app. Same days, same photos. Sam's are in black and white. Alex's are in color.

Sam · one week, drinkingThailand, One WeekSeven days and one entry from the airport gate, written on a tablet. Alex · two weeks, soberThailand, Two WeeksFourteen entries, one for every morning.

Or just type it: traveljournals.app/sam and traveljournals.app/alex.

The places in both trips come from the two guides, if you want the how-to.

Part 1 · BangkokSober Bangkok7 things to do before the night train Part 2 · Chiang MaiSober Chiang Mai8 things to do after the night train

Read them back to back. Then run your own numbers. If your last vacation had a bar tab, that tab was a second week somewhere, and it still is.

Sources: rooms from khaosanroad.com and Hostelworld; Wat Pho and the massage school from watpho.com; the Grand Palace from royalgrandpalace.th; trains from seat61; Elephant Nature Park from elephantnaturepark.org; bar and 7-Eleven prices from khaosanroad.com, cktravels and The Nation; the no-alcohol rule on Thai trains from seat61 and The Nation. Prices as of 2026, converted at 32.90 baht to the dollar.