Thailand Travel Guide

Here you'll find all of the nuts and bolts on how to get to Thailand, where and when to visit, and what documents you'll need, as well as pointers to other sources of information that can make the difference between a smooth ride and turbulent times.

Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT; www.tat.org.) is an extensive site with information on locations throughout Thailand. However, its listings are often incorrect or out of date.

Travel Blogs & Travelogs

More and more travelers are using travel Web logs, or blogs, to chronicle their journeys online. To read a few blogs about Thailand, try Thingsasian.com, a comprehensive site with some spirited contributors, many travel journalists among them.

You can search for other blogs about Thailand at Travelblog.com or post your own travelog at Travelblog.org. For blogs that cover general travel news and highlight various destinations, try Writtenroad.com or Gawker Media's snarky Gridskipper.com. For more literary travel essays, try Salon.com's travel section (www.salon.com/wanderlust), and Worldhum.com, which also has an extensive list of other travel-related journals, blogs, online communities, newspaper coverage, and bookstores.

Maps

There are a number of excellent Bangkok maps. Nancy Chandler's Map of Bangkok is the by far the best; it's fun, colorful, and great for finding places to eat and shop (it even comes with a short handbook). It costs just 160B (US$4.60/#2.45). At hotels and airports, you'll find the free Thaiways Map of Bangkok and Groovy Map; both offer detailed plans of the city, transportation, and, in the latter, information on Suvarnabhumi International Airport; however, these maps are notoriously outdated when it comes to phone numbers.

Online Traveler's Toolbox

Veteran travelers usually carry some essential items to make their trips easier. Following is a selection of handy online tools to bookmark and use.

• The official Thai government website (www.thaigov.go.th/index-eng.htm) has info in English on current happenings in the kingdom.

• For transportation information, try the following sites: Thai Airways International (www.thaiair.com), Bangkok Airways (www.bangkokair.com), Nok Air (www.nokair.com), SGA (www.sga.co.th), One-Two-GO (www.fly12go.com), and Phuket's new amphibious plane service, Destination Air (www.destinationair.com). Out of the Southeast Asian hubs, there's the extensive Air Asia (www.airasia.com) and the smaller Tiger Airways (www.tigerairways.com); with newcomer Jetstar (www.jetstar.com) linking Asian cities with Australia. For train info, contact the Thai State Railway at www.srt.or.th. Note: The official Suvarnabhumi or Don Meuang Airport websites are not updated regularly and could be misleading to travelers. Cross-check these sites with more reliable international travel sites or blogs.

• Thai publications in English are numerous. Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com) and The Nation (www.nationmultimedia.com) are the only English-language dailies. The free Where Magazine lists lots of events and happenings, as does BK Magazine, which has a younger target audience.

• There are a few blogs and info sites in Thailand with (not always updated) tips about life in the Big Mango. Check the likes of www.bangkokrecorder.com and www.angloinfo.com. New Zealand writer Stickman (www.stickmanbangkok.com) posts a useful, but cautionary "warts and all" guide to Thailand, though some info is way out of date.

• To find a room for rent for long stays, try www.mrroomfinder.com.

• Find out which seats to reserve and which to avoid (and more) on all major domestic airlines at www.seatguru.com. And check out the type of meal (with photos) you'll likely be served on airlines around the world at www.airlinemeals.net.

• At Foreign Languages for Travelers (www.travlang.com), learn basic terms in more than 70 languages; just click on a word to hear what it sounds like.

• Intellicast (www.intellicast.com) and Weather.com (www.weather.com) give weather forecasts for all states and for cities around the world.

• See what time (and day) it is anywhere in the world at www.timeanddate.com.

• For travel warnings, visit travel.state.gov, www.fco.gov.uk/travel, www.voyage.gc.ca, and www.dfat.gov.au/consular/advice. These sites report on places where health concerns or unrest might threaten American, British, Canadian, and Australian travelers.

• See what your dollar or pound is worth in more than 100 other countries via Universal Currency Converter (www.xe.com).

• Check Visa ATM Locator (www.visa.com) for locations of PLUS ATMs worldwide, or MasterCard ATM Locator (www.mastercard.com) for locations of Cirrus ATMs worldwide.