Thailand is the friendliest and easiest country for new travelers to experience Southeast Asia. The beautiful weather, low prices, and friendly people keep thousands of backpackers and budget travelers coming back to this fascinating place every year.

I did my Thailand trip in 2006 and spent around 6 months backpacking in the area. I also know what its like to burn 60 hours a week in a cubicle, looking at websites like this one and dreaming of taking the plunge!

With this page I am going to present some great Thailand trip options to people thinking of going. I will add photos and answer comments with advice for getting there to fuel your vagabonding dreams when you should be working. :)

I recorded careful journals of my very first backpacking experiences and have been using them to provide Thailand travel tips to people that have no idea what to expect when they land.

All photos by Greg Rodgers.

Pretty much everyone comes through steamy, polluted Bangkok. With as many people as NYC squeezed into a quarter of the space, it is a mad place to say the least.

Most travelers love it or hate it, either way you either have to embrace the chaos or get out of town as quick as possible. With all the beauty and adventure that Thailand has to offer, its no wonder that people only stay a few days.

One way or another, pretty much every budget traveler in Asia ends up on Khao San rd - the backpacker ghetto of the universe.Sukhumvit is a nice alternative, but its still worth a break from your vagabonding just to see the infamous Khao San Road.

This place is a circus! Pretty much 24 hours a day the party never stops. This isn't exactly the place to get exposed to real Thai culture and pretty much every scammer in Bangkok hangs out here to prey on the horde.

On a positive note, prices are extremely cheap - you can find rooms for under US $5 a night, street food for less than $1, and everything in between. You can even buy student IDs, press passes, and fake college degrees right on the street! The shopping is good and this is a great place to meet traveling friends if you are out alone.

When you've had all the bars, temples, and traffic that you can handle here are some options for escape:

• Take the local bus to Kanchanaburi
• Take a bus north to Chiang Mai
• Take the train south to the islands in the Gulf
• Take a train and bus combo to the West coast

You can book any of these options at one of the numerous travel shops. Prices are regulated so there's no real need to shop around, just don't let them talk you into a "VIP" bus upgrade (total scam) or something similar.

Thailand trip to Ko Phangan

(Pronounced like "Ko pahn gahn")

Thousands of backpackers leave Bangkok and head straight for the islands. Haad Rin on the island of Ko Phangan is the party epicenter of Southeast Asia. Every full moon a famous rave takes place on the beach, sometimes attracting as many as 15,000 people. It is other-worldly and it is simply something that must be experienced at least once (then run for your life!)

People on the island don't necessarily wait on the full moon - there is a huge half moon party rave with trance techno held in the jungle every month. Every night, a couple thousand people find their way to the beach in Hat Rin to party literally until the sun comes up.There are fireshow parties like the one above pretty much every night on the beach.

If you don't want to party the entire time you are on Ko Phangan, no worries. Only the southern town of Haad Rin is crowded and chaotic, the rest of the island is beautiful, secluded, and quiet.

Some tips for visiting Ko Phangan

• Book the night train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. This will save you a night's accommodation and is a very comfortable way to travel. Don't buy the food on trains, it is expensive and poisonous!
• From Surat Thani you will take a ferry to the island. You will actually by passing Ko Samui, a larger more touristy island popular with European travelers.
  
• Had Rin is a peninsula, there are 2 beaches - the "sunrise" side and the "sunset" side. You can walk between the two in 15 minutes. All the partying takes place on the sunrise side so stay somewhere else if you want to rest.
  
• Don't stay in a bungalow near the beach unless you don't mind thumping techno trance music pretty much until the sun comes up.
  
• The "Paradise Bungalows" at the end of the sunrise beach are cheap but noisy - this is the start of the Full Moon party.
• If you are coming for the Full Moon party, come early! Every single place fills up in the peak season (Jan - Mar) and people have to stay on other islands to be ferried over just for the party! 
• If you go to the party - don't swim! Inevitably every month someone gets drunk, goes in the ocean, and the strong currents caused by the moon carry them away.
  

Aside from all the partying, the beach and sand at Haad Rin are great! Ko Phangan really is a beautiful island.

After getting about all their bodies can handle at the Full Moon party, many backpackers want to flee the party scene and go somewhere quiet to recover.

The tiny island of Ko Tao is a 4 hour boat ride away and provides the perfect place to rest up and learn something new - scuba diving!

Koh Tao has the highest concentration of dive schools in the world, and the island is so small that you can walk from one end to the other quite easily. There are enough crazy divemasters living on the island to make 1 or 2 parties a night, but for the most part things stay pretty calm...everyone either has homework or a dive in the morning!

If you ever wanted to learn or try scuba diving for the first time, this is the place.  Courses are extremely cheap compared to the rest of the world and most schools are reputable and safe due to regulation and so much competition.

There is better water and marine life in the Andaman Sea on the west coast of Thailand, but this is the cheapest and easiest place to get your PADI Openwater Scuba certification.