Introduction: Off The Beaten Track In Thailand

Introduction: Off The Beaten Track In Thailand

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This trip report will be a bit different than the usual fodder for OMAAT, in part because this was a very different trip. It involved trail mix, bug spray, and a 10-passenger van, so just a little outside of the usual here. 😉

Last Christmas my cousin Heather confided that she did NOT want to spend another holiday season shoveling snow, and that we would be going somewhere warm. Ideally “somewhere exotic”, or at least with interesting food and hopefully a new culture.

We eventually settled on Thailand, and the various school and work schedules meant we were looking at a departure around December 20th, and a return before January 3rd.

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View from our patio in rural Thailand — much better than snow!

Oh, and one more thing — there were seven of us all together.

Seven people. Using miles. To Asia. In premium cabins. Over the literal worst dates for award travel on the calendar.

No pressure.

We also had a huge range of ages on this trip — Heather is ten years older than me, and her husband is ten years older than her. They had their kids along for the trip, so we had my teenage nieces (yes, I realize they’re technically my second cousins – just roll with it) and their toddler brother. Finding a balance of activities on the ground was possibly more of a challenge than finding award tickets for seven!

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Fortunately, selfies with Hello Kitty are a cross-generational activity!

We wanted to avoid the most touristy areas, given Thailand is such a popular vacation destination right now, but also wanted to keep our ground logistics relatively simple (because seven people). So we booked four nights in Kanchanaburi province, which borders Burma/Myanmar:

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Kanchanaburi province is surprisingly under-visited for how beautiful it is

To get some time on the beach, we then spent three nights in Hua Hin, which is about 150 miles south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand:

Thailand-using-miles-08
Driving distance from Bangkok, but less-visited than some of the resort areas to the South.

You can certainly get more off the beaten track in Thailand, but we were at least able to avoid the crowds on the usual Chiang Mai/Phuket/Koh Samui circuit.

As this was such a unique trip, I want to spend more time than usual going into the mechanics of how I booked the flights, and will also go into more detail on the stuff we did in Thailand. We were scheduled to fly JAL on the outbound, but due to some operational issues I was rebooked on Cathay Pacific.

Now, Cathay First is my favorite all-around airline product, but the consistency means it’s just not interesting to write about. So since none of the flights were new products for me or OMAAT, I’m not going to go in-depth on planes. Also, I slept for almost all of every flight, because traveling as a group this size is exhausting.

But I’ll try to make up for that with adorable elephant pictures.

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Baby elephants playing with their mama in the mud. Seriously.

Flights

We knew we were going to spend most of our time outside the main cities, but decided to fly into Bangkok to make things easier. Heather and her family had round-trip tickets from Eastern Washington to Thailand, while my husband and I flew into Bangkok, but extended our trip and returned home via Male.

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Final routing

I’ll have a full post with our award ticket strategy, but just to give you an idea of the miles used:

  • 810,000 AAdvantage miles for 7 first class tickets to Bangkok, and 5 first class tickets on the return (67,500 per one-way ticket x 12)
  • 45,000 Alaska miles for my husband and I to fly Bangkok > Hong Kong > Male in business class (22,500 x 2)
  • 180,000 AAdvantage miles for first class return tickets from Male for my husband and I (90,000 x 2)

I know that’s a ton of miles, but if you’ve ever redeemed for a family (especially in premium cabins), then you can likely relate. Besides, the combination of Dividend Miles and AAdvantage last Spring meant I had a concerning amount of miles in a program ripe for devaluation, so I was anxious to use as many of those as possible.

Hotels/Accommodations

Traveling as a group of seven is tricky, particularly in countries that often limit room occupancy to three people. We split our trip between a charming guest house and a beach resort, with some “positioning” hotels on either end.

And then my husband and I spent four nights at the Sheraton Maldives, which we booked through Citi Prestige so we got the 4th night free.

Communication

One of the things we’re often asked is how we handle staying connected on the road, and that was particularly important for this trip.

WiFi

I always carry a portable “MiFi” device, and swap out SIM cards for different countries. This is more convenient than it sounds — I typically only carry two SIM cards with me, and being able to use multiple devices from one SIM card is nice.

Heather has a mobile internet device as well, and as our otherwise-delightful Airbnb didn’t have internet, we picked up two temporary SIM cards from Thai provider dtac (they have a kiosk at the airport). We each got the “happy tourist SIM” and then added the “heavy user tourist package”. They offer less expensive options, which are probably fine in most cases, but when I’m working I can easily use 1GB a day, so we wanted to over-buy. Regardless, 12GB of data was only $25, so it’s not like it was a big expense.

Having sampled a variety of cellular internet solutions, I have to say the dtac coverage was amazing. You’ll see how rural and isolated many of the places we traveled were, and there were only two spots on the entire trip where we didn’t have perfect coverage. So highly recommended.

WhatsApp

This is my favorite app for group travel, and this trip just reinforced my preference. Having something that works across a variety of devices, allows creation of private groups with custom notification noises, etc., just made things much easier.

It’s also been really fun to go back through the threads, because the things teenagers want to IM about are hilarious.

LINE

This is a really popular messaging app in Asia, and is what we used to communicate with our host at the Airbnb, our driver, etc. It’s worth taking the five minutes to set up before you leave home if you don’t already use it. Everyone was grateful to be able to exchange LINE IDs, and it just made everything easier.

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As a bonus, you get predictive emojis for days, which isn’t even something I knew my life was missing.

Hard-sided suitcases, bug spray, and trail mix

If you’re traveling with people who tend to overpack (i.e., just about everyone), hard-sided suitcases might be the way to go. I don’t use one, because I cherish the ability to cram just one more amenity kit into my bag, but it really helped regulate the amount of stuff the girls brought with them.

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Do you see any checked baggage? I didn’t think so.

And if you’re traveling to rural Thailand, you really can’t bring enough insect repellent. We brought an assortment, and our favorites ended up being Repel Mosquito Wipes and the Repel Sportsmen Stick (both with Deet). Neither have to go in a 3-1-1 bag, and it was easier than dealing with actual spray in terms of application.

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Lifesavers.

We also brought trail mix, granola bars, and a generous supply of ginger capsules for motion sickness. These were all must-haves, in my opinion, and warded off a great deal of potential unpleasantness during the trip.

Overall

This was such a fun and different vacation. It’s rare for me to take time away, so to do so with family and go a little bit off the beaten path was fantastic. I also think this is a pretty approachable trip, all things considered, so hopefully the extra details are helpful to some of you.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the trip or details as we go, and you can see more pictures from the trip on Instagram in the meantime. Thanks for reading!

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  1. Steven A. Galaz Guest

    After Bangkok, we also went to Thailand, then the plan has been to Cambodia and Vietnam. My girlfriend and I took a walk to Lake Huay Tung Tao and visited an impressive tour around the temples of Chiang Mai on a rented motorbike in the company Catmotors. Needless to say, that my beloved was delighted with what she saw, I also have never before received such a pleasure from the trips.

  2. Ryan Guest

    Who is the guy in the far right, in the red shirt? He looks like actor Dean Norris!

  3. Andy Guest

    Hi Tiffany, how on earth did you use Alaska miles for BKK-MLE? I was under the impression Alaska miles could only redeem to/from the US on CX/QF etc. Am I mistaken?

    Thanks!

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ Andy -- Alaska considers the Maldives to be in Asia, and they do allow intra-Asia awards on Cathay. You can also redeem from Hong Kong to Europe or Australia (but only from Hong Kong, and only on Cathay).

  4. gj New Member

    Let me know when you start your own travel blog. Nice read - txs.

  5. Sal Guest

    Of all the guest writers on this blog, Tiffany definitely is the best! I love her writing style and she provides information that is just as in-depth (if not even more so) as Lucky does. Tiffany, keep it going! Can't wait to see more of your material!

  6. Nat Member

    1. From one person who ruins Christmas to another, I look forward to reading this. We ruined Christmas for a third year in a row this year.

    2. Those wipes are the best thing in the history of ever. We had two packages of those on our trip in Nov/Dec. I'll have to try the stick next time. We also had a tube of the lotion (more like goo) and the spray of the same brand and those were both nas-T.

  7. innocenat Guest

    Tiffany, hah. It's true. We also have a very good coverage in most building too, especially in department store :)

    Also, Hua Hin is less visited area in Thailand? It has freaking 10 mile traffic jam on the noon of New Year day (I was there on a day trip)

  8. Renaldo New Member

    Sounds like a great trip!
    @tiffany: when I tried to use the OMAAT service to book awards Over pretty much the same dates for two people I was told those were blackout dates!! - not even a lets give it a shot : ( I guess a "do it yourself" approach is better.

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ Renaldo -- Well, I'll get in to that a bit more in the next installment, but when you don't have date flexibility the options are dramatically limited, and you have to rely on getting lucky with a glut of space (which from a business perspective we can't predict), or booking at the very last-minute.

  9. François Member

    Oh man, this trip looks fantastic. Really looking forward to reading the rest of the TR!

  10. Paul Rowland Guest

    Great to read new posts, keep them coming. Thank you.

  11. innocenat Guest

    As a Thai, I would say that dtac hascleast coverage of all major carriers here. (AIS and True has better coverage).

    But still, cellular coverage here in Thailand something I did not appreciate until I vist the US!

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ innocenat -- WHOA, really?!? I mean, the dtac coverage was nothing short of stupendous, so that's just incredible.

  12. Bill Guest

    It looks like you owe us an EY A380 Apartment Class review too!

  13. Bill Guest

    Great stuff! Looking forward to it!

  14. R B Guest

    Love Thailand, and love Thai people and Thai food.
    Looking forward to reading the trip report.

  15. Alan Guest

    This will be a nice change of pace. I'm interested to in seeing how our hobby works with large groups like this. Looking forward to it, Tiffany.

  16. Ivan Y Guest

    tiffany is that you on the left on the picture? If yes you are smoking hot, at least an 8 and a half

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ Ivan Y -- On the far left? Nope, that's my 17 year old niece. She's gorgeous.

  17. Craig Guest

    Looks like a great trip!

    Being not totally tech savvy, I've always been a little intimidated from trying to use sim cards abroad. Perhaps you can consider doing a how-to post on this, with everything we would need to know.

    Looking forward to the remainder of your trip report!

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ Craig -- That's a great idea, let me see what I can do there!

  18. gill Guest

    PS Bought the same Repel stick for a night camping on an island in Phuket... didn't get one bite!

  19. gill Guest

    Awesome! Tiffany always has such great, helpful info in her posts.

    Just got back from Thaliand on CX F outbound and SQ suites on the way back, but looking forward to your series.

  20. Ben Komenkul New Member

    Tiffany, I am so glad you went to Kanjanaburi and Hua Hin. You travelled like a native! We have homes at both of those places. We should have done an AirBnB for your family!

    Can't wait to see this trip since I am trying to take my family on similar trip Thanksgiving 2016 before devaluation.
    I could only find Business for 4 of us LAX -HKG-BKK via CX. How the heck did you...

    Tiffany, I am so glad you went to Kanjanaburi and Hua Hin. You travelled like a native! We have homes at both of those places. We should have done an AirBnB for your family!

    Can't wait to see this trip since I am trying to take my family on similar trip Thanksgiving 2016 before devaluation.
    I could only find Business for 4 of us LAX -HKG-BKK via CX. How the heck did you get 7 First Class Tickets?
    Also Business BKK to ITI, NRT -DFW-LAX in JAL's new 787 sky business suites. Trying to see if more First class space opens up.

    Any advice? I like your HKG- MLE routing better now... maybe needed a professional like you

  21. caveman Guest

    I just came back from Thailand around the same time and would love to hear your story as soon as possible

  22. LarryInNYC Guest

    The kids are not your second cousins, they are your first cousins once removed (unless Heather is your second cousin, in which case her kids are your second cousins once removed).

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ LarryInNYC -- See, this is exactly why we decided to go with Aunt and nieces/nephew. Already too complicated. ;)

  23. Luis Diamond

    How in the world did you manage to find 7 F award seats to HKG? I have trouble finding just 2. Did you guys all fly out on separate flights??

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ Luis -- Well, technically I found 7 F award seats to HND, but full details on that tomorrow!

  24. henryLAX Guest

    thank you Tiffany. this is definitely a breath of fresh air from the usual "let's review CX F for the umpteenth time"

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ henryLAX -- I do love CX F though!

  25. keith Gold

    So this is why we can never find inventory on JAL and Cathay anymore? :P

Featured Comments Most helpful comments ( as chosen by the OMAAT community ).

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Steven A. Galaz Guest

After Bangkok, we also went to Thailand, then the plan has been to Cambodia and Vietnam. My girlfriend and I took a walk to Lake Huay Tung Tao and visited an impressive tour around the temples of Chiang Mai on a rented motorbike in the company Catmotors. Needless to say, that my beloved was delighted with what she saw, I also have never before received such a pleasure from the trips.

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Tiffany OMAAT

@ Andy -- Alaska considers the Maldives to be in Asia, and they do allow intra-Asia awards on Cathay. You can also redeem from Hong Kong to Europe or Australia (but only from Hong Kong, and only on Cathay).

0
Ryan Guest

Who is the guy in the far right, in the red shirt? He looks like actor Dean Norris!

0
Meet Tiffany Funk, OMAAT Managing Editor
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