Thailand Tours, Sports & Weddings!

If we wanted to go on a sardine tour we would have booked a fishing holiday in Portugal! Trouble is, so many tours in Thailand are just that, but with you as the sardine! Hotels in Thailand generally "work" with 3rd party tour operators; this means they have their brochures, call them when you want to book something and make a commission off you! The problem is these tour operators tend to mess you around, keep making stops at shops full of tourist tack where they make a commission off anything you buy there, and then get you to the place you booked to see at exactly the same time as every other tour bus; this also is the time when the beggars and hawkers know to show up. Sound familiar?

Some hotels however operate their own, individual, in-house tours that are the complete reverse of such 3rd party commission opportunities, often allowing you to design your own tour with them and where you get individual guide attention and travel in a car, not a sardine can along with 20 other sardines. If you do go to one of the main Thai temples or other popular tourism spots, where beggars and hawkers frequent, the hotels tend to get you there before they and the tour bus hoards arrive. These Thai hotels and villas are to be applauded. Below are some of the hotels / villas we are aware of that offer such bespoke tour services;

Mae Kok River Village Resort
Actually the hotel is owned by the most renowned hill tribe tour guides in Northern Thailand
Lai Thai Guest House Chiang Mai
One of the very few genuine tour guide establishments left in Chiang Mai

Khapo Yai Garden Lodge offer jungle, bat cave and wild animal tours, plus bird watching.