7 Day Thailand Itineraries

Our Zicasso travel agent did a wonderful job taking our requests and styling a complex, detailed itinerary. Everything worked perfectly. The guides all communicated with each other and the drivers were always at the expected locations. All accommodations were awesome and well-located. 

Beginning in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we visited Doi Inthanon National Park, the Doi Suthep mountain temple, and had an absolutely awesome time visiting with elephants at the elephant sanctuary, among other things. We even got to play with a two-week-old elephant. All our dining recommendations were awesome and we particularly enjoyed our time with the guides.

Next, we flew to Krabi for unforgettable views and relaxing beach time. Again, the resort was awesome. We even went mountain climbing on Railay Beach. My son got engaged at the New Year's gala at our hotel, which was spectacular; an unbelievable stay. We particularly enjoyed our time with the guide!

Next, we finished in Bangkok, where the highlight was riding in the tuk-tuks and doing a city food tour. Our guide was so awesome and knowledgeable.

Unfortunately, eight of the 10 of us then flew home, while my wife and I continued to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our guide was such a good travel companion and we left Cambodia with a true knowledge of Cambodian life/history/temples. He was very forthcoming about his life growing up under the Khmer Rouge. Although a long day, the temple tour was unbelievable, culminating in Angkor Wat. Our hotel was awesome and blocks from the nightlife on Pub Street. It was such a great stay.

Next, we flew to Saigon. We were met by our guide, who noticed we were hungry and immediately stopped at a local street food vendor for our first foray into bun bo. It was so good. The mix of history, countryside visits, and city tours with our guide was awesome and she even left us with a customized pictorial of our visit. The other excursion that needs mention is the Vespa city and food tour. Our main guide was delightful, giving us a true taste of Saigon culture and food. The drivers were so great.  This tour finished with a surprise visit to a local bar/club, where we had front-row seats to an awesome Latin band for a nightcap. It was truly unforgettable. Also, we cannot forget our visit to the Cu Chi tunnels, where our guide did a great job educating and touring us through this unbelievable history.

Then, we flew to Hanoi to another awesome location. Highlights in Hanoi would be visiting the Hoa Lo prison, having dinner in a local family's home, and especially the Minsk backstreet tour. Our tour drivers were so awesome. This excursion really gave us a feel for the city/backstreets, as well as an idea of the frightening life of riding a motorbike through the city and back alleys of Hanoi. It was truly unforgettable. This tour finished with my knees about a foot away from the speeding train at Hanoi train station, another can't-miss site!

Next, we visited Ninh Binh for trekking, biking, and bamboo boating. The scenery was awesome and it was definitely a nice break from the busy city.

The trip finished with a two-night, three-day cruise on Hạ Long Bay. The scenery was unbelievable and the staff were excellent; so attentive and informative.

This trip truly was spectacular and we are so happy that Zicasso connected us with our agent to make all of this happen. We couldn't be happier with the entire trip!

Overall, it was a great vacation and we all enjoyed it very much. Thailand is a beautiful country with very friendly people, a deep and rich culture and awesome food!

When we set out to book our family vacation to Thailand, at first we were overwhelmed by the choices and the planning. Which cities to visit ? What are the tours ? Where do we stay ? Flight travel etc. Luckily, I came across Zicasso – a new way to book travel – that connects you with a travel advisor who has local knowledge of the place you want to go. This is how I got referred to our tour planner and travel team.

The travel team really helped us experience Thailand with local guides who know the place well.

First of all, our tour planner is awesome – she and the travel team helped us plan our trip – everything from airline, to hotels to the day by day itinerary and travel insurance. Even before we left on the trip, we felt both prepared and excited by the program. The app is amazing – it feels great to have your complete itinerary including local tips around guides, phone numbers, flight details all available in the app when you need it. Our agent gave us many good choices for local tours and helped us pick the itinerary that best suited our family.

Flights – The tour planner connected us with an airline which did a great job with our flights. We flew from Vancouver and within Thailand. The flights were great, good service and generally on time.

Hotels – the hotel in Bangkok was great. We got rooms on a high floor overlooking the Chao Praya river – amazing views! The best part was seeing the fireworks display on the Chao Praya river for the New Year. The hotel was packed since it is high season for tourists and yet we got good service overall. In Chiang Mai, we stayed at a hotel. It is a quaint, homely place to stay and within walking distance to local markets. A couple downsides – lots of mosquitoes in Chiang Mai – the hotel does a mosquito spray in the evening sometimes and we had to be out of our rooms for an hour in the evening for that. The Wi-Fi also was not great. They serve a great buffet breakfast in the morning.

Local guides – Chatcha in Bangkok and Oil in Chiang Mai – were awesome! They were very flexible with our family needs, knew the local conditions well and really helped us get the most out of each day in Thailand. Having a guide and vehicle exclusively for our family needs each day was amazing! The pickup and drop-offs at the airports were great and both our guides helped us all the way from check in to the point of entry into security. Both guides had extensive knowledge of the history of Thailand and the local tours and this helped us understand things better. Finally, the guides helped us experience the amazing Thai food – including in local places and street food. We felt safe wherever we ate and always had bottled water available for our needs.

Tours – the original tours planned had more temples in the program. After a couple, we decided to improvise and change things up which our local guides helped with a lot. We added an Elephant camp tour at the last minute – this turned out to be the highlight of the entire trip for our kids (and us!). I did not know that Elephants can paint and seeing the Elephants paint some great pictures is an experience we will never forget! For the temples, there is a dress code – our guides helped us buy elephant pants where needed so we could go in. The Doi Suthep temple in Chiang Mai is a must see – you need to climb 300+ steps to get to the top – stunning temple and great views of Chiang Mai city. We loved the boat rides – the long tail boat ride in Thonburi and near the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market were super fun! Lots of history – if you like that, the Ayutthaya day trip is worth it. The Jim Thompson house in Bangkok is a short tour but very interesting and well worth it.

Food - always lots of food choices – a noodle dish restaurant in Chiang Mai is soooo good! Loved the foodie tour with street food in Thonburi, the floating market and Chatuchak market. Tom Kah soup, Mangoes, Coconut pancakes and of course Phad Thai, Fried rice, sticky rice – if you love great food, Thailand is like heaven!

Shopping – lots of great shopping opportunities and we bought many interesting things for the house. Its good to have local currency for small purchases. We loved the shopping at Chatuchak market, floating market and the malls – MBK and Siam Paragon.

This is a long overdue review. We traveled to different areas of Thailand for 2 weeks at the end of January and beginning of February 2018. After being matched with this travel company, our agent made the process of planning this vacation very simple. He responded quickly to questions, was available through text, email, and phone, and put together a wonderful itinerary for us. We visited Bangkok, Kanchanaburi, Chiang Mai, and Koh Lanta, which were all unique and amazing in their own respects. What we were really impressed with is that our agent and his team made sure that someone was always waiting for us at our next stop, whether it was someone to pick us up at the airport or a tour guide waiting for us at our hotel. Unfortunately, there was one issue with our airplane tickets being accidentally booked incorrectly, but after getting on the phone with our agent, we were able to resolve it quickly and were able to continue on to Krabi as planned. I must say my fiancé and I were really impressed with the quality of the tours that were arranged for us by this travel agent. I cannot say enough about how much I absolutely adored our tour guide in Bangkok. Kanchanaburi was beautiful and my most favorite part was waking up to the sound of the flowing river on our jungle raft in the morning. We also loved the cooking class with a local Lanna family and visiting the Elephant Sanctuary in Chiang Mai and the Scuba Dive in Koh Lanta. The hotel was a spectacular treat in Koh Lanta. Our agent booked us a beachfront suite that was literally steps from the hotel's private beach front, and the perfect place to get engaged in Thailand.  This was an amazing unforgettable trip for the both of us and we cannot thank this travel company enough. Our travel agent and his team made this trip stress-free and wonderful. I would use his company again in a heartbeat and encourage anyone who is planning a trip to Thailand to utilize them as well. I promise you will not be disappointed! Thank you so much to our agent and the travel company's team. 

Singapore and Thailand Adventure 19 February 2024

Dates: January 24th, 2024 through February 14th, 2024

In short, we were happy with the itinerary and enjoyed each location on our trip.

The execution of our travel plan and support we received from the Zicasso travel agency left much to be desired.

Highlights:

The hotels booked were excellent with highest marks for the hotel in Bangkok and the one in Krabi, which was one of the best hotels we have ever stayed at. Locations and amenities of all the hotels were beyond reproach.

The Elephant Sanctuary was fun and everything we hoped it would be.

The night market in Chiang Mai was a highlight. Our host in Chiang Mai was the best, and super helpful.

The airport transfers and check-ins all went according to plan and were all on time with no glitches.

The lunches/restaurants on both the Krabi and Koh Samui speedboat excursions were really good and had delicious food.

Lowlights:

When we checked into our first hotel (in Singapore) early the morning of January 26th after our 17-hour flight from San Francisco, we were happy knowing that we would be getting an early check-in. However, we were surprised to learn that we were actually paying for the night of January 25th, which was not indicated in our itinerary. In fact, the itinerary stated 3 nights in Singapore, January 26th – 28th. We were not pleased with the deception and would like to be reimbursed for the additional night’s lodging.

Our biggest issue, throughout the trip came with baggage allowances and weight for all of our intra-Thailand flights. We had a total of 5 flights booked by the travel company, in addition to the SFO – SIN round trip which we booked ourselves. The problem was that all 5 flights were booked on the cheapest economy fare with minimal baggage allowances. I think it’s fair to say that when you’re taking a high-end “luxury” vacation, you don’t expect to be limited to a single 20 piece of luggage, which was what we had on our AirAsia and Bangkok Air flights. We upgraded some of the flights ourselves for additional weight and AirAsia’s “Red Carpet” Service (both at additional cost) but were unable to make some of the upgrades since the travel company used their own contact information (instead of ours) to book the flights. When we tried to make changes ourselves, the contact information didn’t match, and we couldn’t make the desired changes. We then asked to upgrade all of our remaining flights but had problems at every step.

We notified the company of Adriana’s requirements for gluten-free meals in advance of the trip. The hosts or the hotels we stayed at were rarely aware of this requirement which became a constant source of frustration.

We took a city tour in Singapore which included dinner… the Chinese restaurant was TERRIBLE and there was barely anything (gluten-free) that Adriana could eat.

We had no “host” in either Krabi or Koh Samui, but were only given a phone number to call with questions, etc. We never met anyone at either location.

We had several instances where our excursion guide didn’t know what our itinerary included. As an example, In Koh Samui, our guide and speedboat captain didn’t know that we were supposed to have a “5 Island Tour” which would include the best snorkeling spots available. It wasn’t until more than halfway through our 6-hour excursion that we showed them our itinerary to confirm. They then did a high-speed pass by 3 of the islands and the snorkeling location we stopped at was a complete waste of time. Had we known better, we would have been taken to Koh Tao, which is supposed to be one of the best snorkeling sites in the world.

It is hard to put into words what a fabulous trip our family had.  From wonderful hotels to excellent services.  We had twelve days of fantastic memories.  We loved Bangkok and Ayutthaya, but Chang Mai and Krabi/Ao Nang captured our hearts.  We had a day with Elephants that we will never forget.  Patara Elephant farm, no super touristy stuff, they care for and have a breeding program and you work with the handlers to take care of the elephants.  Our cooking school was fantastic.  A morning in the market and a wonderful day of cooking 5 dishes each with a cookbook to take home at Cooking @ Home.   On to Krabi,  we actually stayed in Ao Nang.  We loved the proximity to so many islands.  We Longtailed everywhere.  The beaches were gorgeous,snorkeling good and tours easy.  The rock climbing excursion was a fun rock climbing adventure.  Our favorite beach/island was Hong Island after kayaking. All connections etc. were detailed perfectly.  We asked for not too touristy, culture, beaches, elephants, and cooking and we got it all.