I'm planning a trip to Thailand, myself and 2 teenagers, for July 2026, 4 weeks. I went to Thailand 24 years ago (!), and though I know it's monsoon season, we only have school holidays to work with! Planning Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Sukothai, Ayutthaya and an island for some beach/ easy snorkeling time. Can anyone give me a rough guide for a budget per day, please? We'll be rocking up and taking accommodation when we get there, eating street food or small restaurants, prob overnight buses/trains rather than flights (unless I find bargain internal flights).

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You can fond accurate costs for accommodation and travel by checking out the websites like booking.com, hostelworld and Agoda for your actual dates. The same with air travel - go to sites like Air Asia, kayak.com or skyacanner. Rome2rio is also a good starting point for travel, esp buses.

I would also take a look at www.travelfish.org which has some very useful stuff for planning trip to Thailand. For street food https://migrationology.com/travel-gu...gkok-thailand/ is a good starting point. typically I would expect to pay 50baht per plate at a street stall or market, 100-200 in a small restaurant. Alcohol is relatively expensive due to taxation.

In Bangkok, the BTS is good for getting around, taxis may be good for the four of you but the traffic is terrible and scams plentiful (same with tuk tusk) . When we have been we usually try to stay but the river and use the river buses to get to the main sites.

Ayuthaya can be done as a day trip from Bangkok or you could go by train and carry on to Sukothai by train and from there to Chiang Mai ( we did this once and it made a nice trip.). In the north the weather. It will be very wet in northern Thailand but it will be lush and green and the accommodation will be a lot cheaper. I would also consider Chiang Rai which is just a couple of hours away and make a nice change from CM.

Not really beach weather in July and I would avoid the likes of Phuket & Krabi. Koh Phang Nan , Koh Samui and Koh Tao should see much better weather and the diving around Koh Tao should be great at that time. My brother in law met up with his daughter there a few months ago and enjoyed it (despite being 20 years older than anyone else on the island .

https://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm is a great site for train travel and other travel options in Thailand and provides full details of fares and times etc.

Hope this helps a little.

Thank you. I'd forgotten about the seat61 website, there's so much more info on there than the last time I used it! Last time I was proper backpacking there was no Internet, you just had scribbled bits of info from other people! I'll take a look at booking.com etc, just in the past I have found that much more expensive than arriving in a town and finding what's available. Koh Tao looks like the island to beat then!

I was there years ago. Can;t say how much it will cost to go snorkeling, we didn't do this.

But food and transport was incredibly cheap. You can get a tuk-tuk (small taxi) for a couple of euro equivalant. And the food in the small restaurants is both delicious and VERY budget friendly. You could eat like a king on 10 euro per day.

I've spent several months there over the last few years, and you couldn't have a better option for a budget destination other than the flight cost.

It really\depends o what you mean by budget. Thailand today is a place where you can get a super clean room for $15 per night. It won't have any bells or whistles, but it will have clean sheets and hot water, and you will be in the heart of paradise. Especially the time of year you are going. The most amazing streets foods, and markets in the tourist streets are $2 per person, and if you go 3 blocks back you have just entered .50 cents. Go eat where the Thais eat and you just cut your food cost down by 1/3, which was already cheap.

$100 per day for all food and hotel accommodations, and that is not budgeting at all on food, and that includes your taxis etc. (That won't be an amazing time in Bangkok for that budget for 3 people though). Go where the backpackers go and let those kids have fun with kids close to their age, and where things are cheap.
After Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Koh Tao, Koh Pha-Ngan. I know you area remembering the glory days of Bangkok. But you can blow through a budget quickly there.as taxis aren't going to be 100-200 baht like they are all over the islands to go 10 mins. You're going to be there a month, just do 3 days in Bangkok and get out of there. That's not Thailand, that's Bangkok. No offense, but Bangkok to me just means Soi's and Soi's, there is nothing to do there but eat good food which is like the rest of Thailand. I've never understood people's love for Bangkok. In the last 60 days in country, a total of 2 nights was spent there, that's how much I love the rest of Thailand compared to Bangkok. But to each their own! I am a breach lover!

It's my favorite country, enjoy your trip - you will love it!