My soon to be husband and I are planing on going for our honeymoon to Thailand in January next year for 10 days. We know we deffinately want to ride elefants,;see some, not much, temples; and go to the beaches. We know that Phuket is a big destination. We are sure we want to do some R&R at a beach...and would not mind being at another beach where we could also have some fun. (Gulf coast and Phuket??). Should we nix the idea of going to Chiang Mai to see the elefant sanctuary and just head to Phuket for that as well?

Please, any suggestions are more than welcome. We want to buy our ticket soon because the ticket price is perfect ($1,130 from Washington DC!)

Thanks everyone!!

Oh..we would also LOVE to stay at a place where the bunglaows are pretty much ON the beach. Any suggestions??

first check out flights on korean air from DC...

generally phuket is not bungalows on the beach, but rather big hotels...

what is your hotel budget..

yeah, we already looked at Korean Air. Seems to be the cheaper option. We really haven't thought about hotel budget just yet, it seems you can get a lot for very little money. Not sure if this applies for Phuket as well.

take a look at:

www.sawadee.com
www.asiarooms.com
www.agoda.com

these will give you rough ideas about hotel costs...

it is very hard to search for hotels if you have no idea about what you intend to pay....put together some range estimates...

generally in thailand you get far more for your money than you do in usa... like all beach/seaside locations prices in phuket tend to be higher than in other towns and cities.... it is after all a holday location...

There weren't many bungalows ON the beach that we saw in Phuket. Near the beach, or resort hotels on it. We stayed at Two Chefs where we had a private bungalow across the street from beach access.

But Phuket was actually our least favorite Thai beach destination--Phi Phi was luxurious and amazing, and Railay (Krabi) was dramatically gorgeous and very laid back. I think the beach front options in both of those places are more appealing than Phuket. But if you want nightlife, Phuket has that above others for sure.

More info and pics in our Thailand posts at http://patrinadoestheglobe.blogspot.com/

If you are going to Thailand for only 10 days I would make it easy and just go to Bangkok and Phuket. There are gorgeous hotels to stay in Bangkok. We booked all the hotels through www.sawadee.com
If you want a gorgeous private beach, stay at the Chedi Phuket. We booked a Beach Suite cottage and were at the bottom of the cliff right at the beach. It was great! We had room service on our porch and there is a nightly shuttle to Patong Beach every night.
http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/phuket/chedi/
Good luck!

we also stayed at the chedi and it is a gorgeous hotel. cannot go wrong! lovely quite private beach and yummy breakfasts