My daughter and I are traveling to several places in Jan and Feb. We have planned a tour in India because of the distances. We have a couple night booked in Bangkok when we first arrive, but we'd really like to be free be more spontaneous for at least a couple days. I'm reading it's peak travel and we must book ahead. What's the risk of having trouble finding a clean/nice room at the last minute?

It's peak season, the earlier in Januray the busier, you of course should be able to find some accommodation most places but my suggestion would be once you arrive and make plans to still go into a local internet cafe and book the day before otherwise arriving at some airport you are at the mercy of tuk tuk, hotel counter or something. Do you have rough idea of places you want to go?

I've often just arrived in a place in Thailand and found somewhere to stay without pre-booking - although, I have to say, not in January.

It rather depends on your comfort levels, your budget, and whether you actually enjoy winging it. A good guide book helps. You pick a short list based on their recommendations, and head there first. If they are all full, move on to the next best.

Your choice - live a little dangerously or box yourselves into a schedule.

I don't think you can have it both ways except by doing as JamesA suggests and hooking up via the net the day before with those places that happen to have a website (sort of restricts you somewhat).

Thanks. We'll be getting there near the end of Jan and leaving on Feb 3. We want to spend some time in Bangkok then go to the beach-my dau likes to dive. It's just that after being so scheduled thru Africa and India, I think we may be tired of it because we usually travel a bit more independently. The idea of prebooking the day before is a good one. Is asiarooms the best bet?

i like www.huahin.20m.com

Maraton2,
We just returned from Thailand about a month ago and found no problem booking as we went along. I reseached hotels before we left and printed 3-4 hotel descriptions in the cities we wanted to stay. Then, if one was not available, I could moved on to the next. I used the internet to book (sawadee.com and asiarooms.com). It worked out fine. It was not peak season, however, but there are so many hotels in Bangkok, I can't imagine not being able to get something; just maybe not exactly what you want. In Bangkok, try to stay on the river; local boats are fun and cheap to ride; and viewing the activity on the river in the early morning is fun. Happy travels!

Thanks to both of you. Good ideas.

If you use local booking to get discount rates you will usualy get a response within a few hours if done local. You can go to local sites and print out ort even just view accommodation to get ideas on places to stay. If you know about cur and paste etc if you go to say huahin.20m.com you can go through to listings, click the arrow to sort by price and then cut and paste those within your price range onto notepad or any wp on your pc so you will get a clear list of say 10-20 places in ecah place you plan to visit.