Thailand: Making Good Use of our 45 Day Visa-Free Stay
We hope you’ve had a good start to the new year and didn’t feel too blue this Blue Monday! Our January has had a few ups and downs so far, but overall we feel immense gratitude for being able to travel.
Where we’ve been
We’ve now been in Thailand for five and a half weeks, making the most of our 45 day visa-free stay (thanks Thailand). We spent the first 7 days in Bangkok (mainly recovering from our visit to India). We then went on to Ayutthaya (2 nights), Kanchanaburi (3 nights), Phitsanulok/Sukhothai (3 nights), Chiang Mai (7 nights), Pai (6 nights) and then back to Chiang Mai again for another 7 nights.
We’re currently in Chiang Rai, where we intend to spend 6 nights in total.
For Matt’s birthday, we were in Chiang Mai and spent the day at ChangChill, an ethical elephant sanctuary (no riding, bathing or feeding). It was magical!
We also enjoyed the popular Sunday Night Market & went to Rad Rabbit, our favourite vegan restaurant in Chiang Mai (and there’s a lot of them to choose from). Rad Rabbit serves amazing pizza and pasta!
If you want to see more stuff from our big trip around Asia, the best place is our Instagram, where we’ve created some story highlights for those who want to catch up!
Where we’re going next
Next up, we’re crossing the border into Laos (by land). From there, we’re planning to get the slow boat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. We haven’t got all of the itinerary sorted yet, but we know we’ll also visit the capital Vientiane and Vang Vieng at least.
We’re open to any suggestions you may have on places to visit in Laos! Please do get in touch!
New on YouTube
In our latest video (above), we take the train from Delhi to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple at night. In the next video, we’ll be exploring Amritsar a little more.
If you’ve not done so already, please subscribe to see more of our adventures in India and to see our videos from Thailand in the near future.
Trending on the website
Our most popular travel guides change with the seasons and this time of year is no exception. Here’s what’s being read the most right now on the website.
Matt Morelli
Matt Morelli
Matt Morelli
Matt Morelli
Give Back
Give Back is a tool that we created to help you find amazing experiences and give back to the places you visit. In each newsletter, we highlight one of the more recent additions to the database.
Help to Keep Dharamshala, India Clean & Tidy
If mountains have pollution, we have the solution! Join the revolution! Cleanups in various locations in Dharamshala, India arranged every Sunday.
To get involved, check out the Instagram page. If there’s no information, do send the team a direct message to check where and when the next clean-up is taking place.
Elsewhere
In each newsletter, we bring you the best bits from the internet that we’ve seen recently.
- Thailand has temporarily increased their visa free period from 30 days to 45 days for more than 50 countries. If you want to make the most of it hurry before the extension period ends from the 1st of April 2023. For the list of countries the extension applies to, see the Thai embassy website.
- Registration is now open for the Vegan Travel Summit, taking place online w/c 22 January 2023. There are tonnes of great webinars planned, by vegans, for vegans. It’s free to attend.
- The Guardian just published a month-by-month guide on the best no-fly destinations for those based in the UK.
- This year’s Henley Passport Index has been published, revealing the most (and least) powerful passports in the world. How many countries can you visit without any hassle?
- CultureTrip’s list of eco-adventure destinations is very tempting.
And that’s it for our fortnightly newsletter. We hope you found it useful. We’d love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments. If you’re receiving this in your inbox, just hit reply!
Until the next one,
Jade and Matt
P.S. If you’re curious about the tools we’re using to plan and book our big Asian adventure, head to our Resources section.