Why I Will Never Return to Thailand After 25 Years
I’ve been going to Thailand for 25 years, every single year without fail, apart from during the lockdowns. Yet, after visiting earlier this year, 2025, I think I’m virtually 100% sure that I will not be returning to Thailand again. The reason I want to share my story is because I’m seeing other people having the same feelings as I do.
I want to weigh in with my opinions and things that sadden me with regards to what’s happened to Thailand over the past few years. Of course, I will be mentioning certain things in moderation. Thailand is no longer cheap. Thailand is changing too much. Yet, I won’t be giving too much attention to these reasons.
For me, the problem that Thailand is currently facing runs far deeper than how much things cost in the country and what things used to be like not all that long ago. So, if you’re worried about this being another story talking about price and change, you needn’t be. But if Thailand is a place you’ve visited and spent a lot of time in and you’re considering whether you want to go back or perhaps try somewhere else, this might be of interest to you.
I’ve been thinking long and hard about giving my opinions about Thailand. It was a country that over the years has given me so much enjoyment and so many great memories. It is only fair to mention that ever since that very first trip in the year 2000, Thailand was my yearly getaway and the place I thought I would retire to one day.
So for my story, I want to first start off by talking about what I liked about Thailand when I went originally, what it was that kept me going back year after year, and basically everything that I thought was great about Thailand. Then I want to talk about how over time those feelings changed and morphed into what they are today.
The Gradual Decline: From 2010 to Today
It was a gradual process to get me to where I am today. And while I noticed things happening from as much as 15 years ago, they were not too dramatic enough to make me change my idea of future retirement. It’s what I found going on over the last few years. These are what make me feel like Thailand has taken a dynamic shift in a way that they do things.
There’s also a dynamic shift in the way I am perceived as a foreigner in Thailand. I don’t have anything negative to say about the people of Thailand. On the whole, I’ve only ever had great experiences with the people. I don’t have anything negative to say about the fact that Thailand is modernizing and developing.
I’m someone that is happy to go with the times. I don’t have anything negative to say about certain things becoming a lot more expensive very recently in Thailand. While one of the draws to Thailand was always because it was very cheap. That wasn’t the be all and end all for me. But I wanted to get those few points out of the way because this is not meant to be a Thailand bashing story.
This is just the feelings of a foreigner who spent every single one of his yearly holidays in Thailand and why I no longer feel that I can justify doing this anymore.
What Made Thailand So Special in the Early Years
My first trip to Thailand completely changed my life. I always used to joke with people who went to Thailand as much as I did. Once Thailand gets hold of you, it never really wants to let go. Not everyone is captured by Thailand in the same way. Lots of people go to the country and perhaps they like it and have a good time. Yet, they were never in awe of Thailand. Thailand didn’t become their life. But the amount of people who were drawn into Thailand was incredibly substantial. For lots of people, the reasons were the same.
It was a place where they could get most of the things they wanted. It was a place that had a large at-home production industry. Lots of things were made in Thailand. And when you were going out, anything that was made in Thailand, which were very substantial, was priced very differently than similar items that were made at home. The reason I mention this is because I am one of the people who will push back at the notion that neighboring countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and to a lesser extent Vietnam are going to become the next version of Thailand.
I’ve been to Cambodia four or five times, usually for a few days, just taking something different to Thailand. Yet the difference in Cambodia versus Thailand is lots of the things that you have to buy in Cambodia are imported from Thailand. The same can be said for Laos. Lots of things you buy there are all imported. This makes certain staples. It means that they’re going to be more expensive in countries like that compared to Thailand. And I found over the years, at least earlier on, because Thailand made so much stuff itself, it was immune to the outside world on a whole different level.
This was a lot more noticeable in the early 2000s. Friends of mine who are equally Thailand-minded loved everything about Thailand when they first went and they noticed that the affordability of certain things in the country and looked at the development of the country on the world scale and thought there must be another country out there like Thailand. That leads people down the path of looking for an even cheaper country to Thailand. Yet, it was pretty apparent very early on, for me at least, that finding somewhere like Thailand doesn’t exist. There is nowhere like Thailand in the world. It’s an impossibility.
And the amount of conversations I’ve had over the years with people who would argue that a country that is poorer than Thailand should therefore be cheaper than Thailand. It doesn’t work like that because these countries didn’t make a lot of stuff in-house. They relied on importing things. And that’s what I found so special about Thailand early on. The domestic industry was to such a large extent meaning Thailand could be self-reliant of lots of the basic necessities of daily life. To me, that was what made Thailand very different to any other country in the world. You are simply not able to replicate what Thailand had.
I would like to give a bit of a mention to Malaysia, a country I went to once. I found that the prices there were similar. They also had a very big domestic industry. Could get similar things there. Yet, Malaysia lacked what Thailand had, which was a very vibrant entertainment industry.
The Golden Era: 2000 to 2010
As a tourist in the early 2000s, I always felt like I was a welcome guest, a guest that was going to be shown everything that Thailand had. Thailand was a place that people were happy to show off to you. The locals were happy to interact with you and give you their version of Thailand. They wanted you to have a good time and enjoy yourself and go back with great memories of the country.
Of course, there were scams going on all the time in Thailand. There always has been. Yet, what happened in many countries around the world as well is just the same. But Thailand was a country that seemed to some extent anyway to respect people who went as tourists and who wanted the people who went to Thailand to have a good time and long-lasting memorable experiences.
All my experiences from the years 2000 to 2010, I can’t remember a single negative thing about those times in the country. I didn’t feel like I was a statistic on the tourism numbers spreadsheet. The spreadsheet that Thailand was trying to add digits to at all costs, even if it meant taking away from the authentic Thailand experience.
Numbers in Thailand became more important than experience. And this gradually changed from at least in my opinion 2010, maybe one or two years either side of that, up until where we are today, where Thailand has moved so far away from what so many people loved about it.
Thailand’s Internal Struggles and Their Impact on Tourists
Thailand is completely free to do as they please when it comes to their own tourism industry. No one’s trying to tell them what to do. But what many people are doing is trying to offer a bit of advice to Thailand. You’ve had millions of people who have been throughout the years who fell in love with your country, who plan to retire there in the future, and who’ve had such fantastic and wonderful memories of their time there. Yet, these people who committed to your country across decades and decades now feel like what they gave in terms of a few weeks per year of holiday allowance. They expected Thailand would still give them what Thailand used to give them all those years ago. Yet, it doesn’t work like that.
Throughout years of multiple military coups, all the changing rules and regulations, things happening at the drop of a hat, tourists such as me overlooked these things because we always felt these internal Thailand situations were just that, internal. As a tourist, it’s nothing to worry about. Thailand is not the sort of place that is going to collapse into anarchy and tourists getting involved in protests or anything like that. That doesn’t happen in Thailand. But we watch all these things happening and see in Thailand there seems to be some kind of internal struggle going on.
A struggle I witnessed ever since the first military coup I witnessed in the mid-2000s when the Thaksin government was ousted. In Thailand, you seem to have the old guard, the people who want to maintain things as they’ve always been. The people who want to maintain things like this for the better in their mind of the country. And you also have a new movement in Thailand, younger people who want to change the country dramatically and move away from how it always was into something new and different. As a foreigner whose life revolved around Thailand for such a long time, I always saw these struggles to be a very big negative about Thailand. I don’t understand any foreigner who thinks Thailand should change away from how it used to be. It’s because Thailand was like it was. And it’s because Thailand resisted any form of change in that sense that Thailand was and has remained for such a long time the amazing place.
Modernization. The orange-colored political party who won the most votes in the last government yet failed to form a government. I see them as a blight on the future of the amazing country of Thailand. They’re trying to take away what made Thailand so good. And if what made Thailand so good meant that there were a very few extremely wealthy people at the top controlling it all, then perhaps that is a small price to pay for Thailand. As soon as new upstarts come along and trying to change the very fabric of Thai society, this is also going to have a trickle-down effect on tourists. Expats also are no longer getting the authentic Thailand experience that they loved so much.
The Honest Wallet Story: A Glimpse of What Thailand Once Was
I’m not trying to come across as a Thailand expert. Far from it. But although I might have only spent between two weeks and a month per year in Thailand since the year 2000, when I wasn’t in Thailand, I was always paying close attention to the news there. Thailand was never just my holiday destination. It was in fact an obsession. It was my hobby when I wasn’t there. It was a big part of my life for decades.
I’ve been a member of a certain forum for as long as I can remember. I always used to chip in with my own opinions and many people would push back. Many people say they would agree. But what I’m trying to say is that the idea that I’ve developed over time is not just a brand new idea. It’s been long in the making. It’s not just a guy who went there once 20 years ago and who went back again now and said he doesn’t like Thailand anymore. That’s not the case. This has been a revolving opinion over the course of 25 years.
The Thailand experience should remain constant throughout the passage of time. There will be changes, adaptions. This should be considered a normal thing. But when the Thailand experience attempts to remove Thailand from the equation altogether, how can you still then call it an authentic Thailand experience? I don’t believe that a Thailand experience has to only be cheap. That’s not what I’m trying to say at all. And I have to keep stressing that point. I’m not complaining about the expensiveness or anything like that or how things are getting more expensive. That’s not it. But I’m talking about the actual feelings you get in Thailand. The actual experience that the country is providing to you. This is what is changing. It is no longer the same experience you used to get.
I want to go back in time to a very memorable holiday roughly in the mid-2000s. I can’t remember the year exactly. All my holidays around that time were amazing, but I had a particular event happened and it stayed with me throughout the years. Thailand was a place that seemed to respect the fact that you were there. You’re always going to have those naysayers saying Thailand just wants your money and then wants you to leave. And while perhaps that has always been somewhat true before they were actually giving you an authentic and real experience in return for your money.
And I was in Phuket. I’d lost my wallet. I went to report it as missing. I only had a small amount of cash in there. It was mainly the cards and what an inconvenience it would be to replace them. But I went to report it and not long after there was a call saying it had been given in. I went to collect it and indeed it was there. It had all the money left in it. Everything was there and of course I was extremely relieved. I tried to find out who had handed the wallet in. Yet I was informed that the person had just given it and left. I wanted to give them a tip, but they were nowhere to be seen. Based on the odds and the amount of tourists versus locals in Phuket at the time, I would guess that it was probably a Thai person that handed the wallet in.
That was a wonderful experience. very honest people and it felt like everybody in Thailand. Again, this is just an extreme way of describing it, but everyone, I meaning you know, a lot of people, not absolutely everyone, but it was as if everyone had a shared goal of making sure people saw Thailand in the best light possible. And this was one of many events where Thailand was shown to me and portrayed to me as being a place that respects and cares for the people that go there.
Now, of course, you always were seeing negative things happen at the time as well. Yet, negative things happen everywhere. I’m talking about the overall overarching feelings that you got in Thailand and the way you were made to feel there. Events like this, you rarely saw them on the news. You rarely saw finger-pointing at big piles of returned money or photos where police officers were standing around a Thai taxi driver holding a wallet next to the owner of the wallet, all smiling and pointing at it as if to say, “Look how honest our people are.” Yet, you shouldn’t be showing us this because we already were aware of that. Again, a generalization. But while you did see things like that on the news from time to time, it was as if Thailand has just gone further and further to try and paint a picture of Thailand that isn’t actually real. That’s how it feels to me.
To me, this gives you the picture that Thailand is trying to use positivity to open up the Thailand experience to more people. But I feel like it backfires. If you were not aware of the Thailand experience without having all this stuff crammed down your throat, then perhaps Thailand wasn’t a place for you in the first place.
Overtourism or Something Deeper?
Does everything come down to the fact that over-tourism has removed what made Thailand great in terms of tourism? Could that be what’s going on here? And to some extent, I suppose that might be a thing. Yet, Thailand always was a popular place. Thailand was popular 20 years ago and although the numbers were significantly less than they are today, the industry itself was smaller. There were less hotels, considerably less hotels, and that needs to be mentioned. I always used to stay on Soi 8 at the Prominard Hotel. That was my go-to hotel. The price of that place remained pretty stable throughout the years. Yet, it did go up slightly, but not by much. There wasn’t as much choice of hotels though. Yet now there are more hotels because there are more tourists. So it’s not like you were competing for hotels as a tourist. They’ve always been enough hotels for the amount of people there. There’s always been enough restaurants and bars for the amount of people there. That’s not necessarily the problem.
Now, if we’re talking about a certain type of bar that some people like in Thailand, there does appear to be less of these in certain parts of Bangkok than there used to be. But this is only one part of Thailand. That wasn’t the reason I went to Thailand. Far from it. But what I’m trying to say is that just because there are more people doesn’t mean that there aren’t enough things to go around because there are. When it comes to experiences you might be having at a certain beach, okay, perhaps there are a lot more people on those beaches than there used to be. Yet, that’s a very particular type of tourist that you might find going to somewhere like that. Perhaps they’re going there because they’ve seen it in a viral video. Perhaps it’s their first time in Thailand. They wanted to see it and they just wanted to take Thailand off the list of destinations. Long-term tourists, returning tourists tend to avoid places like that completely. I mean, I did. I wasn’t interested in going to these very heavily congested tourist areas. And today, there are so many places you can still go in Thailand that are not over-saturated with tourists. So, I don’t think it’s a numbers game that we have to complain about as being the cause of this shift in the feelings that so many people are currently having about Thailand.
I have no doubt that Thailand will continue to be a very popular destination. But as already mentioned previously, the talk that certain countries are becoming the new Thailand is extremely inaccurate because you’re never going to be able to get that Thailand. These countries are their own unique experiences. And people going to these places may be seeking the feelings they used to get from Thailand. may not understand that you’re not going to get those feelings ever again. And with these special feelings that Thailand gave eroding away or as some people say have completely eroded away already, there is going to be nowhere else to go in order to be able to live that life again.
I read about it all the time on a certain forum. People saying they’re leaving Thailand and going somewhere else. And while they all describe their reasons for doing this in a slightly different way, I think that people’s reasons are quite similar.
The Price vs. Quality Disconnect
The cost of certain things in Thailand has gone up significantly over the years. And while I said I’m not going to talk about cost as being one of the reasons why I will no longer go to Thailand, but it’s important to mention that while things have gone up so considerably in price, certain things that many people go to Thailand for, you don’t find yourself having a better time because of it. We’re not talking about normal inflationary increases here. We’re not talking about things going up in price due to the passage of time. We’re talking about things being put up in price at such a level, yet there is no added benefit, no added incentives to try to persuade people that these crazy prices that you might be paying for certain things in certain locations are worth it.
With an increase in price, that should also come an increase in quality and an increase in service. Yet, if anything, the quality of what you are receiving and the service behind that is worse. This shouldn’t be the case. That’s one of the key things that I wanted to mention. Price is one thing. I don’t have a problem with the price increasing for certain things. By certain things, I’m talking about a nice meal, a beer in a particular bar, basically entertainment. You go to Thailand because you want to be entertained. And there are so many ways that you can be entertained. Yet, one of the things you need to do when you go to Thailand is eat and drink. And the places that used to be extremely affordable to eat and drink, the type of things you wanted to eat and drink in the location you wanted to do it in were priced accordingly, accordingly to the quality of whatever it is you were buying.
At the moment in Thailand, there is a very big disconnect, a huge disconnect if you will, between the price versus the quality and service that you will receive. When the price of something doesn’t accurately reflect the quality, that’s when you start to think that Thailand no longer really cares and it’s only about the money.
I want to give you an example. As I’ve already mentioned, going out at a particular bar wasn’t something that I did very often. You might go occasionally for a drink, maybe with some friends, just to take in the atmosphere. I loved everything about Thailand, so I wasn’t there for any one thing more than anything else. That wasn’t who I was. And quite a few of the times I was in Thailand, I was with a girlfriend who was also from my country. But if you went for a beer at a particular place in Bangkok before, it might have cost the equivalent of $2. Let’s say 15 years ago, for example, perhaps based on inflation, that same beer should come out to maybe $2.80, maybe $3. Yes. At the time when it was $2, the whole package around Thailand and the service you got, the smiles you got from people, the gratitude that many people seemed to portray was on a whole other level than what it is today. Yet, the beer that inflation deemed should perhaps cost $3 is now actually $4.50 or even $5. And the service that goes along with providing you that beer has deteriorated considerably. You’re paying a lot more for a lot less, which for many people defeats what Thailand is all about. I don’t have a problem with paying more. What I do have a problem with is getting less for more. If you want to increase the prices by more than inflation, surely the quality of the service you provide has to increase as well.
I believe this can be backed up by people who have been going to Thailand for a long time. You shouldn’t listen to someone’s opinion who first went in 2018 and believe their opinion is accurate because they have no idea what the bigger picture of Thailand is. Taking advice from someone who has no idea what they’re talking about is not a good idea. Perhaps I don’t know what I’m talking about, although I’m just sharing you my lived experiences over the course of 25 years. Real experiences. And I think there’s something to that.
The Shift in Tourism Demographics
I have no problem with Thailand taking the direction it wants to take. That’s why I will no longer be visiting Thailand. Thailand to me no longer provides value for money. But not only that, Thailand no longer seems to respect people who come from different countries the way they used to. Perhaps they never actually respected tourists. Perhaps it was always just a money game. But they were able to pretend a lot better that they respected people as opposed to now.
We also need to talk about the dynamic shift that has happened in tourism in Thailand. A rise in popularity from people from all kinds of different countries who 20 years ago perhaps had never even left their own. For many people, Thailand is close, a destination to go for that first overseas holiday. I think it’s fantastic that more people have the ability to do international travel. Yet, when it comes to international travel, certain people from certain countries have a very different way of doing things. How they do things is not how Thailand was ever used to having to deal with tourists. And I personally feel that lots of people in Thailand seeing these new tourists are starting to question whether we actually need all these people coming to Thailand. Then people who have been coming to the country for a long time are often grouped together with these new sorts of tourists, which on the surface shouldn’t be a problem.
Yet, it makes you feel like all they want you for is money. Toe the line, spend your money, appreciate the smiles that you get, regardless as if they’re real or fake, and leave. And while everyone said that Thailand has always done that, at least when they were doing it before, things were priced as if to say, “We’re giving you the experience. We’re giving you value for money, but in return, you have to leave.” Now it’s like, come give us everything you’ve got and then f off. And don’t think we will try to give you the experience that you want. It’s as if they don’t care about the experience anymore. Yet, I cared so much about the experience and the authenticity of the experience I was getting. It mattered to me and it mattered to so many people that I know who loved Thailand.
A Soul-Destroying Visit to Pattaya
I was in Thailand approximately 4 months ago for 3 weeks. I was looking forward to going. Yet when I got there, I just felt like, why am I still doing this to myself? I’m still living with memories of holidays gone by, hoping to be able to come to Thailand and relive these experiences. Yet, as the years have gone by, you find the authenticity of the country. You find the service you’re receiving and the quality of the service you’re receiving just continues to deteriorate. But last time I was there, I was spending four of those days in Pattaya. I wasn’t one of the guys who would go there all the time. It wasn’t my be all and end all, but it was okay in moderation for a few days. Yet, what I saw in Pattaya when I was there was soul destroying.
I believe Thailand is shooting itself in the foot. Actually, that might not be correct. I believe Thailand has already shot itself in both feet. There is a very important distinction between these two. If Thailand had only shot itself in one of its feet, perhaps it would stagger on and get back on the right path to glory. But I believe it’s too late now. There’s no way Thailand can move from what it is currently doing. Thailand is lying in a heap on the floor and there’s nothing much that you can do about it. That may be the pessimist’s opinion and perhaps there is some way for Thailand to save itself before it’s too late. But I don’t hold out much hope.
I see young guys going to Thailand from where I’m from. And most of the guys I’ve spoken to about Thailand who are a lot younger than me, they say it’s great for a holiday, but next they’re going to be going somewhere else instead. Or perhaps they’re going somewhere else completely different. Most of the people I speak to about Thailand talk like that now. Yet before there were a lot more people who said, “I had the best time of my life in Thailand and I’m going to be going back. There’s no point ever thinking about going somewhere else because Thailand is the be all and end all. You can’t beat it.” Yet the guys who say that now, they are very few and far between.
The guys moving to Thailand now, at least the younger ones, are moving to Thailand with very different opinions about the country and about what it is meant to give to people who are not from there. I am not complaining about this. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this. But what I am saying is if you want the authentic Thailand experience, at least the authentic Thailand experience that was the mainstay of Thailand holidays and expat life for as long as tourists have been going to Thailand and expats have been living in Thailand. If you want that experience, you may have 5 years maximum left to be able to get it in some sense. Before long, there will be a new authentic Thailand experience. And while this might appeal to many people, Thailand will just be bunched up together with a host of other countries where people pick and choose which one to go to for their particular year’s holiday. It will be more like, oh, I went to Thailand last year. Next year, I’m going to go to Vietnam. The year after I’ll go somewhere else, wherever it may be.
Though thoughts of people who came to Thailand year after year after year for the authentic Thailand experience of old, these people are going to become very few and far between. As stated, the new people won’t have any sort of commitment to the country of Thailand. They will come, spend money, and leave. But they won’t have these amazing memories that Thailand becomes an integral part of their life. Perhaps this is what Thailand is intending to do. Perhaps they don’t want people to fall in love with the country anymore and just coming for once and going somewhere else later is what they’re after.
But if we’re talking about this, how many people actually made Thailand an integral part of their life? Even people who don’t live there and who go on holiday often, I think it’s pretty apparent that lots of people have made Thailand an integral part of their lives. the YouTube scene in Thailand with people watching from all over the world, news channels getting tens of thousands of views. Yet, if you look at a similar news channel in a different country based on a similar sort of things, it’s nowhere near as popular. Thailand had something that was great, which it doesn’t have anymore or it is losing very quickly. Before long, Thailand will be just like any generic tourist destination.
I believe expats will still be able to live in the country in parts that are not overrun with tourists. Yet, there will always be people who want to live in these areas as expats because that’s what they liked so much about the country. Expats living in Pattaya 15 years ago, for example, when they were going out and they were mixing with tourists who for the most part were very similar-minded to themselves. They wanted to do similar things. They enjoyed similar things and all believed Thailand was a certain way with certain aspects that attracted them to it. Yet, if you want to be an expat in Pattaya today, you are not going to be able to live the same experience that those guys did before because it doesn’t exist anymore. You can still do the same things. You can still have what you want. Perhaps it’s not as cheap anymore, but it’s a very different atmosphere than what it used to be. atmosphere and feelings and the feelings you get when you are somewhere. This is what has changed so much in Thailand.
And I suppose the reason I wanted to share my story is because I believe as someone who went every year without fail apart from during COVID that I have witnessed Thailand move away from the reason so many people went. Yet many people still cling on. So many people in fact still cling on to the old Thailand that they loved so much because they still see some remnants of it around from time to time. But just because you see little bits of the Thailand that you liked, are you okay with the fact that to get from, for example, the hotel where you’re staying, wherever it is, to whatever it is you liked doing in Thailand, you have no choice but to be a part of a whole bigger picture of Thailand that you don’t wish to be part of.
Where to Go Instead?
Where am I going to go instead for my yearly holidays? And where am I going to retire? This is something I am not yet sure about. I liked the time I spent in Cambodia, but I always preferred Thailand. I found Laos to be too quiet. Not enough things to do. I found Malaysia to be great in many senses, yet certain aspects about the country would mean living there for me would be a non-starter. Vietnam? No, I haven’t tried the Philippines yet. Perhaps that will be my next holiday next year. I’ve been told by quite a few people who have been to both Thailand and the Philippines that while Thailand is better in many ways, in the Philippines, you’re still going to get some kind of authenticity that you’re not going to get anymore in Thailand. Authenticity has always been important to me. So, I guess I will go and see what the Philippines is like.
Aside from the Philippines, there’s nowhere else in Southeast Asia that appeals to me. Europe definitely doesn’t appeal to me. Other countries of Asia, not really. North America, no. Nothing against America. I’ve been and enjoyed it myself. Really liked it. Yet, it’s not a typical holiday destination for someone like me, and I would never be able to retire there even if I wanted to. That gives us two continents left, Africa and South America. I’ve been to a few countries in Africa, yet I’m not sure if I’d want to commit to a country there. So perhaps South America is my only choice, and then I’ll go there and it won’t be as good as Thailand was.
It was always my intention to retire to Thailand at some point. I’m not too far away from retirement at the moment. Yet, after seeing Thailand throughout the years, I don’t think I would be doing myself any favors by moving there. I won’t go back again because when I was there this year, I was just appalled by lots of the things I saw around me. It didn’t feel like the Thailand that I fell in love with. It didn’t feel like the country that offered me these amazing experiences and value for money. It felt more like a factory farm, a place where group tours and group mentality were becoming a bigger part of tourism. tourists who bring little benefit. They come in their groups, staying in group affiliated hotels, eating at group affiliated restaurants, and most of the profits returning back to their original country.
Why does Thailand see a need to have this type of tourists? I don’t care where people come from. That’s never been a problem for me. People from any country, anywhere in the world should have the right to travel anywhere else. Yet, if you’re going from one country to another, there should be some rules that you have to abide by. If you’ve never left your country before, perhaps there should be some kind of course you’ve got to take in order to tell people how to behave when they’re abroad. Who am I to say anything coming from a country where all the time you will see some idiot get drunk and get into a fight with a local somewhere in Pattaya? Yet, this is usually one person doing something stupid, not 200,000 of them hoarding around providing little benefit to the country. So, it is a different game that Thailand is playing at the moment, a different path they’re going down, which they have every right to do because it’s their country. But, do they realize what effect this is going to have on long-term tourists and committed expats? I am not the only person who has decided that I don’t want to go back to Thailand ever again. Lots of my friends are in exactly the same position as me. Lots of people are coming to these conclusions on their own without any outside influence. So, I believe there’s definitely something to it.
I think for a start, Thailand needs to remove group tours, make group tours illegal regardless of which country the group is coming from. These should not be allowed anymore in Thailand. I think this would go a long way to stem the problems that Thailand is currently facing, but they’re not going to do that.
The Changing Rules and Regulations
Lastly, I want to talk about the changing rules and regulations in the country, which leaves tourists and expats up in the air about what is going to happen from month to month, let alone in the next 10 years. I’ve always felt like there’s been a constant between the vast majority of tourists and expats in Thailand who learned to put up with just how different things could be from one day to the next. You accepted changes at the drop of a hat. Ridiculous closing hours in bars, certain public holidays restricting the sale of alcohol, even though you’ve got millions of people going to your country and perhaps many of them want to enjoy a drink. Yet, you still accepted Thailand doing this because of everything else that you got from Thailand.
Now we see on the news Thailand talking about changing the alcohol selling hours, making it more liberal, opening places longer, certain places allowed to open on public holidays to sell drinks. Thailand is trying to clutch at straws here. This is Thailand not understanding why Thailand isn’t as appealing as it used to be. And as someone who lives and breathes Thailand, ever since I went 25 years ago, I no longer am able to breathe and live Thailand because Thailand is unrecognizable.
I’m not trying to encourage or discourage anybody to go to or not to go to Thailand. That’s your own decision to make and for you to go and see what you think of it when you’re there. I will try my best to find a Thailand substitute, but I don’t hold out much hope that I will be able to find somewhere that gave you those Thailand feelings. But I’m not prepared to spend any more money or any more time in a country that isn’t the country I thought it was, or the country that I thought respected and cherished the tourist market it had created.
Decades of hard work by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Decades of promoting Thailand as a fantastic location, and they are prepared to let it all come unstuck, to try to take Thailand down a direction that they think is good. Yet, the real long-term tourists and expats are physically trying to tell them that this is not going to end well for you. This is not going to end well for your tourism industry. This is not going to end well for the people that rely on the tourism industry. And this is most definitely not going to end well for people who don’t see the writing on the wall and who will commit to Thailand at all costs regardless of what Thailand is going to do. That’s my opinion and my take.
I really appreciate if you could share my story on your channel because I think it can help other people make more informed decisions about where they want to go and what they want to do. And it can also open people’s eyes to what’s going on in Thailand, to people who haven’t yet had their eyes opened to the direction Thailand has put itself on.
I think Thailand has the opportunity before it’s too late to take a quick U-turn. They tend to make lots of U-turns on lots of things. So, they need to take a complete U-turn and bring Thailand tourism back to what Thailand tourism used to be. If they don’t, it’s only going to end up badly for the country that I still love.
I still hold out hope to be able to return. But if I won’t, if Thailand doesn’t see what they’re doing is ruining everything that made it so great, I won’t. Please, Thailand, I’m begging you to do the right thing.
