How Much Does a Month in Thailand Cost for a Family? Our Real Figures

Our Thailand spending at a glance

Before getting into the breakdown, here are our headline numbers for context.

Total spend across six weeks in Thailand: £5,519.64p

Monthly average: £3523.18p

Daily average: £132

Per person, per day: £33.20

For reference, we were travelling as two adults in our mid thirties and two young children aged five and three. We stayed mostly in apartments and short-stay guesthouses rather than hotels, ate a mix of local food markets and occasional Western restaurants, and local transport like tuks tuks.

These figures do not include international flights to and from Thailand, or travel insurance, which we’d already paid before arrival. They reflect what it actually costs to live in Thailand as a family once you’re there.

Accommodation

Accommodation was our single largest expense, as it is for most families. Thailand has an enormous range at every price point, and where you choose to base yourself matters as much as the type of accommodation.

We stayed in 7 different places during our time in Thailand. Here’s how the costs broke down.

Bangkok: 3 nights in a booking.com hotel. Cost: £183.53 total, or £61.18 per night.

Chiang Mai (Location 1): 8 nights in an Airbnb apartment. Cost: £478.87 total, or £59.86 per night.

Chiang Mai (Location 2): 14 nights in a Airbnb condo. Cost: £815.53 total, or £58.25 per night.

Chiang Mai (Location 3): 1 night in an ethical elephant sanctuary lodge (having breakfast with elephants in their back yard!). Cost: £128 total.

Koh Jum Island: 4 nights in a booking.com hotel/villa. Cost: £276.12 total, or £69.03 per night.

Koh Lanta Island: 10 nights in an Airbnb villa. Cost: £716.30 total, or £71.63 per night.

Our accommodation average across Thailand: £1,860.69p per month.

A few things that influenced these high numbers. As this was only our second country of our South East Asia adventure we hadn’t yet come across the idea of direct booking. We booked all of this through Airbnb or Booking.com, and typically only stayed between 7-10 days in each place. Direct bookings at a monthly rate can consistently come in 15 to 25% below the equivalent platform price. For the direct bookings we have made since we’ve used bank transfers; using Wise to send deposits directly to landlord bank accounts, which is fast, cheap, and straightforward once you’ve done it once.

The island locations were more expensive per night than Chiang Mai or Bangkok for comparable quality. If cost is a priority, the north of Thailand offers significantly more space and quality per pound than the islands. If travelling during major festivals make sure to book way ahead to avoid being priced out.

Food and drink

Food in Thailand is one of the genuinely great arguments for choosing it as a base. Street food and local restaurants are both excellent and cheap. The challenge for families is that children don’t always share that enthusiasm for pad krapow and pad thai (two of mine and Clare’s favourites) at 8am, which means Western food creeps into the budget more than you might plan for.

Our monthly average food spend: £844.07p

Local food (street food, local restaurants, markets): ~£300 per month. This covered most of our lunches and dinners. A full meal at a local restaurant costs around 60 to 120 baht per person. A street food lunch for the family can come to even less if you go for the standard Thai dishes.

Western and international restaurants: ~£150 per month. We ate Western food once or twice a week, mostly for the children. A meal at a mid-range Western restaurant for four cost around £20-£30.

Supermarket and self-catering: ~£150 per month. We had a kitchen in most of our accommodation and used it for all breakfasts and some evenings. Thai supermarkets stock most things families need, including familiar brands, and the Rimping supermarket in Chiang Mai in particular is worth knowing about.

Coffee and other drinks (smoothies, alcohol etc: ~£150 per month. A simple but great quality black coffee from a street vendor can range between 80p – £1, which is seriously cheap compared to the UK, however, if you have a coffee habit like mine it can soon add up. After a while, I mixed my love for street vendor coffee with a jar of instant from the 7Eleven. Street vendor smoothies became Clare and the girl’s daily habit but were equally cheap, sometimes coming in similar prices to the coffees for fresh fruit smoothies. Alcohol can cost more than in other places like Cambodia and Vietnam, but wine in particular was very expensive in Thailand, especially compared to what we were used to in the UK. If you’re serious about keeping to a lower budget, be prepared to cut back on alcohol spend if you’ve previously been used to UK prices.

Honestly, food costs in Thailand are heavily driven by how often you eat Western food. Families who commit to local eating spend dramatically less than those who need a burger and a flat white every few days. We landed somewhere in the middle.

Transport

Our monthly average transport spend: £375.02p

Thailand’s internal transport is good value, but it’s easy to underestimate the cost if you’re moving around between locations.

Domestic flights: ~£200. This figure isn’t included in our monthly average as centralise major one off costs like this so as to not obscure the true on the ground costs. We flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai then Chiang Mai to Krabi. AirAsia and Thai Lion Air are the main budget carriers. We always check proof of onward travel requirements before each flight. 

Local transport (Grab, songthaew, tuk tuk): ~£120. Grab (the Southeast Asian equivalent of Uber) is reliable in cities and removes the negotiation from taxis. In Chiang Mai, red songthaews cover most short hops cheaply. On the islands, motorbike taxis and songthaews are the standard.

Scooter or motorbike rental: We didn’t rent a scooter as neither of us have ever ridden one, however, we understood the scooter rental prices in Thailand to be around £5-8 per day.

Long-distance buses or overnight trains: ~£80. We got a sleeper train when travelling from Chiang Mai down to the south. This was more of an experience than a convenience for us as flights over a similar route can be around the same price, although doing this did also save us on a nights accommodation. 

The biggest transport variable for families is whether you fly between locations or take ground transport. The overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai costs less than flying and saves a night’s accommodation, but with young children it’s a different calculation than it would be for solo travellers.

Activities and days out

Our monthly average activities spend: £316.60p

Thailand has no shortage of things to do with children, ranging from free to genuinely expensive.

A few example activities during our time in Thialand were;

• Snorkelling with black tip reef sharks off the Phi Phi Islands – £185 for four
• A cooking class – £20
• Muay Thai family class – £35
• Snorkel trip off Koh Kradan – £50

A few things worth knowing before you budget. Most temples charge a small entry fee £3-5, with children often free or at a reduced rate. National parks operate a two-tier pricing system with a higher rate for foreign visitors, which is worth factoring in rather than discovering on the day. Water parks and tourist attractions in resort areas are priced much closer to Western rates than the rest of daily life in Thailand.

We found that the most memorable days with the children cost very little: local markets, temple grounds, cooking things we’d bought from a morning market. The expensive days were almost always the ones driven by the tourist trail rather than our own curiosity.

Visas and border costs

Our visa spend during our time in Thailand: £0

Thailand’s visa rules have changed in recent years and are worth checking against current official guidance before you travel. The specifics shift more frequently than most published guides reflect.

At the time of our visit, UK passport holders received a 60 day visa exemption on arrival. For stays longer than the initial exemption, the main options are as follows.

In-country extension: Available at immigration offices within Thailand. Cost at the time of writing: 1,900 baht (around £45), which gives an additional 30 days. Queues at popular offices in tourist areas can be long and the process takes most of a day.

Border run: Crossing to a neighbouring country and re-entering Thailand to restart the exemption period. Cost varies significantly depending on which crossing you use and whether you book a bus service. Thailand’s immigration authorities have become increasingly strict about repeated exemption entries, so this is a less reliable strategy than it once was.

Visa costs are easy to underestimate in a Thailand budget for families planning to stay beyond the initial exemption. They add up to a real line item over a multi-month stay.

SIM cards and connectivity

Our connectivity spend in Thailand: £7 per person

Thailand has solid mobile data infrastructure, particularly in cities and popular tourist areas. We used AIS as a local SIM for data, texts and calls which came to just over £7 per person for 50GB of data. There are plenty of providers to choose from with most getting a good write up from locals but we found more travellers in our position had gone with AIS so we went with the majority.

For families arriving directly into Thailand and not concerned about bridge connectivity at borders, a local SIM from the airport is the simplest and cheapest option. For our broader approach to connectivity across Southeast Asia, including what we use and why, see our guide to the best eSIMs for Southeast Asia. Maya Mobile and Airalo both offer regional eSIMs which do genuinely make things so much easier, although they do come at a premium.

What pushed our costs up, and what kept them down

Looking back across our full Thailand spend, a handful of things moved the needle in both directions.

What cost more than expected:

The premium on island accommodation vs the north, tuk tuk prices, Western food creep being harder to avoid with children than expected, domestic flight prices during Thai school holiday periods, tourist attraction pricing in resort areas were a few things that caught us off guard and only really became noticeable when we began experiencing other countries, like Cambodia and Vietnam where many of these aspects as much cheaper compared to Thailand.

What cost less than expected:

The single biggest lever on Thailand family costs is accommodation style and location. A family in a well-negotiated monthly apartment in Chiang Mai will spend significantly less than a family moving between short-stay Airbnb listings on the southern islands every two weeks. The maths heavily favours slowing down.

What should a UK family budget for Thailand?

Based on our own figures and conversations with other families we’ve met on the road in Thailand, here’s how we’d frame realistic monthly budget ranges for a family of four.

Comfortable but not extravagant: £2,500-3,000 per month. A good apartment in a mid-tier location, eating local food most days with occasional Western meals, using local transport, doing paid activities a couple of times a week. This is how most slow-travelling families in Thailand actually live. 

Our actual full, all-in spend for 6 weeks: £5,519.64p

Our equivalent monthly average spend: £3,523.18p

Higher end (islands, regular movement, more activities): £3,500-4500 per month. Moving frequently between locations, staying in resort areas, eating more Western food, regular tourist-trail activities.

Lower end (slow travel, northern Thailand, mostly self-catering): £1,800-2,500 per month. Monthly apartment rate in Chiang Mai or a similar northern base, mostly local food, minimal paid activities, few or no domestic flights.

These figures exclude international flights to Thailand, travel insurance, and any ongoing UK costs you’re still running from home. For the broader picture of what a long-term travel lifestyle costs compared to staying in the UK, see our article on whether long-term travel is cheaper than living in the UK.

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