T R A V E L // thailand - things i'd do differently

with everything we did in thailand, there's only a few things i would do differently.

1. plan ALL bookings ahead of time including flights and lodging. while it's fairly cheap to get around thailand and find accommodations, you will save so much more by booking everything ahead of time. we knew we were going to fly into chiang mai and fly out of bangkok and we identified all the accommodations in between, but getting from chiang mai to our other destinations we decided to "play it by ear". again, it wasn't a huge deal breaker but i'm all in the biz for saving money and because we didn't have good internet, it would have saved quite a bit of stress booking the flights in between
2. we stayed 3 nights in chiang mai and i didn't get to try enough coffee shops! we only got to visit 1 and there was so much more to explore
3. i know it's really unrealistic and seeing chiang rai would also have been ideal .. just means i have to come back next time! 
4. if you're a beach person, stay longer in phuket. the beaches are truly magnificent and the quick in and out was too short of a journey for us
5. we took a ferry from phuket to koh phi phi and it's at least a 2-3 hour ride so pack your lunch and snacks! you can buy food on the ferry and if you have any particular food restrictions, highly recommend packing your food.
6. while i'm not about using toxic chemicals, i really recommend using deet products to prevent mosquitos. i had over 60 bug bites and could have been happy with a little less bites.

let me know about your recommendations in the comments below!