Twenty Things Nobody Tells You Before You Land in Thailand
The motorbike rental counter is the most profitable scam in the country and almost everyone gets caught by it, because the warning is always in a language you do not speak at that moment.
This is the list I give friends, minus the parts that sound obvious once they are written down. Every one of these has cost somebody money or a day.
Last verified 29 September 2026.
The ones that cost money
1. Photograph your rental bike before you ride it, on your phone, with the counter in frame. Every scratch becomes your bill if you do not. This is not paranoia, it is the single most reliable way to avoid a 2,000 baht argument at a roadside police box.
2. Rent from a shop that is not on the beach. The shop on the beach is the one with the deposit scam. Ride 500 metres inland and the price is a third lower and nobody is watching you sign anything.
3. Do not take a motorbike on the road if you do not have an international permit. Police do check, fines are real, and your travel insurance will not cover it.
4. Your card will be declined and then charged twice. ATMs decline once, then debit. Carry 3,000 baht in cash for the first week and do not panic at a machine that ate it.
5. Songthaews do not have meters and the price is negotiable except with drivers who are genuinely going that way anyway. Red ones in Chiang Mai are fixed. Blue and green are negotiable. White ones will quote you tourist prices and are often shared with the driver.
6. Tipping is not expected anywhere except at a very few places. You will not be overcharged for not tipping, and the prices you see are the prices you pay.
7. 7-Eleven is the only shop that will be open, and the good thing about it is the ATM. Not the food, the ATM. It charges about 220 baht, which is the lowest fee in the country.
8. Street food price rises with the tourist density, and you can see it in one block. Same noodle dish, 30 baht on a side street, 90 on the strip. Walk 200 metres.
The ones that cost a day
9. The 72-hour arrival card is not optional, and it is free. I have written about this three times on this site because people keep arriving without it. See the TDAC guide.
10. Jet lag east is brutal in your first three days and then fine. Bangkok is seven hours ahead of Europe. Plan nothing for the first day.
11. The national holiday on 28 September does not mean nothing is open. It means Bangkok is closed and the islands are not. Check both.
12. Motorbike taxis do not have meters either, and the quoted price is the price. Settle it in the seat.
13. Grab is fine in Bangkok, terrible in most other places, and the app will happily let you book a driver who cannot read your address. Screenshot the Thai version of where you are going.
14. Bring a second phone, or at least a screenshot of where you are staying in Thai. The address exists in Thai and does not exist in English and a driver will not magically produce a translation.
15. The good part of the night market opens around seven and the good part of a temple closes at five. You cannot do both, stop trying.
The ones nobody warns you about because they are not problems
16. Nobody will be angry that you cannot speak Thai. What bothers people is being ignored, and a kin jay and a smile do more work than a phrasebook.
17. Water is not an issue. Ice in drinks, ice in restaurants, ice in 7-Eleven. Nobody has ever had a problem here.
18. Smell is not a health problem. The exhaust, the drain, the jasmine and the squid at the same time is a city. Your clothes will smell of it for a day.
19. Nobody is going to stop you taking a photo of a temple. The rule is about people praying, not about architecture.
20. The country is a 1,000 baht taxi ride longer than your expectation of it. The distance between things people tell you are close is the single most common frustration of the first two weeks, and it passes by the third.
The three that feel like complaints and are not
Nothing is open. Between 1pm and 5pm, or on a Sunday, or in a small town, everything is closed. This is not a warning about Thailand, it is a description of a place where people keep office hours.
Nobody is in a hurry. Service is slow and it is not rudeness. Adjusting your pace to the room rather than your room to the pace is the entire adjustment.
It is not tidy. Wires, concrete, a shrine next to a car park, a kettle in a kitchen. It is a country that is 90 percent done and building in public, not a country that is falling apart.
Start here before anything else. From 15 September 2026 most nationalities get 30 days visa-free and 145 countries need an eVisa. Check yours in the country-by-country guide before you book anything, because the wrong answer costs you the trip.
Last verified 29 September 2026. I add to this when something new happens, which is roughly monthly.
