Connectivity: one decision, then done

Thai mobile coverage is excellent and cheap; the only real decision is which network your eSIM rides. AIS has the widest reach, which decides it for island-hoppers and anyone leaving the Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Phuket triangle; True is fine in the cities. The provider-by-provider version, including why Nomad’s Thailand packs are the value play of the whole region, is in the Thailand eSIM guide. Install before flying (Android and iPhone guides cover the five minutes), and skip the airport counters unless you enjoy queueing after a red-eye.

Money: the 220-baht toll and how to dodge it

The famous one: Thai bank ATMs charge foreign cards a fixed fee per withdrawal, 220 baht at nearly every machine, on top of whatever your own bank takes. The fee is per transaction, not per amount, so the counter-move is blunt: fewer, larger withdrawals, from a travel card that refunds or minimises its own side of the fees. Card acceptance in urban Thailand is broad enough that cash is for markets, taxis and islands; the card strategy itself, including which travel cards eat foreign fees, is the money hub’s department.

Two habits finish the money section. When a terminal offers to charge you in your home currency, decline: dynamic currency conversion is a worse exchange rate wearing a helpful face; always pay in baht. And keep your banking apps working from abroad, home SIM active for SMS codes, VPN for any bank that blocks Thai IP addresses, per the banking-abroad playbook.

The scooter problem, which is really an insurance problem

Here is the clause that ruins trips: standard travel insurance policies exclude motorcycle and scooter accidents unless you hold a motorcycle licence valid for the vehicle, and many exclude two-wheelers outright. Thailand’s rental scooters are handed to anyone with a passport; the insurance covering the person renting them mostly is not. With road accidents the leading cause of serious tourist injury in Thailand, the sequence writes itself: rent scooter, crash, discover the exclusion, meet a hospital bill with no ceiling.

The fix is boring and absolute: read your policy’s riding clause before renting, carry the licence your policy demands or do not ride, and wear the helmet regardless of what the locals do. Which policies handle riding honestly, and what else Thailand-bound cover should include, is the insurance hub’s core material.

📷 SCREENSHOT NEEDEDAn insurer policy document with the motorcycle/scooter exclusion clause highlighted.

The VPN, and Thai internet reality

Thai internet is open for everything a visitor plausibly needs; the occasional political-content block will not affect your trip. The VPN case is the standard traveller’s set: home streaming catalogues back (the how), banking apps that flinch at Thai IPs, and hygiene on guesthouse wifi that has not seen a firmware update since installation, the exact scenario in our hotel wifi threat model. Any provider from the travel VPN ranking has fast Bangkok and Singapore servers nearby.

The apps that run a Thailand trip

Grab is the one non-negotiable: rides at honest prices, food delivery, and the end of taxi-meter negotiations. Register at home with your foreign number and add the travel card before flying, because verification codes mid-airport are nobody’s favourite genre. Bolt runs cheaper in several cities and makes a worthy backup. Google Maps handles Thai addresses better than it used to but still benefits from the offline download for islands and the north; Google Translate with Thai downloaded turns market menus and pharmacy labels legible via the camera.

Two Thailand-specific notes. Many services assume LINE rather than WhatsApp: hotels, drivers and tour operators will offer a LINE ID, and having the app installed smooths more logistics than seems plausible until you are there. And 7-Eleven’s ubiquity makes its app tempting, but like Japan’s domestic payment apps it wants local credentials; the card-plus-cash arrangement above covers a visitor’s actual needs without the registration wall.

The pre-departure list, Thailand edition

Thailand punishes almost no mistakes, which is why the three it does punish, the ATM toll, the wrong network on an island, and the scooter clause, are worth the twenty minutes this page just cost you. The destination-agnostic version of the setup lives at the travel tech stack.