Krabi Town, Ao Nang or Railay? What is the best place to stay?
We started our trip to Thailand with a 3 nights stay in Bangkok but, after it, it was time for us to explore the magnificent Thai beaches that filled our fantasy for years. We had doubts about choosing the base for our stay, but, our final choice was to do the trip from Bangkok to Krabi, instead of Phuket (you can know more about the reasons of our choice through this link).
Having made the booking of the plane trip to Krabi, we quickly found that the choice of where to stay would still lead to a new decision since the vast offer included hotels in Krabi Town, Ao Nang, as well as Railay. So, we started to search to get as much information as possible, we also talk to anyone who had already been there and now, after our return from Thailand, we would like to share the information and our opinion, in the hope that we can help you choose.
So, before we talked about our choice, we want to give some information about the three destinations referred to, namely Krabi Town, Ao Nang and Railay which, although not far away, offer different attractions for those who visit them.
Krabi Town
It can,t be said to be the most beautiful city in Thailand, but what we feel in it is that we are not in a place destined for tourists, so it retains an authenticity that we advise you to know and, especially, to visit its markets, in special nightly and held on Fridays and Saturdays.
This is the easiest and cheapest place to get to and from the airport, and by exploring the different hotel booking sites we found that the prices were the lowest when compared to Ao Nang and Railay. It is also easier to reach some famous attractions, such as the Emerald Pool and Tiger Cave, however, to go to any beach, you must always go by transport, as there is no beach nearby. If you want good accommodation, for low prices, and feel the atmosphere of a Thai city, this will probably be your place.
Although not a big city, it has a good movement of people, we didn’t felt surrounded by crowds. Its streets are arranged, it is a clean city and, at the level of the restaurants, it has a wide offer, as well as tour operators. It is very easy to make shopping’s in the various street shops that are located near the sea and the principal streets, as well as you will find numerous possibilities to exchange money, as well as having a good offer on nightlife, with a lot of bars and live music.
Although Ao Nang isn't the most beautiful beach you will see throughout your stay in Thailand, it is the one that offers more deals on the level of stay, with very affordable accommodation prices and a great value for your money, everything being very organized in order to conveniently receive the visitor.
At the tour operator level, it is the best place to stay, as the offer is huge and you will not have any difficulty scheduling your tour to your favorite destination as well as owning several dive schools.
At the level of health care, there is a good offer that, if you are traveling with children, it is always important and you can feel safe. It’s also easy to get Krabi Airport from here.
In Railay, you will undoubtedly find the most beautiful beaches in the area. In fact, this peninsula is all paradisiacal and, if you want perfect beaches and resorts, this is your place. It is also very famous for being a paradise for climbers, with perfect places to practice, such as its calcareous walls that attract climbers from all over the world. In addition, kayak tours are also famous in their waters, something we strongly recommend that you do but, always taking into account the weather conditions.
But, what looks like the perfect place to stay, has some disadvantages. The first is that, because is surrounded by beautiful limestone mountains, it’s only accessible by boats, which depart frequently from Ao Nang and the port of Krabi, which will always delay your arrival at your final destination and, don’t operate 24 hours a day.
Please note that if you arrive late at Krabi Airport, you may not have a boat to take you to Railay. During our stay in Ao Nang, the last boat that leaves Railay was at 5:30 p.m. and on one of the days due to a stronger storm (which occurs frequently), we fear we will not be able to return to our destination due to the impossibility of the boat leaving the pear.
In our travel to Krabi, we arrived at the airport around 9:00 p.m., so we knew we couldn’t go to Railay that night, so we put that aside. Please note that if you choose to stay in Railay, book at least 4 hours before your departure to go to the airport and, in the event of a thunderstorm, consider staying the last night in Ao Nang or Krabi, to avoid the possibility of being held in Railay.
Railay has a number of quality hotels and restaurants but with higher prices than in Ao Nang. It also has a reasonable range of tour operators that will allow you to reach the places you want to visit, as well as being a perfect location for rock climbing.
Railay has a number of quality hotels and restaurants but with higher prices than in Ao Nang. It also has a reasonable range of tour operators that will allow you to reach the places you want to visit, as well as being a perfect location for rock climbing.
As we said, the three hypotheses have different attractions, so your choice should always be linked to your own interests. What works for some is not necessarily what others are looking for.
In our case, as you know, we travel as a family, so there is always a choice directed to what is best for those who travel with children, namely we always have the concern that is as safe as possible, to avoid unnecessary travels and, easy access to food and health care.
As Krabi was away from any beach, we didn’t wish to be always making unnecessary trips, we put aside this possibility at first, so we had to choose between Ao Nang and Railay.
We are obliged to say that Ao Nang, despite being a beautiful, huge beach, doesn’t compare to the beauty of Railay, but the fact of being secluded and only accessible by boat, led us to opt for Ao Nang. As we mentioned, the fact that we arrived in Krabi at night will not allow us to go to a hotel in Railay that night and, changing hotels the next day was not the desired option.
Another advantage in favor of Ao Nang is the price of lodging, where we were been able to find lower priced hotels, with very good quality, when compared to Railay. Ao Nang also offers much more food and restaurants options, markets and local shopping’s, as well as health care, which have influenced our decision.
After the trip, we can say that this was, in our opinion, the best decision. Ao Nang has a lot to offer to anyone visiting this part of Thailand and, you will easily visit Krabi (especially its night markets) and Railay, your paradisiacal place after you been there. From Ao Nang, you will also be able to visit famous Thailand’s Islands, as the Phi Phi, with Maya Bay, Chicken Island, James Bond…
We hope our tips help you to program your trip to Thailand. If you still don't have a place to stay in Thailand, we always do our reservations with booking, they are our partners and its with them that we get the best deals. You can look for the best deals in the city of Ao Nang by clicking here, it won't cost you any money and, it helps us to support our blog.
Booking.com
Don’t forget to leave a Like, and to comment and share our Non Stop Family blog. You can see all about our 4 days in Ao Nang itinerary on our blog, just click HERE.
Pin it for Latter
Tags:
Ao Nang
family travel
from
Hot to go
Islands
itinerary
kids
Krabi
Maya Bay
Non stop family
Phi Phi
Phi Phi islands
Railay
safe
thailand
tours
Town
Travel
travel with kids
5 comentários
Stay in Ao nang but, go a lot of times to Railay, in my opinion!! Best beach in Thailand for me
ResponderEliminarIts like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog. An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back. Just think of it as inspiration! Plus, there manzanita beach if you go they do look nice framed on your wall, even if you don’t have a lot scratched off yet.
ResponderEliminarRush Holidays is best travel agency in ahmedabad and tour operators in ahmedabad and international tour operators in ahmedabad are the facilities which we provide and gives you the holidays at your choices.
ResponderEliminarbest travel agency in ahmedabad
What would you like to see out of a creative writing short story?
ResponderEliminarWe are leaders in Passengers Transport Services, School Transportation service, Staff Transportation and Long Lease bus transportation service in the country. The company was formed in the year 2014 but its roots go down to 2007 when the country was in its prime boost.
ResponderEliminarbus rental in sharjah