About Adventure in Thailand

I’m Bex Callan, and Adventure in Thailand is the practical version of the trip I stumbled through in my twenties, set down so you can skip the parts I got wrong.

The plan was two weeks. I was twenty four, I had a return flight, and I had never dived in my life. I signed up for an Open Water course on Koh Tao because everyone in the hostel was doing one, and that was more or less the end of the plan. I stayed to become a divemaster, then stayed some more because there was always another island, another loop of road up north, another trailhead I had not walked. Nearly eight years went by that way.

I did most of the wild version of this country, and I did a fair amount of it the hard way, by getting it wrong first. I ran out of fuel on an empty mountain road. I dived a site I was not ready for. I once handed my passport over as a bike deposit like an idiot, and I spent one very educational afternoon in a clinic in Krabi. None of that was in the guidebooks, which mostly told me which beach was prettiest.

What this site covers

I write the practical, on the ground detail I wish someone had handed me at the start:

• Diving, from learning on Koh Tao to reading the two coast seasons and choosing insurance that actually covers you
• Renting and riding a motorbike safely, including the licence and permit rules that decide whether a claim is paid
• Trekking and the national parks, with the fees, permits and seasonal closures that catch people out
• The planning basics: when to go, what things genuinely cost in money, time and nerve, and the small decisions that keep a good trip from becoming a bad story

Emergencies are outside what I cover, and I am in no position to tell you whether a particular activity is safe for your body or your experience level. None of this stands in for qualified instruction or your own medical advice.

How the local detail stays honest

I am British and I am not Thai, so I keep my role and Anan’s separate on purpose. The lived experience and the mistakes are mine. The local specifics, whether a park fee, a permit rule, a seasonal closure, a road condition or a safety point matches how things actually work here, are checked by Anan Wattana, a guide licensed under Thailand’s Tourism Authority framework, before a guide goes live. He flags anything that reads as an outsider’s guess. I am not a tour operator, I sell nothing, and I endorse no dive school, gym or operator. There is more on all of this in my Editorial Policy.

Get in touch

If you are planning a trip, or you have spotted something that has drifted out of date, I would genuinely like to hear from you. The Contact page reaches me. Please read the Travel Disclaimer too: what you find here is practical reading and company, not advice pitched at your particular trip.