Thailand forum

I'd reduce it down by cutting out a few places and spending a bit more quality time in ones you do go to. Eg - why the expense of flying all the way to Chiang Mai for just 2 days? And yes,, skip the Langkawi portion and add it in to Chiang Mai.

Each time you move around, you nearly lose a day for travelling, checking in/out of hotels, etc, etc.

You don't need to fly all the way to KL to get to Langkawi. There are boats from the pier in Satun. I think you should go to Langkawi and skip either Lipe or Lanta. However, it is quite a far journey. Your best bet may be to fly to Trang or Hat Yai from Chang Mai (via BKK) and from there to the pier to get to Langkawi or Lipe.

I personally would skip Koh Chang and head straight from Kanchanaburi to Chang Mai. Then head south from there.

Too many places and not enough time! Where are you flying from? You need to consider jet lag if you are flying a long distance. My first couple of days are a bit of a blur coming from Canada.
Save Viet Nam for another time.
Penang - I feel - is much more interesting than KL but I don't think it's worth the travel with the amount of time you have.
Personally I would limit it to Bangkok, Kanchanaburi , Chaing Mai and either Lanta or Lipe or both. You say you have short of three weeks - so 20 days - minus roughly 6/7 days for travel on this itinerary. Keeping in mind that your first day and your last day are spent in or getting to and from an airport. That leaves roughly 2 weeks - Bangkok (2), Kanchanaburi (2), Chaing Mai (4), Lipe/Lanta (4). You have a little wiggle room if you like a place and choose to stay longer.
From my experience in Asia less is more. Chill out, relax and enjoy!
There is a great elephant sanctuary near Chaing Mai that you might consider. No safaris - just elephants being elephants...I forget the name right now so I'll post later for you.

Hi

Thanks everyone. The reason I included Ko Chang is that a couple of people I work with have been and really enjoyed it but i'm not sure if its a destination too far, by that I mean I have to go there and get back where as the other island destinations I can work from south to north ending up in Krabi finally.

I'd like to venture out of Thailand hence the Ho Chi Minh option, would that be viable in place of Ko Chang. We like the idea of utilising air asia and have considered 2 weeks or so in Thailand but maybe including a few days in Bali or Macau or Hong Kong or Singapore.

A few more q's then...

1. Ko Lipe or Ko Lanta? What is the good and bad points of both.

2. We like the look of Langkawi but is it worth it.

3. Is there anywhere that we have missed on our itinery?

4. Is it worth after Chang Mai heading south using the overnight train, we looked at stopping off at Hua Hin for a day then heading south again overnight.

5. How do we get from a southbound train from Bangkok to say Ko Lanta/Ko Lipe to then return north via the Andaman islands?

Finally I must add that we are travelling light, at Bangkok we we will be leaving behind any cases/luxuries and living out of a rucksack for a week. So at airports we won't be waiting around for baggage carousels, what we have is what we carry. One of our key requirements at a hotel is laundry facilities so that on arrival at a destination we can wash/dry whatever has been previously worn as we don't want to carry much more than 4 days worth of clothing and a few basic toilitries.

Hi everyone

Just to bring this to a close we have pretty much closed off the first two weeks now with your help and adopted the less is more attitude :

Bangkok 2 nights
Kanchanaburi 2 nights
Ko Chang 4 nights
Chiang Mai 4 nights
Krabi 5 nights
Bangkok 2 nights

HOWEVER.... i'm not loving the idea of Krabi and Ao Nang in particular so we thought instead of staying in Krabi to fly down to Trang instead and stay on one of the islands down there. There will be a seperate thread on this.