Me and my girlfriend will be arriving in Bangkok on October 26th, 2017and staying for 1 month. We want to get the most out of our trip on a resonable budget. I have been to Hong Kong and Bangkok on a previous trip including the northern areas of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai as well as the Golden Triangle, Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
However, we have never been to the southern Thailand and this wil be my girfriends first trip outside of Europe. Therefore, I would like this to be the trip of a lifetime especially for her. So naturally, we want to concentrate on southern Thailand and its beautiful ad famous beaches without limiting ourselves.
Not knowing that part of the world, I am looking for a perfect and smart itinerary that allows us to make the most of our trip. We would love to experience the most magical places in southern Thailand and possibly the surrounding areas. We love beautiful beaches with crystal clear water, places with a great vibe and atmosphere, exotic getaways, great Thai food, vibrant as well as untouched beaches, interesting markets and people, fish markets, anything exotic connected to adventure...
1) Do you have a great itinerary in mind starting in Bangkok with specific places taking into account the above criteria and that would allow us to increase the likelyhood of great sunny weather taking into account the dates of travel (I mean we know the weather in this region can change anytime,but it is all about increasing the likelyhood)
2) What we are looking for is a compact,smart itinerary that enables us to experience the biggest gems/treasures of southern Thailand while eliminating unecessary travel if it does not significantly add to the overall experience (meaning we are more than willing to travel, but it has to be WORTH it and if so, in the right order so that we do not end up going back and forth unecessarily)
3) If in this itinerary, you can include roughly the number of days that you would spend in each area and hidden gems/treasures for beautiful and reasonably priced (steals) places to stay in each partciular area, that would be greatly appreciated.
4) My girlffriend would also like to see Vietnam. I am not so sure about that. Taking into account that we have one month, would you recommend to focus on southern Thailand or would you recommend we should go to Vietnam (or if not Vietnam, would you recommend another beautiful region(s) in southeast Asia that we should definitely include?
5) Please include the best websites we should use for getting the most amazing deals/steals when it comes to accomodation rates in southern Thailand.
Thank you so much for your help. Any advice is GREATLY appreciated.