After a year of travelling, few visit to Bangkok with kids we finally made it to Chiang Mai… travelling for a year changes you. And it changes your budget as well. That is to say downward unless you become a millionaire in the meantime!

Chiang Mai

In Chiang Mai, where the best places to stay are in the old city, hotels are expensive – so we booked a family room in a hostel. It was the first time the girls had experienced a hostel on our travels, and it was different – lots of young people spending time together or just enjoying each other’s company.

Small people playing domino with big people

Games are played, random thoughts and travel advice are shared freely. I realised that the more stars a hotel has, the higher are the privacy barriers in the unwritten social code. Here in the hostel, young travellers accepted the twins as domino and card game partners, and my little people could hardly wait every afternoon to go back home from sightseeing to play Uno with their new “adult” friends.

Zoe chilling out in hostel in Chiang Mai
Zoe chilling out

In the mornings, the girls were clearing and washing breakfast dishes just like everyone else. I watched on, happy and proud. They naturally took responsibility for their own parts in this new environment.  It was so different from the hotel culture where everything is served and kids don’t have to do anything.

Bottom line: Cheaper accommodation not only lets us travel longer – it will help the girls to learn a bit more about life.

We were staying in Dozy House, which has a great location – inside the old town but on a quiet street and only few hundred meters away from Sunday night market.

How to get to Chiang Mai ?

We flew to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, but there are many ways to get to Chaing Mai. You can get there by train or a bus or if you want to be more adventures you can cruise the Mekong by long boat from Laos. From Chaing Mai we went to Chaing Rai.

Chiang Mai is the best starting point for a road trip to Pai – small village in north of Thailand.

Chiang Mai is a great place to visit with kids.