Buses in Thailand – What You Need to Know

Thailand has a very developed network of intercity and international buses, and you can travel almost the whole country by bus, and even visit neighboring countries. At the same time, bus travel will be the cheapest way to get around the country, if, of course, you're ready to put up with some inconveniences. A bus trip over a similar distance in the inexpensive classes will cost even less than a train, not to mention that trains in Thailand won't take you just anywhere.

What Buses Are There in Thailand

By and large, all buses in Thailand can be divided into two types:

• Tourist Buses of Thailand

  

  These are buses of private companies that organize routes between popular tourist cities at their own discretion and are intended for tourist purposes, i.e. tourists usually travel on them from resort to resort. Tickets are sold at travel agencies and carrier companies, and cost a little more than regular buses for similar routes. But they're much more convenient, since they usually depart from tourist areas, not from bus stations (terminals), which you have to get to by local public transport or taxi. Moreover, the ticket price often includes a transfer from the hotel to the tourist bus departure point, i.e. you're picked up and delivered from hotel to hotel.

  Among tourist buses, a separate category should be highlighted – minivans or microbuses. They're quite convenient for short trips, but usually they don't have a luggage compartment, and traveling with large luggage in them is difficult (you can only get in there with a small backpack). This should be clarified in advance, before buying tickets.

  

  However, it's only fair to tell you about the downsides of tourist buses too, which is why we recommend thinking several times and checking everything before using their services:

  • Punctuality, or rather its complete absence. Situations when, when buying tickets, you're told the bus leaves at 8 in the morning, but in reality they pick you up at 7 or 9, are far from rare. Also don't be surprised if, when selling tickets, you're assured that you'll arrive exactly at 6 PM, but in fact you'll only get there at night. Arrival times are deliberately stated by tourist companies as unrealistically early to attract tourists, and along the way they'll make many detours, picking up and dropping off goods. We wouldn't particularly recommend relying on minivans if you need to catch a flight or transfer to a train.
  • Many transfers. If the route involves changing buses or transferring to a ferry, that's not very good. It happens that in one trip you have to make several transfers from bus to bus, move luggage, ride almost crouching while hugging suitcases. For example, a route on a tourist minivan from Pattaya to Ko Chang island involves pickup from hotels by minivan, a transfer on the outskirts of the city to a bigger bus, arrival at the ferry and disembarking onto the ferry, and a transfer to another minivan already on the island.
  • Little space for luggage. This problem occurs both in minivans and in medium tourist buses. Large suitcases sometimes simply don't fit in there, so they're stacked in the aisles and on the seats, so there's very little space in the cabin. So you have a chance to suffer a bit on the road even because of other people's huge suitcases.

• Regular Buses of Thailand

  

  Regular buses run between almost all cities in the country, are used including by locals, cost less and depart from bus stations. I.e. these are exactly the same intercity buses as back home. Some of the regular buses belong to private companies, but mostly these are state buses or buses of very large companies. They run strictly on schedule and arrive on time, or with a slight delay.

  

  But unfortunately, they have their downsides too:

  • Difficult online ticket purchase. Tickets for them can most often be bought either at stations at ticket offices, or online on Thai websites. And these Thai websites often don't even have an English interface, and may not accept foreign cards.
  • Hard to find out the schedule. There are many buses and carrier companies, but there's no single website where you could get complete schedule information. In our experience, sometimes the only reliable way to find out anything about the schedule, or even to find out whether buses run from the city you need to the other city you need, is to come to the station in person and ask at the ticket offices. Because of this, it's hard to plan a travel route in advance.

Which buses to use is up to you. If you don't want to complicate your life by getting acquainted with routes and schedules in Thai, tourist buses between the country's main resorts will be enough for you. But remember what's written above about their quality and punctuality.

So, regular buses depart and arrive at bus stations in Thai cities. Along the way they pick up or drop off passengers, making stops at designated places or at other bus stations. To board a passing bus, you should buy a ticket at the bus station and get information about the place and time of the bus stop, since passing transport may not even stop at bus stations, but picks up passengers at bus stops along the route. Sometimes you can board a bus without buying tickets in advance (but not at a bus station, there the drivers are watched for such "side earnings"), but for this you need to know the schedule and route.

Tickets are purchased in advance or right before the trip at bus stations, or at ticket offices in the city (such offices are called Boh Koh Soh), often available at local travel agencies (with a small markup) along with tourist buses. Tickets for VIP class are recommended to be purchased in advance. Sometimes travel agencies supplement the purchased ticket with their transfer from the hotel to the bus station, which is very convenient, but of course not free. And sometimes instead of a regular bus they slip you a more expensive ticket for a tourist bus. So the best option is to buy it yourself at bus stations. Here it's worth warning that in cities frequently visited by tourists, the staff at bus station ticket offices speak English quite decently, but in small provincial towns you'll have to communicate with gestures and write the destination and time on paper.

There are five classes of regular buses, among which the most popular and convenient are VIP, first class (1st class), second class (2nd class).

VIP – the most expensive, comfortable and fast. Air-conditioned, not different in comfort level from tourist buses. Toilet on board. Practically no stops along the way.

First class (1st class) – cheaper than VIP, air-conditioned, with a toilet on board, but they go slower and make more stops along the way.

Second class (2nd class) – the cheapest. Not always air-conditioned (if air-conditioned – designated in schedules and on tickets as Air Conditioned or A/C; if not air-conditioned, designated as Ordinal or not designated at all), and if air-conditioned, then weakly. There are no toilets on board. Along the way they make a bunch of stops, including for toilet breaks, which is why they go very slowly. Mostly used for short routes.

There's also Silver class and Economy class.

Where to Find Schedules and Prices for Thailand Buses?

Unfortunately, there's no single online booking system (at least we don't know of one) for bus tickets that combines ALL ROUTES. But quite a lot of popular routes are now collected and available for search and booking on the sites:

• transport.co.th - here's the most complete bus schedule, but not all of it.
• 12go.asia - a reliable search engine, tickets can be paid for with a foreign card or you can make a booking and pay at ticket offices in Thai stores.
• Trip.com – accepts Russian cards, but there's no bus schedule as such, there are transfers, including group ones like buses.
• busonlineticket – another reliable aggregator, but you can only pay online with a non-Russian card.

In practice, it's much easier to buy tickets on the spot at travel agencies, we almost always do just that. Yes, you might have to overpay a little, but the price usually includes delivery from the hotel by minivan. But all this, of course, depends on the destination, since in some cities there simply aren't travel agencies where you can buy them, and then you have to go to the station or buy online.

And here we've collected bus and train schedules for Thailand by destination.