Best areas to stay in Bangkok

Nearly all backpackers head straight for Banglamphu, Bangkok’s long-established travellers’ ghetto just north of the Grand Palace, location of the cheapest accommodation, the best traveller-oriented facilities and some of the most enjoyable bars and restaurants in the city. It’s definitely one of the best areas to stay in Bangkok for party people. A growing number of Banglamphu guest houses are reinventing themselves as good-value mini-hotels boasting chic decor, swimming pools, and even views from the windows, and have recently been joined by twenty-first-century hostels, which throw in a measure of style and sociability with your wifi-enabled bunk. The cheap guesthouses are still there, particularly immediately west of Khao San, around the neighbourhood temple Wat Chana Songkhram, and along riverside Thanon Phra Arthit - where you’ll also find some upscale places offering prime views over the Chao Phraya. Heading south from Khao San, across multi-laned Rajdamnoen Klang, to the upscale places in the area immediately south of Democracy also puts you plumb in the middle of an interesting old neighbourhood, famous for its traditional shophouse restaurants.

Siam Square and nearby Thanon Ploenchit are as central as Bangkok gets. On hand are the city’s best shopping possibilities - notably the phalanx of malls along Thanon Rama I - and a wide choice of Thai and international restaurants and food courts. There’s no ultra-cheap accommodation around here, but a few scaled-up guesthouses complement the hotels. Concentrated in their own small area on Soi Kasemsan 1, these offer typical travellers’ facilities and basic hotel comforts - air-conditioning and en-suite hot-water bathrooms - at moderate prices; the Khlong Saen Saeb canal-boat pier, Tha Saphan Hua Chang (easily accessed via Thanon Phayathai), is especially handy for heading west to the Golden Mount and beyond, to Ratanakosin.

Several small, upmarket hotels and hostels have recently opened on the west side of Ratanakosin, which put you in a peerless location, in a quiet, traditional neighbourhood, overlooking the river and on the doorsteps of Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. The restaurants and nightlife of Banglamphu are within walking distance if you fancy a bit more of a buzz, while the sights of Thonburi and Chinatown, and Saphan Taksin Skytrain station are just a public boat ride away. It’s the best neighbourhood to stay in Bangkok for a bit of everything you’d want from your time in the capital.

Thanon Sukhumvit is Bangkok’s longest road - it keeps going east all the way to Cambodia - but for such an important artery it’s far too narrow for the volume of traffic that needs to use it, and is further hemmed in by the Skytrain line that runs above it. Packed with high-rise office blocks and business hotels (though very little budget accommodation), an impressive array of specialist restaurants (from Lebanese to Lao), and stall after stall selling cheap souvenirs and T-shirts, it’s a lively place that attracts tourists. At the west end of Sukhumvit, many of the sois are refreshingly quiet, even leafy. Transport down the longer sois is provided by motorbike-taxi (motosai) drivers who wait at the soi’s mouth, clad in numbered waistcoats.

South of Thanon Rama IV, the area sometimes known as Bangrak contains a full cross-section of accommodation. Tucked away at its eastern edge, there are a few cheap places that are worth recommending in the small travellers’ haunt of Soi Ngam Duphli and adjacent Soi Sri Bamphen and Soi Saphan Khu. The neighbourhood is often traffic-clogged, but is close to Lumphini Park and subway station and fairly handy for Suvarnabhumi Airport. As well as a fair scattering of medium-range places, the arc between Thanon Rama IV and the river also lays claim to the capital’s biggest selection of top hotels, which are among the most opulent in the world. Traversed by the Skytrain, this area is especially good for eating and for nightlife, mostly near the east end of Thanon Silom (around which several LGBTQ-friendly hotels are scattered). Staying by the river itself in the atmospheric area around Thanon Charoen Krung, also known as New Road, has the added advantage of easy access to express boats.