We enjoyed an amazing family holiday in Khao Lak in February 2025, creating amazing memories that we’ll always cherish. A trip like this is what you make it and we put a lot of work into planning the perfect family trip.
On this page we summarise what we booked in terms of flights and accommodation, as well how we settled on our final plans.
Itinerary
When we started thinking about visiting Thailand it was completely new to us and approaching this holiday we really didn’t know much at all about where to go or what to do. While we normally like to book our trips independently, given we knew so little about the destination we decided we’d book through a travel agent on this occasion. As Thailand is such a popular spot, you’re not short of options with the usual high street travel agents offering holidays here. Our preferred tour operators are Kuoni and Trailfinders just because we find them to be more of a halfway house between a package and an independent trip where you can put together a bespoke trip and really make it your own.
We started with the usually holiday brochures from Kuoni and Trailfinders – and got some ideas and then headed into Kuoni to discuss our plans further. Having chatted to one of their advisers we initially settled on a split stay trip:
4 nights in Khao Lak
2 nights in Elephant Hills
4 nights in Krabi
This would enable us to take in the best of the region, enjoying 3 of the 4 main tourist destinations, all of which were family friendly. However when we investigated further we found the flights just weren’t working and we’d have to dot around and change planes a couple of times so we simplified to:
4 nights in Khao Lak
2 nights in Elephant Hills
4 nights in Khao Lak
This meant we could solely use Phuket international airport which has better availability of flights than Krabi. It also importantly meant that as we were returning to the same hotel after Elephant Hills, that the hotel would store the bulk of our luggage for the 2 nights in the middle while we were at Elephant Hills. This was handy as you’re only supposed to take limited and soft sided luggage to Elephant Hills so this is a consideration.
We later amended this further, cancelling our Elephant Hills stay, and ended up with a straight 10 nights in Khao Lak. The main reasons for this were:
Vaccinations are a consideration when visiting Thailand, and we talk more about these on the following pages. Having discussed these with a health care provider we decided to reduce our risk a little to avoid needing more vaccinations by not staying in the jungle and out on the lake. We tend to be pretty cautious with our health like this when we travel, and this was purely a personal decision.
We’re not campers and we’ve never been glamping before so this was a leap for us. Given we’d not done it before, and had reservations about creepy crawlies and snakes etc we decided we didn’t want to try this for the first time here.
We’re a family of 4 and while the tents do sleep 4 it requires 3 of you to share a double bed – something we’ve learnt now can be quite common in Asia. While it’s doable its not ideal and with busy hot days and no air conditioning this didn’t seem all that appealing.
Simplifying the trip to just 10 nights in Khao Lak rather than including Elephant Hills cut the cost of the holiday by close to £1,000 which was material given the additional cost of the vaccinations we were already having.
So, having started with a more adventurous itinerary, we finally settled on a more standard 10 nights in Khao Lak. This was something we felt more comfortable with given we’d never visited before and only had 10 days.
Flights
In terms of flights the main direct route in and out of Thailand is via Bangkok or Phuket. For us, flying from Manchester, we accepted we’d need to change somewhere along the way. This isn’t something we’re a fan of, as it drags out the travel day and introduces more stress making the changeover and we’ve been stung before when our luggage was lost when we changed flights. In this case though, it was necessary, so we booked return flights from Manchester to Khao Lak with Qatar Airways with a change in Doha, Qatar.
We made sure there was a decent amount of time between the flights – around 3 hours to change in Doha, and we made sure to select our flight times carefully. Generally when flying east we tend to pick an early departure time so we arrive at our destination early the following morning and get an extra day. Then on the way back we do the same again, flying early and so arrive home later that same day, again to make the most of our time.
Our flights with Qatar Airways were brilliant. We always just book economy seats and these were perfectly fine. Qatar is known as being one of the best airlines in the world and we really enjoyed travelling with them. The service was great, the seats were roomy, and there was a great selection of entertainment. For the Manchester to Doha flights we noticed it was a more modern plane with bigger screens, whereas the Doha to Phuket flights were an older plane, with smaller and fairly unresponsive screens, but it wasn’t a massive problem and we enjoyed really comfortable flights. One point to note though is that if you want to sit together you do need to pay to reserve seats and with us changing in Doha that meant 4 flights, which set us back close to £400 - something to keep in mind as its a significant cost for a family.
Also a quick mention on Doha airport where we changed. This was amazing - one of the best airports we’ve ever travelled through. It was incredibly modern, spacious, clean and had so many restaurants and shops to keep you busy. We particularly loved the Wagamamas here and it meant we could refresh, get a good meal and then continue on our journey.
Accommodation
With Khao Lak being a big tourist destination, you’re not short of options on where to stay and there’s something for every standard and budget. For us we wanted a classic resort with pools, comfortable rooms and dining options and Kuoni recommended the Sands Khao Lak. We always do our research before we book anywhere – primarily through Tripadvisor and vlogs and this hotel looked perfect. We’ve done a full vlog on the hotel on our youtube channel here but the Sands has everything you could want for a family holiday – multiple pools, slides, a lazy river, several restaurants, and exceptional rooms.
Because of our change in itinerary, we ended up staying in two room types – a pool access family room for the first and last 4 nights, and then a family slide room.
Pool access family room. Both room types are located in the ‘Aqua wing’ which is basically the family area of the hotel located around the family pool. The pool access family rooms are swim up rooms with their own private stretch of pool, separate to the main family pool. We absolutely loved this aspect of the room and we often just spent time in this pool rather than the main pools. We found it so easy to just sit on our own private balcony and it was 100% worth upgrading to this room type. Inside the room splits off into two, with a super king size bed in one half of the room, and two single beds (one of them a rollout) in the other half. Each room has a smart TV (so you can log into your own Netflix account) and both rooms are a great size to keep all the luggage out of the way and to make for a comfortable stay. The bathroom is also lovely a standalone bathtub, with a sliding door opening it out into the main room if you really want, a walk in shower and large vanity sink. Both rooms had air conditioning, and were well sound insulated so we were always cool and comfortable.
Family slide room . These are located above the pool access rooms and are very similar, but with the second room having a bunk bed and slide rather than the two single beds. The kids obviously loved this aspect and had a blast. We noticed these rooms were slightly smaller than the pool access rooms, not quite as roomy, and no bathtub. The tvs also weren’t smart tvs, so just a slight downgrade, but still great.
In terms of service the hotel was exceptional. All of the staff were friendly and helpful. You’re given free bottled water in the room and can order more through the hotel app whenever you want, as well as extra towels, pillows and room service.
All around we had a wonderful time here and would definitely like to return one day.
