Where Every Number on This Site Comes From
Guides here are written from trips I actually took, then checked against sources you can click. Prices carry the date they were checked. Nothing is recommended because someone paid for it.
One Person, Not a Content Farm
Every guide on this site is written by Belle, an American with Thai family living near Asok in Bangkok. I go back every other year and stay for weeks, not days. The pages come out of that: what I ate, what I paid, which songthaew I got on, what I would skip next time.
Where I have not been somewhere myself, the page says so. Where a recommendation came from family or friends who live there, it says that too. No guide here is generated, spun from other travel sites, or bought in.
I am a repeat visitor with local family, which is a lucky vantage point and not the last word. Read the pages as a well-briefed friend, not an authority.
Five Steps, Every Time
Go, and take notes on the ground
Times, fares, wait times and opening hours get written down while I am standing there, not reconstructed later from memory.
Draft from the notes, not from other guides
The first draft is only what I saw. If I cannot remember it clearly, it does not go in.
Verify every hard number
Entry fees, stair counts, journey times, festival dates and season windows are checked against a primary or well-established source before they go on the page.
Photograph it, or license it properly
Most photos on the site are mine. Where they are not, the image carries the photographer, the license and a link, and the file is hosted here rather than hotlinked from a server we do not control.
Recheck on a schedule
Guides are reviewed on the schedule below, and the month a page was last checked is printed in its footer. If a page has not been rechecked recently, you can see that before you trust it.
Facts Go Stale, So They Get Dated
Thai prices, ferry schedules and park fees all move. Rather than pretend otherwise, every kind of changeable fact sits on its own recheck cycle, and each page carries the month it was last checked.
Prices are a guide, not a quote. Treat anything more than six months old as approximate and check before you pay.
The Lines This Site Does Not Cross
No paid placements
No hotel, tour operator or restaurant can buy a mention, a ranking or a kind word. If a business ever hosts me, the page says so in the text, not in a footnote.
No generated guides
No page here is written by AI or rewritten from other travel sites. If that ever changes, it will be labeled on the page.
No borrowed photos
Photos are mine, licensed, or public domain, credited by name and license and hosted on this site. Nothing is hotlinked or lifted.
No riding, bathing or holding
Animal experiences are only listed where contact happens on the animal’s terms: feeding and walking alongside at most. Anywhere that lets you ride, wash or hold an animal is left off, however popular it is.
No invented certainty
Where I do not know, the page says I do not know. Ranges and typical cases are labeled as such rather than dressed up as fact.
No silent edits
Substantive corrections are noted with the date at the foot of the page, not quietly patched.
How the Site Pays for Itself
First Time Thailand is reader-supported. Some links to booking sites and gear earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. That is the whole business model: no sponsored posts, no paid reviews, no affiliate deal that changes what gets recommended.
Commission links only ever point at things already recommended on their own merits. If a place is worth going to and has no affiliate program, it still gets the write-up.
Found Something Wrong? Tell Me
Prices change, places close, and I get things wrong. If something on a page does not match what you found on the ground, send it over with the page name and what you saw, and I will check it and update the date.
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