If you’re anything like us, we love to try our best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. But with several LGBTQ friendly parties, clubs, and events in Thailand, temptation can be found everywhere. Here’s how we escape the nightlife and focus on our wellness, so we can be fierce and fabulous on the inside and outside.
Moving into the new year, we make a lot of promises to do better for ourselves. By a month later, they’re falling to the wayside. We tell ourselves we’ll travel more. Take care of our health. Experience new things we never had the time to do before.
We know what it’s like, because we all grapple with it. Realizing our recreational aspirations while also keeping in touch with our day-to-day goals is a tightrope we all cross each day. When you’re in a relationship, it gets even harder. Balancing two schedules to manage free time can be a daunting task. However, even though our responsibilities might keep us anchored to a restrictive schedule, we all eventually have to make time to break the cycle and take care of ourselves.
In recent years, many vacation destinations have recognized a desire from travelers to disconnect and rewire their minds and bodies. Because of this, on a country by country basis, many have slowly undergone a change to their tourism offerings. Today, many regions are peppered with vacation retreats, offering comprehensive health and wellness activities across an array of experiences. From meditation and yoga to detoxifying the body, wellness retreats aim to break the cycle of living life on the go, allowing visitors to slow down, rest, and reset their minds and bodies away from the responsibilities of everyday life.
Thailand has the benefit of variety. No matter where you are, there’s always going to be a way to achieve some form of physical or mental betterment. Because the idea of settling down at a wellness retreat for the entire span of a vacation can seem scary to some, it might be that the last thing you want to feel is that you or your partner are obligated to participate in the retreat offerings, just because you paid for it.
If you’re in this boat, you’ll be happy to realize then that much of Thailand’s offerings are readily available to the average traveler, without tying oneself down to the strict regimen of where to go, and what to do. Whether it’s achieving a better mental balance or a physical one, you can be free to explore and build new habits, while breaking the old ones. With this mix of regions, there’s always an option to find a new way to get better with your partner, and more importantly, make it fun.
Let’s start our adventure in Phuket. In this area, many experiences can be found on the waters. Activities range from boat cruises, to scuba diving and kayaking, and if you simply want to chill in the luxury of spas and meditative sunsets by the beach, you can get around to that here too. Traveling away from the mainland, you can also meet the shores of the Phi-Phi islands, and gain new perspective away from the rest of the world.
But sometimes, you need something a little more daring. It doesn’t all have to be about bungalows and basking in the sun. For the more physical traveler, a unique wellness and exercise activity can be found by making a stop at Tiger Muay Thai. Thailand well known for popularizing the fighting style of Muay Thai, and this location takes it a step further by giving seasoned professionals and novices a centralized location in the birthplace of the playground to hone, develop, or earn new skills and dexterity in the field of martial arts.
You’ll also be able to find many gay-friendly spas and resorts in the region. Phuket also offers gay travelers with a rich nightlife scene in Patong, in locations such as Paradise Complex. If part of your DIY wellness retreat involves partying and meeting new people, no one is going to stop you from getting your fill here.
Undoubtedly, Krabi is a must-visit for adventurers, but it also has the same type of beautiful beaches you’ll find all over Thailand. The shoreline destination is located at the mouth of the Krabi River, bordering Phang Nga Bay. If you started vacationing in Phuket, the area is accessible by bus or boat, with travel times to and from running approximately two hours. The region offers a wide variety of activities, including rock climbing, kayak cave exploration, and scuba diving, as well as mountainous trails and lowland forests to explore. It’s a great way to experience new places and activities, while maintaining a fresh vacation itinerary day after day.
If nature resorts are more your thing, Thailand has got the perfect place to get in touch with it. Khao Sok National Park is often boasted as the oldest evergreen rainforest in the world. You can discover the park about two hours north of both Krabi and Phuket, about midway between the two regions.
Visitors can take forest tours or trek on their own, as well as travel through the park by canoe and raft. It’s nearly impossible to discover everything there is to see in a day here, but the region is home to a variety of laid-back resorts to choose from, so if you find yourself infatuated with the region, you’re more than welcome to stay for a bit longer at one of them.
If you’ve got it this far, and our last suggestion interested you, you might want to take your travels even further away from the beach. Another prime (but far) destination can be found by making your way up north to visit Chiang Mai, one of the more mountainous, more historic regions of Thailand. The region is bursting with temples, gardens, and markets, but also a growing number of spas, bars and resorts. A popular go-to for tourists the Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre, which you might want to stop by if you want to share a relatively inexpensive, but educationally rich cooking class with your partner.
After you’re refreshed from learning and relaxing within the wealth of offerings in Chiang Mai, it’s time to get moving again. Doi Inthanon might not be a sandy white beach, but it makes up for it with fairytale trails, and an amazing vista view at the summit. Being the highest mountain in Thailand, you won’t be disappointed by the view.
How do you refresh and renew while on vacation in Thailand? Remember to visit us on our Facebook.com/ThailandGayTravel to continue the conversation with us.
