You can travel to Krabi both on your own and for a package tour organized by a travel agency. You can also connect other destinations to your own trip, but you can also combine Bangkok, for example, with some package tours.
There are direct flights from Helsinki to Krabi, and a trip to Krabi from Phuket Airport is also tolerable. Krabi can be traveled from the rest of Thailand by bus or plane, and Krabi has four actual places to usually stay. Organized tour hotels are almost invariably in Ao Nang, and if you want to stay elsewhere in Krabi, you should go on a self-guided trip.
Self-guided trips
A self-employed tourist can book their flight from Finland, and if you want to get to know Krabi specifically, you should fly directly there and spend the time you want there. If you also want to explore other places in southern Thailand, you can of course fly to Phuket and perhaps stay overnight along the way. In southern Thailand, most people travel by big buses, but there are also minibuses on the move. Getting around Thailand is cheap, but for tourists there are cheaper taxis and other rides that can be the best rides in Krabi for just a couple of weeks.
Flights to Krabi Airport
If you want to fly directly to Krabi Airport, a few airlines from Finland will fly there, but they will not fly there all year round and during the summer season the aircraft will have to be changed in Bangkok.
Finnair flies direct to Krabi from the last week of November to the last week of March. At other times, there are flights via Bangkok, and such a flight takes from just over thirteen hours to just over fourteen hours.
Norwegian flies from Stockholm directly to Krabi Airport, and there is no need to wait an hour in Stockholm. The price is quite good but it is worth noting that the cheapest ticket does not include a suitcase.
Air India flies direct from Helsinki to Krabi, but it is not possible to make their reservations around and it can take many minutes to prove that it is a human and not a robot.
It’s easier to research and book tickets at Skyscanner.
Flights to Phuket Airport
If you want to see other possibilities, you can fly to Phuket Airport, which is in the north of the island. From there, you can go to Krabi directly or after staying in a city like Phuket. It’s really only good for those who want to see both areas, and of course it’s always possible to fly to either place and fly from the other back to Finland, seeing both Krabi and Phuket on one trip.
Finnair
flies to Phuket Airport longer than to Krabi, i.e. from early November to early April. In other seasons, you can fly to Phuket via Bangkok, and such a trip takes about 13-14 hours.
Qatar Airways flies from Helsinki to Phuket, fares are quite reasonable (often less than € 700 round trip) and many flights have a stopover in Doha, which, however, is only a couple of hours long.
Flights to Bangkok
If you want to fly to or from Thailand via Bangkok, ticket prices are roughly the same as for Phuket or Krabi. Flights departing from Finland or neighboring countries land at Bangkok Airport (Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)), from where you can also fly well to other parts of Thailand and have your own bus station. There is also another airport in Bangkok, but quite a few Finns have to use it.
Many airlines, such as Aeroflot, Finnair, Norwegian and UIA, fly to Bangkok’s main airport. Finnair flies directly, and Aeroflot is usually the cheapest company and its aircraft are excellent. Norwegian will first have to fly to another Nordic capital, and UIA will make a stopover in Kiev.
Elsewhere in Thailand to Krabi
It can be easier and cheaper to fly to Bangkok than to Krabi, and some fly to Bangkok and from there to Krabi first. It is also possible to leave Bangkok by train or bus towards the south, visit various places along the way and then go to Krabi. Along the way, there are interesting places, only some of which are very popular with tourists: a great tourist destination is Hua Hin, for example, and Phetchaburi is a popular place to visit, but few spend their nights there.
If you want to go directly south from Bangkok, it is best to take a night train directly to a station near Surat Thani, from where you can go to both Surat Thani and Krabi town, or to Trang south of Krabi. If you visit the city of Trang, where tourists stay a little overnight, like Surat Thani, you will get a feel for the way of life in a normal southern Thai city.
Flights
If you are in Bangkok and don’t want to be on time, you can fly quickly, in just over an hour, to Krabi Airport. If you wish, you can also use Phuket Airport by date or on arrival.
The company that flies a lot in Thailand is, Bangkok Airways. Tickets are reasonably priced, but you should book them as soon as you know when you want to fly.
Another active airline is Thai Airways. Also, you should buy a ticket for its planes as soon as you know because you want to fly.
Bus
From many places like Phuket town, Trang and Surat Thani you can get to Krabi by bus quite quickly. The bus station is close to the city of Krabi, and from there you can move from day to day anywhere else except Railay. Surat Thani Railway Station, which is about 15 km from the city itself, can also be reached directly from Krabi City Bus Station or vice versa.
Information on bus tickets and other bus-related information is provided by Bus Online Ticket. Tickets for buses are usually only purchased before boarding, and it is not common in Thailand to buy bus tickets in advance. Sometimes a ticket can be bought the day before, but the best thing is to find out because the preferred bus leaves, go to the station well in advance and buy a ticket for it. It is normal for buses to run during the day once an hour, sometimes every two, and after dusk, there is little movement of buses.
Train south of Bangkok
From Bangkok, a train departs through Phetchabur, Hua Hin and Chumphon, for example, to a station near Surat Thani called Surat Thani but which is about 15 kilometers from Phun Phin in the city itself. It is an unfortunate place at first glance, but from there you can easily move in many directions and there is a very good night market near the station that is spread over a wide area. Surat Thani is known for its many major temple areas and is home to quite a few Western tourists.
Trang, which is south of Krabi, is also a place to go by night train, but there are only direct trains twice in the evening and so the ticket has to be booked well in advance. The train leaves Bangkok after five and a half to seven in the evening towards Trang, and the journey takes about 15 hours. There is a couple of hours bus ride from Trang to Krabi city bus station, but it is noteworthy that Surat Thani train station and also its bus station is roughly the same distance to Krabi city bus station or the rest of Krabi area.
Trains are always late, sometimes an hour away, but if you leave Bangkok by night train, it usually leaves on schedule. The train leaves Bangkok’s Hua Lamphong Station [ on the map ], next to which is a subway station. It is a good idea to buy a train ticket in advance, at least 24 hours a day, but preferably for several or a couple of weeks, and train tickets can be paid with a debit card if the trip costs more than 300 baht. When buying a train ticket, you need to have a passport with you, and it is a good idea to first look at the schedule that each train station has and that you can take with you. Some trains are faster than others, and there are several different trains every night.
It is worth taking the night train between Bangkok and Surat Thani, as the journey takes at least 12 hours and the train may well be a couple of hours late. There are also a couple of other stations in Bangkok along the way where you can board or miss the train when you return. There are different categories of trains, and the best value for money is the air-conditioned trolley, which has two beds on top of each other on both sides of the corridor and whose beds allow you to be at ease due to the curtain. A lower bed, which has more space and can sit, is more expensive than an upper bed. At the bottom, a passenger between Surat Thani and Bangkok pays just over 700 baht for their ticket. There are other compartments, and some trains have more expensive private compartments and different options, but for the most part, sleeping in an air-conditioned basic trolley is a comfortable and safe way to travel long distances at an affordable price. Some trains have a restaurant trolley that turns into an almost disco in the evenings, and traveling by train in Thailand can be a memorable experience.
Some information is available online, and Thai Railways, for example, tells more about train travel. However, the most profitable thing in Thailand is to go to the station, explore the possibilities and buy a ticket from a normal ticket office during rush hour. A train ticket for any train in Thailand can be purchased from any station, and if, for example, you want to return from Krabi to Bangkok on a night train departing from Surat Thani, you can buy a ticket from Trang, where you can also travel by train to Bangkok or vice versa.
Travel arranged by travel agencies
Trips organized by a travel agency are usually for a week or two. They are quite expensive, well over twice what a week’s trip though to the Canary Islands costs, but the flight distance is long and hotels are often four-star resorts. The hotels of almost all travel agencies are in Ao Nang, which is completely a tourist destination but from which it is easy to visit the rest of Krabi and make various sea excursions. If you want to save on a trip to Thailand, you might want to make a two-week trip for the better value for money and you should settle for a two or three star hotel instead of a four or five star hotel.
Apollomatkat uses Finnair’s planes and thus the trips are made when Finnair flies directly to Krabi. The hotels are almost organized in Ao Nang, which is a favorite place for Finns in Krabi and has menus in Finnish and you can even sip your hips. A week’s trip costs about 1,200 euros.
Of course, Finnink-owned Aurinkomatkat makes trips when Finnair flies directly to Krabi. Aurinkomatkat also mainly offers hotels in Ao Nang, but Aurinkomatkat has the advantage over some other travel agencies that there are also two-star hotels on offer. A person staying in a two-star hotel can get a week’s trip for less than 1000 euros, but a four-star hotel requires up to three to four hundred euros more for the same period.
Also Tjäreborg and TUI make package tours to Krabi. Their hotels are also mainly in Ao Nang, and there are also hotels on the islands near Krabi.
Kymenmatkat organizes trips to spend time in both Bangkok and Krabi, and that is a versatile and eye-opening trip.
