More visited than Paris or New York, Bangkok is one of the most exciting cities on Earth. Getting beyond the TripAdvisor top ten is key, so combine classics like riverside cocktails and the Royal Palace with a Thai language lesson hosted by a social enterprise to help you communicate on the rest of your trip. While most tourists will snap a picture of Wat Pho and its giant Buddha and move on, you’ll time it right to see the monks chanting, then head to a local cooperative to receive a traditional massage from a blind masseur. This is classic Bangkok, but not as most people know it.

Outside of the seething mass of Bangkok, Thailand is a different world entirely. Stop at a village where railway-track market stalls scramble out of the way for passing trains, then pause at a floating market to barter over tropical fruit and trinkets. Finally, arrive in Kanchanaburi, where a laid-back rafthouse culture and stunning natural surroundings belie a dark history dominated by the Death Railway and the real-life Bridge on the River Kwai. After you’ve absorbed this sobering context, move on to more peaceful fare as you explore the flowing Erawan Waterfall in a national park outside of town before taking a ride on the railway itself through Kwai Noi Gorge.

Once one of the world’s largest cities, today Ayutthaya is a compelling mish-mash of brick ruins, sleek modern cafés and a cosmopolitan culture whose roots snake back to pre-modern Persia, China, France and Japan. It’s a place to putter among the ruins by tuk-tuk, hop out to explore giant monasteries and reliquary towers, grab street-food snacks from the Muslim quarter and take long, slow lunches in trendy restaurants with enviable interior design. After you’ve done all that, it’s time to relax as you cruise along the Chao Phraya to the idiosyncratic Summer Palace, where Chinese pavilions rub shoulders with classical statuary and a temple styled like a Gothic chapel.

Chiang Mai is what we like to call a “Goldilocks city” - a must visit on any Thailand holiday. Small but not too small; vibrant but not overwhelming — and with the perfect balance of contemporary and traditional. This is the place to explore sleepy backstreets lined with teakwood houses, say hello to fishermen on the Ping River, attend candlelit prayers at local temples, and explore markets overflowing with everything from hand-stitched Hmong quilts to herbal medicines. It’s also the gateway to the mist-cloaked northern mountains, where you’ll hike across bamboo bridges to 70-metre-high waterfalls and Karen villages, hooting gibbons all around you.