A list of the best places to visit in Bangkok complete with highlights for shopping, sightseeing, fun things to do for kids, cultural and historic places to see, food experiences and some off-the-beaten-track places to visit. There is a huge amount to see and do in Bangkok that is family-friendly and suitable for people of any age. Bangkok is the best place to visit in Thailand for families because it’s so diverse, with loads to see and do, but you’ll need our guide to discover these best places to visit. We’ve also created a map for you with these Bangkok highlights marked.
Bangkok is a city with so many facets, so many variables that in 20 years of travel to Thailand, I’ve still not seen it all, nor had enough.
This post is a guide for new travellers to Bangkok, maybe families with children or teens planning a trip to Thailand, who have no idea what Bangkok has to offer. You’ll need our help to find these must-see places in a kind of Bangkok bucket-list of attractions.
I can’t include everything but these are some of our favourite things to do in Bangkok with family, some are hidden gems, somewhat off the main tourist track, some are must-sees. We hope you find our guide to places to visit in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, useful.
Best Places to Visit in Bangkok
The best attractions to visit in Bangkok depend on your family’s interests and preferences. As a shortlist of top must-visit places, we recommend the following, The Grand Palace, a boat trip on the river (this could be a dinner cruise or longtail boat tour), the Green Lung, Wat Pho and Wat Arun. You can read about all of these places, plus many more, in our post.
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Use this list of interesting places to see in Bangkok to create your itinerary. You can see many of these places by taking a self-guided walking tour or use a vehicle.
It’s easy and cheap to visit these places in Bangkok by taxi, Grab car, Uber or tuk tuk. Some parts of Bangkok are also covered by a metro system (BTS). A lot of this is covered in our post on how to get around Thailand.
We almost never use the BTS in Bangkok, it’s not necessary to use it for most tourist places.
We’ll tell you how to get to these places where we can, plus locations on the map, (yes, we made you a map of Bangkok!) admission fees, directions and reference links for further information.
You can also book tours of Bangkok, and from Bangkok, we’ll give you booking links on this page, and if you use them, thank you, it helps.
We’ll also give you ideas on where to stay near each of these attractions in Bangkok, again, thanks for using our links.
Don’t restrict yourself to the big name Bangkok Wats that we mention below in our post. As you explore on foot you will find a Wat almost on every street, go in, take a look, be respectful.
One big tip if you have kids – Pokemon Go can sometimes show you really cool places you’d otherwise miss.
Bangkok’s Wats are all stunning and fascinating places to see. There are actually over 400 wats in Bangkok, at least 10 Royal Wats.
You must be dressed respectfully to visit a Wat, cover knees and shoulders and remove your hat. Take off your shoes for any inside areas, shoes are normally kept on your feet in the grounds, so wear shoes you can slip off easily, thongs or flip flops are perfect if you can walk in them. We can, we walk miles in Bangkok in flip flops.
One of Bangkok’s Wats has the biggest solid gold Buddha in Thailand, that’s at Wat Traimit. Read about that one below.
We’ve given you admission prices and opening hours for these Bangkok attractions where we can, but do double check them, they can change.
What’s special about our Bangkok travel blog is that we actually visit each localtion ourselves and take our own photos to give you genuine first-hand information. We hope you can see the difference, too many travel bloggers today dont. So if you like our approach please do sign up to follow or drop us a comment, we love to chat.
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1. Visit the Grand Palace in Bangkok
2. Visit the New Palace in Bangkok
3. See Bangkok’s Giant Swing
4. See Bangkok’s Democracy Monument
5. Visit the Golden Mount
6. Visit Wat Ratchabophit And Bangkok’s Royal Cemetery
7. Visit Markets in Bangkok
8. Visit Dusit Zoo Bangkok
9. Visit Wat Arun in Bangkok
10. Visit Wat Pho in Bangkok
11. Visit River City Bangkok
12. Explore Bangkok’s Green Lung (By Bike)
13. Visit a Hindu Temple in Bangkok
14. Visit Bangkok’s Waterways by Long Tail Boat
15. Visit Bangkok’s Chinatown
16. Visit Wat Traimit For The Biggest Gold Buddha in Bangkok
17. Visit the Pig Shrine
18. Visit Bangkok’s Jubilee Monument
19. Visit Bangkok Sea Life Aquarium
How Much Time to Spend in Bangkok With Family?
If you plan to see most of the cultural and historic attractions in Bangkok, enjoy Thai cuisine, and maybe visit some fun places in Bangkok for the kids, you will need at least 5 or 6 days to really experience Bangkok.
In reality, you could stay much longer and not run out of things to do.
There are loads more things to do in Bangkok and over time I’ll add them to this post, but for today, that’s enough. It’s one of our very favourite cities in the world and even now, after 20+ visits over 20+ years, we’re still enjoying the old and discovering the new. Back to our main Thailand Travel Page