Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi Thailand

With air travel so readily available, every Tom Dick and Harry has been to Spain, France and Greece for their summer holiday and it only takes a couple of hours to get home if it all goes wrong, but Asia, now this is another thing. If you're planning on travelling to Thailand, you might find these tips helpful for that first, slightly daunting week.

Arriving in Bangkok at the beginning of your Thailand trip is similar to arriving in any large city around the world. The airport is huge and daunting, but essentially you are lead off the plan, directed to collect your luggage and set free where Bangkok if you oyster.

My first trip to Thailand was at the age of 19 when a friend and I planned 3 months travelling around Thailand. With a Lonely Planet in my hand and a rucksack on my back we had no real plans and no hotels booked! Walking out of the arrival lounge the warm evening heat of the city was a pleasant contrast to the cold winter day we had left in England. We jumped in a taxi and like 9 out of 10 other backpackers asked the taxi driver to head for Koh San Road, the essential place to kick off your Thailand trip. The journey took about an hour along a surprisingly good quality motorways and back streets with fantastic views of the citys at night time. Arriving in Koh San Road we paid our driver a considerably small amount for an hours ride in a taxi and were faced with the bustling streets, bright neon lights and throng of backpacker of Koh San Road. As we walked down the street with our backpacks obviously fresh off the plane at the beginning of our Thailand trip, we were approached by numerous hotel owners proudly holding pictures of rooms they had to offer. We settled for the best priced room above a noodle bar, dumped our bags and although we had just got off a 15 hour flight the excitement of the city were too much to go to sleep. We headed out as the time neared midnight for a cold beer and a bowl of noodles - to begin our Thailand trip in style.

The following few days we got into a routine of waking up eating a typically English breakfast of eggs, bacon of a bowl a muesli in the hotel restaurant and looking through our lonely planet to see how we would spend our day. We visited Wats, Buddha's, temples, markets, parks and even took a trip to pat pong to see the infamous ping pong show! We drank local Chang Beer and chatted to other Thailand travellers about their experiences and the best places to head to.

Bangkok is easy for travellers to Thailand to navigate, with a million tuk-tuk drivers willing to take you anywhere, usually via a tailors to get their petrol vouchers. Like with any large city there are a plethora of amazing place to visit. There are ATMs, banks, shopping centres, street vendors selling amazing food from deep fried crickets to sticky rice and coconut. There's a boots pharmacy and the end of the road and a of course a MacDonald's! Thailand travel agents offering excursions to the jungles and the beaches, to the river Kwai and to the ancient temples of Ayutthaya and so all the things that you could possible could of worried about before you begin your Thailand trip are quickly forgotten. With the friendly Thai nature I never heard a word raised in anger and although there are of course the occasional scams, I think Bangkok was everything and more I could have wanted from a city.

Thailand is really traveller friendly, with a great transport system that includes buses, trains and planes, all running through Bangkok. After we left Bangkok to continue travelling around Thailand, we returned numerous times as we passed through for the night on our way to a different part of the country each time making it feel even more familiar and a little bit like home in a country so far away from England.

I hope that this will put your mind at rest about travelling in Thailand, as it's a brilliant place that is really welcoming to travellers from all over the world.