Getting to Sukhothai From Bangkok
Don’t miss the rest of our series on Sukhothai!
Exploring Sukhothai Historical Park
Prices accurate as of November 2019
By Plane:
This was the option we chose! Flights typically cost about $120 USD round trip, and there are three flights per day, all with Bangkok Airways. Flight time is 1 hour and 20 minutes.
When you arrive in Sukhothai, you’ll take a shuttle from the (tiny!) plane to the main airport building. This was nothing like any airport we had ever seen before. It’s adorable, incredibly small, and for some unfathomable reason has an assortment of giraffes and zebras living right next to it.
Once you’re in the airport, go to the counter and sign up for a spot on one of the shuttles into town. It costs 300 baht (about $10 USD) per person to go to the old city, and the shuttle will take you directly to your hotel. Expect to pay the same amount to go back to the airport when it’s time to leave.
While flying into Sukhothai isn’t the cheapest possible option, it’s the fastest (and, for us, the least stressful). If we go back to Sukhothai from Bangkok, we’ll choose to fly again.
By Bus:
If you’re on a tight budget and don’t mind spending more time in transit, consider taking a bus from Bangkok to Sukhothai instead of flying.
Taking the bus will cost you from 330 to 700 baht ($11 to $23 USD) each way, or under $50 round trip. You can expect the trip to take 6 to 8 hours.
Buses for Sukhothai leave from the Mo Chit Bus Terminal in Bangkok, which is north of Bangkok near Chatuchak Market. The buses take you directly to Sukhothai.
Depending on where you’re staying, you may still need to take a taxi or tuk-tuk once you arrive.
By Train + Bus:
If you haven’t been to the Hua Lamphong Railway Station already, this is a good excuse to go check it out! It’s so huge that it almost feels like you’re in a small airport.
Anyway: trains don’t run directly from Bangkok to Sukhothai, but they do run from Bangkok to Phitsanulok. Take that train, then head from the Phitsanulok train station to the city’s bus station via tuk-tuk or taxi.
From the Phitsanulok bus station, you can catch a bus the rest of the way to Sukhothai.
The train + bus combo will cost you around 350 to 550 baht ($12 to $18 USD) each way, or under $40 round trip. This doesn’t include transportation between the train station and the bus stop in Phitsanulok, so budget a few more dollars for that.
Total time for the train + bus combo is anywhere from 7 to 10 hours depending on which train you take and how long it takes for the train-to-bus connection. (If you just miss a bus, you might find yourself waiting at the station for an hour for the next one.)
Private Driver:
Hiring a private car to take you from Bangkok to Sukhothai is definitely the most luxurious option. Transit time is longer than flying, but shorter than a bus or train, at around 6 hours.
Costs start at 7,000 baht (around $232 USD) each way, or around $465 round trip. This is almost four times the price of flying, but might be an option to consider if you hate flying that much or all of the flights are sold out.
When we’ve booked drivers in Thailand in the past, we’ve used 12go.asia. We’ve only used them a couple times and one of the drivers was unpleasant, so we can’t confidently endorse them, but so far they’ve been reliable and on time.
Our Thoughts & Recommendations:
Flying is easily the most expensive option by about $60 to $80 per person. Even so, we definitely recommend it. We’re at a point where we would rather spend a little bit extra than spend an entire day hot, frustrated, impatient, and disheveled on a bus or train.
The faster transit time and ability to actually enjoy a big chunk of the first day in Sukhothai (instead of stumbling in exhausted after dark) is worth the extra cost to us. If the flight is significantly more (around a holiday, maybe), the bus becomes a more viable option.
While the train is the least expensive, it’s also the slowest and the most complicated, with multiple transfers. For us, saving $12 by taking the train + bus combo instead of just taking one bus definitely isn’t worth the extra time and hassle.