Lesson Learned: When Planning Travel, Always Trust Your Gut

We spent the last month lying low in a little beach shack in Nai Harn Beach, Phuket.

We had been to Phuket once before and, honestly, it didn’t blow us away the first time and we weren’t in a hurry to come back. But due to a variety of factors — visa allowances, connecting flight options, and the lack of availability of long-term rentals in other parts of Thailand — logistically, it made the most sense for this leg of our journey, and so we decided to give it another shot.

Last time we were here, we stayed in one of the bigger, more touristy towns, and we found it a bit overrun. This time, in an effort to find something with more of the laid back vibe we were looking for, we opted for a smaller town at the southernmost reaches of the island, which we’d heard was a bit quieter and more family-friendly than the bigger tourist towns in the centre of the island (which are better known for their night life and “lady bars” than their beaches).

What we hadn’t taken into account was that we were visiting at the absolute height of the high season over Christmas and New Years, and so when we arrived what we found was a beach swarming with tourists — nearly all families on vacation from Russia — where you could barely find a spot on the sand.

It wasn’t exactly the serene setting we were hoping for, but we’ve made the most of our time here and used it as a time to just relax and recharge at “home” in our Airbnb.

And we’ve learned a valuable lesson through this experience: when planning travel, the options that make the most sense on paper won’t always be the best fit regardless of how practical they are, and that we should also be sure to “trust our guts” when determining what will be right for our family.