Where to Stay in Thailand for Nightlife, City by City

Pick your end of lower Sukhumvit. Around BTS Nana you are steps from Nana Plaza, the Soi 4 beer bars, the Soi 7 beer garden and the Soi 11 clubs, but it is busier and noisier late. Asok is the better all-rounder: BTS Asok meets MRT Sukhumvit there, Soi Cowboy is next door and Terminal 21 has cheap food. Phrom Phong is smarter, with few girly bars. Silom suits Patpong, the Soi 2 and Soi 4 gay bars and the rooftops.

Anywhere you can't walk home from in about ten minutes is too far for a nightlife trip, unless transport closes the gap. In Bangkok, a hotel by a Sukhumvit line BTS station stretches that, until the trains stop around midnight. In Pattaya, being on the baht bus loop along Beach Road and Second Road works. In Phuket and on Koh Samui taxis are expensive, so staying outside Patong or Chaweng means paying for a ride every night.

A few streets back, for most people. Rooms facing Walking Street, Bangla Road or lower Sukhumvit take the noise until the bars close, and on Walking Street and Bangla that can be 3am or later. One or two sois away is quieter, often cheaper and still a five-minute walk. Staying on the strip itself only makes sense for a short, all-out trip where you plan to sleep through the mornings anyway.

For stays of a few weeks or more, usually yes: a condo or serviced apartment on a monthly rate often costs less per night than a hotel and gives you a kitchen and more space. Long-stayers favor On Nut in Bangkok, Soi Buakhao, Jomtien and Pratumnak Hill in Pattaya, and Nimman in Chiang Mai. Guest rules still apply, and some buildings are stricter than hotels, so ask the owner or building management directly before you sign.

Book the first few nights, and the whole trip if you travel over Christmas, New Year or Songkran, when good rooms near the bars sell out. Otherwise a few nights is enough to see whether the area and the hotel suit you, and then you can extend or move. VIP members see our hotel reviews, with the guest policy, the rate we found and the kind of night each area suits, so the first booking is the right one.

Thonglor or Ekkamai, on the BTS Sukhumvit line east of Phrom Phong, if you want the cocktail bars and Thai-style clubs where young, well-off Thais go out. For the Soi 11 clubs, Insanity, Levels and Sugar Club, stay around BTS Nana and walk home. RCA's big clubs, such as Onyx and Route 66, have no station on the doorstep, so a hotel near MRT Phra Ram 9 keeps the ride home short.

In the area you plan to base yourself, not at an airport hotel, unless you land in the small hours and fly on early. Taxis and Grab run from Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang through the night, while the Airport Rail Link stops around midnight. Book that first night in advance and tell the hotel your arrival time so the room is held, and ask for a room away from the street if it sits on a busy soi.

Check the walk, not the hotel's description. 'Near Sukhumvit' can mean the far end of a long soi, so look at how far the nearest BTS or MRT station, or Pattaya's baht bus loop, really is, which bars you pass on the way home and whether the rooms face a bar street. Our interactive maps show which establishments are within walking distance of a hotel. Then check the guest policy, which matters as much as the address.