How I Travelled to Thailand for under $2000CAD for 2 weeks!

It had always been a dream of mine to travel to Thailand and visit the famous Maya Bay from Leonardo Dicaprio's renowned thriller, The Beach (if you do not know what Maya Bay is, please click here). But, being realistic: I'm a full time university student with only a summer job paying minimum wage - how was I supposed to afford the flight to Bangkok, let alone 2 weeks in this gorgeous country?

A friend of mine, an experienced traveller and a professional photographer, had posted on her Instagram story that she has booked her flight to Thailand and encouraged any of her friends who would like to travel with her to book a ticket. I responded to her, "I wish!" and she responded with the link to CheapFlights flying with China Eastern Airlines.

A roundtrip ticket flying out of Pearson International Airport, layover in Shanghai and final destination in Bangkok was $650CAD tax-in. My jaw practically hit the floor. Within a minute I booked my ticket, had a quick dance around my bedroom, and messaged my friend: "Ticket's booked!"

Lots of Research...

I quickly started researching the islands I wanted to visit, events to attend, places to stay at, and flights/water taxis for transportation to complete my Thailand island hopping trip. I was lucky that the two other people I travelled with gave me full autonomy on the itinerary. I created this calendar to stay organized throughout our trip (can you tell that 1. I was super excited and 2. I am slightly type A?)

My Recommendations

Hostels are a great option to socialize with other young travellers and stay within your budget. Average costs of hostels per night, with approximately 5 other people in your room is $15-25 CAD per night. We used Hostelworld to book basically every hostel listed in the calendar. Using 'Map View' was ideal for me to visualize the location of the hostel and the proximity to beaches, hiking trails, etc. Also, I urge you to read the reviews from previous guests as there are many hostel options and reviews are usually quite accurate.
I found that organizing ferries were not very clear online. I didn't know how often they came, in case we missed one and were left on an island for a night. I can confirm that ferries are quite frequent (every hour or so for major islands: Koh Phanghan, Koh Samui, Koh Phi Phi, Phuket, etc). You can purchase tickets online or buy them at the docks, and they usually run you around $15-$20 CAD for a one-way ticket. The ferries have tons of seating and a snack/drink bar with beer that are around $2-3 CAD. We used Direct Ferries to help book our ferries.
Two words: Street. Food. I'm sure you've heard about how amazing the street food is throughout Thailand, and I can vouch that it is delicious and super budget friendly. My favourites were: chicken Pad Thai, running you at about $3 CAD for a large serving, mango sticky rice (literally fresh cut mango over a bed of sweet, sticky rice) for around $1 CAD and satay, which is BBQd meat skewers, and will usually come with peanut dipping sauce, one skewer around $1 CAD. Therefore, budget each meal at around $5 CAD.
The renowned Thai 'buckets'. I was warned by a friend not to drink the local 'vodka' and 'rum', since it's basically moonshine. After a night of drunkenly fire dancing on the beach, burning my arms and falling off of a mope head, I definitely recommend avoiding the local stuff. They have other spirit options in mini bottles like Smirnoff for only roughly $1CAD more.
When planning our trip, we wanted to see both coasts of Thailand. After some research, if we did ferries and a bus across the mainland, it would have taken a full 20 hours which we knew we weren't willing to do. We came across Nok Air, a cheap Thailand airline to be able to fly throughout Thailand and neighbouring countries. We were able to fly from the East to West coast of Thailand with Nok Air, one way, for around $20 CAD.

The one biggest recommendations I can suggest is: when travelling somewhere foreign and extremely far away, having structure is important but do not rule out 'going with the flow.' Some of the best experiences I had while travelling was meeting people or finding out about an opportunity while I was there and 'scrapping' a day's plan.

For example, on the itinerary for Koh Phi Phi island, I had pre-booked a private villa with an infinity pool called The Cobble Beach. It is quite the hike from the pier, but a gorgeous spot and super affordable, at around $25CAD per person per night. After the first night, we heard about a 'Sleep Aboard Tour' where you pay $100CAD (sounds like a lot) but you get:

To snorkel at 3 locations including Monkey Bay and night snorkelling with glowing plankton
Watch sunset and sunrise at Maya Bay (my dream destination and extremely touristy - this tour is first to visit Maya Bay in the morning)
3 meals and a Thai bucket
Access to a private beach in the evening where we play music and card drinking games
Sleep under the stars on the top of the boat

It was absolutely the best decision I had made. We lost the $$ from the villa that evening but was definitely the highlight of my entire trip. The staff was also so friendly! I've attached a photo from the crew during the sleep aboard tour, and click here if you're interested in booking it.

I hope I sparked some ideas, or maybe gave you a bit of guidance on how to plan your Thailand trip. If there is something I missed that you want to ask me about, please feel free to send me an email.

Happy travelling!