Choosing a camp
What is the difference between a camp and a gym?
Updated 2026-10-14
The short answer
A camp is a place you live and train, usually with rooms, food and a timetable built around twice-daily sessions. A gym is somewhere you go and then leave, which is how most Bangkok training works. The word on the sign settles almost nothing: across the 44 places we list, the word gym appears in 9 of the names they give themselves and the word camp in 0.
Both kinds of place sit in our list, the ones that expect to house you and the ones that do not, and the names are not sorting them. The fact that does sort them is whether the place puts you up, which is on each record rather than in its name.
Outside Thailand the two words are used loosely. Inside Thailand the practical difference is whether the place expects to house you. Island and resort-town camps mostly do. City gyms mostly do not, because there is a city full of apartments outside the door.
This changes the shape of your day more than the training does. At a residential camp your entire social and logistical life happens inside one compound. At a city gym you commute, you eat where you like, and you meet people who are not training.
It also changes what you should compare on price. A camp package that includes a room is not expensive next to a gym membership plus rent, and a gym membership is not cheap once you add a month of accommodation to it.
Still deciding where to go?
Six questions, and we will tell you which camps fit and which facts about them we have not confirmed.
Vocabulary
The words on this page
Ajarn
A senior teacher, a step above kru in seniority and usually applied to the person who runs the camp or who taught the trainers.
Ritual and respect
Choosing a camp
Asked alongside this one
What is the best Muay Thai camp in Thailand?
There is no best camp, and the reason is specific rather than diplomatic: the things you would rank on are the things Thai camps do not publish. Of the 44 camps listed here, none publish a sparring policy, one publishes anything addressed to women training there and 3 state that the coaching is in English. Rank on what is on the record instead, which is price, location, rooms and sessions a day.
Should I train in Phuket or Chiang Mai?
Phuket if this is your first trip, you want beach and nightlife around the training, and you can absorb higher costs. Chiang Mai if you are staying longer, want your money to go further, and prefer a city you can live in rather than a resort island.
Is a big camp or a small camp better?
Big camps give you structure, English, training partners at every level and a social scene. Small camps give you more trainer attention per session and a closer read on how you are actually moving. Beginners usually get more out of a big camp for a first trip, and more out of a small one on the second.