Choosing a camp
Should I train in Phuket or Chiang Mai?
Updated 2026-09-01
The short answer
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.
Phuket has the densest concentration of foreigner-facing camps in the country, almost all of it packed into Rawai and Chalong in the south of the island. That density is the real advantage: if a camp turns out to be wrong for you, another one is fifteen minutes away, and you have not wasted the trip. Everything is set up for a visitor who has never been to Thailand, which is exactly what you want the first time and exactly what starts to grate by month three.
Chiang Mai is a city with a camp scene rather than a camp scene with a city attached. Rent, food and transport all cost less, which is why long-stay trainees drift north. The cool months from November to February are the most comfortable training weather in Thailand. The burning season from roughly February to April is the counterargument and it is a serious one, because air quality drops hard exactly when you are breathing your hardest.
If you are travelling with someone who is not training, Phuket wins on most weeks of the year. If you are going alone for a month or more and want to feel like you live somewhere, Chiang Mai usually wins.
Worth knowing
Neither answer survives contact with a specific camp. A great camp in the wrong region beats an average camp in the right one, so pick the shortlist by region and then throw out anything that does not fit how you actually train.
Still deciding where to go?
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