About ThailandTested
We're building an honest guide to Thailand hotels and travel, covering 11 destinations, from Bangkok and Chiang Mai to the islands of the Gulf and the Andaman coast. The whole point of this site is trust, so here's exactly how we decide what to recommend.
How We Pick Places
Personally Visited
We slept there. Every visited listing names who stayed and gives concrete detail about the stay, the room booked, how many of us, when. If we can't produce that detail, it doesn't get this badge.
Researched Pick
We haven't been. Before it goes on the site we confirm it genuinely exists, and we record its actual guest score and review count from every platform we checked. Every researched listing prints exactly what was checked and when, so you can go and check it yourself.
Also Listed
It did not clear the bar above, and it is here anyway, because on some islands the alternative was an empty page. Every one of these says in a sentence what it scores, how many reviews that is from, and why we listed it. It is not a recommendation, it is a labelled option with its numbers showing.
The bars, and what falls short of them
They are not the same for a hotel and a boat trip, because the numbers behind them are not the same. Setting one bar for both would either wave everything through or block an entire category. Both are enforced when the site is built, so a listing that stops clearing its bar stops the site compiling.
- Hotels. Confirmed on more than one booking platform, 150 or more combined reviews, and nothing scoring below 8.5 out of 10 on any of them.
- Tours. 9.0 out of 10 or better, and at least 50 reviews, judged on each operator separately. Tour scores sit much higher and review counts much lower than hotels: of 22 Koh Samui tours we sampled, the hotel bar would have passed 19 of them on score while passing only 2 on review count.
- Also Listed. A hotel scoring at least 7.5 with 60 reviews behind it, or a tour at 8.0 from 30 reviews, that does not reach the bars above. The build refuses one of these unless the listing states, in its own sentence, what it scores and why it is on the site. We added this tier on 21 September 2026 because whole islands had no tour at all: Koh Lanta and Koh Phangan had nothing that reached 9.0, and a labelled option with its numbers showing is more use to a reader than an empty page.
- We never average across operators. Four companies run almost the same Ang Thong day trip. Averaging their scores would produce a number for something you cannot book, so each is listed and rated on its own, and any operator below the bar is left off entirely.
- Places you simply visit — a temple, a waterfall, a viewpoint — carry no guest score at all, because none honestly exists. We tell you what we confirmed, where, what it costs to get in, and when we checked. We will not borrow a tour operator's rating and let it look like the waterfall's.
A listing upgrades from Researched Pick to Personally Visited the moment one of us actually stays there. As the site grows, that includes staff and contributors we send to visit places directly, always credited by name.
What we don't claim
We don't audit how a hotel's rating has moved over time, and we don't inspect every guest photo against every listing photo. Plenty of sites imply that level of scrutiny. We check what can be checked and verified, we write down which platforms and which numbers, and we stop there rather than dress it up.
How We Make Money
When our partner accounts with Booking.com and Agoda are approved, we may earn affiliate commissions if you book through our links. That does not cost you extra. Today those accounts are not approved yet, so a booking through our links does not earn us a commission. We only recommend places we genuinely believe are worth your money; our reputation depends on it more than any single booking does.
Full detail on this is on our Affiliate Disclosure page.