Hua Hin is more or less the same for the people of Bangkok like the towns on the French west coast for the people of Paris.
Hua Hin emerged from a small town and summer retreat for Thai Royalty since 1920, into a mayor travel destination in Thailand with an excellent beach, various hotels and accommodations plus up market apartments for people from Bangkok and the tourists. Once a mall town also used as a fishing village now a popular Thai tourist destination with large numbers of foreign tourists.
Since about 40 years Hua Hin receives lots of foreigners who enjoy the long, almost endless beach. Plenty of Hua Hin hotels and beach resorts are between Cha Am, Hua Hin and further north and south. Also the spa frenzy of resent years left its mark in form of several excellent Hua Hin spa. Hua Hin spa are usually integrated into the big hotels and beach resorts. A smaller version of Hua Hin spa can be found in the down town area of Hua Hin, there they call it massage parlor.
About 20 years ago the whole beach landscape at Hua Hin became visually negative twisted, some real estate sharks managed it to pull up the first high rise building directly on the beach. This as usual encouraged others to do the same and since there are no zoning laws in Thailand. After a few years about a dozen skyscrapers are up at the beach and they definitely wont enrich the once beautiful beach scenery at Hua Hin and Cha Am.
After they transformed the once sleepy Hua Hin into a easily reachable Thailand beach destination by building a excellent 6 lane highway, replacing the old small road just about 200 m behind the beach.
| Today there is also a air shuttle service between Bangkok and Hua Hin. Hua Hin offers many top notch hotel easily reachable from Bangkok. Just travel south to Hua Hin from Bangkok. In the last 2 years also the once partially rotten motorway from Bangkok to Hua Hin was totally renovated into a six lane super highway. Means Bangkok to Hua Hin by car travel is only about 2 hours now once you leave the ring road in Bangkok. | 
Bangkok to Hua Hin view from the Thaksin Bridge
Hua Hin is a district in Prachuap Khiri Khan province. The area is 911 sq. km. and there are about 85.000 people living in Hua Hin district plus the tourists. Petchburi province is to the North, Gulf of Thailand to the East and Myanmar or Burma to the West. Hua Hin town has 87 sq km and roughly 51.000 people living there, plus about 100.000 tourists at high season.
Some resorts in Hua Hin are the Anantara, Evason, Dusit Thani beach resort and the newly renovated Holiday Inn at Regent Beach between Cha Am and Hua Hin, actually this hotel was known before as the Regent Cha Am. The Regent Cha Am was the first big beach resort built between Cha Am and Hua Hin. There are more Hua Hin beach resorts including Hilton and Sheraton. | | Hua Hin today is a quiet town with a relaxing atmosphere and could also be used as a base for excursions into the area around, but talking about Hua Hin most notably its fine beach, good hotels and some action after dark called Hua Hin nightlife. 
Hua Hin Dusit Thani Beach Resort Interior Design | Hua Hin activities are not so overwhelming there is not much to do during daytime beside lay on the Hua Hin or Cha Am sandy beach, swim in the hotel swimming pool or go to the spa for some body treatment. -All Hua Hin hotels are somehow directed to wellness, actually this are the beach hotels. Here are pictures from the Dusit Thani Beach Resort. | 
Hua Hin Dusit Thani Beach | | 
Hua Hin Fine Beach
Hua Hin Dusit Thani Beach Resort | | This Hua Hin Resort has a good location and a great interior design in the public area, means lobby etc. the rooms are rather average. Prices start at about Baht 2400,- for a normal room to Baht 18.000 for the presidential suite. Other beach resorts at Hua Hin have similar pricing, but they change this every day. | | | There are other hotels in Hua Hin down town more directed to the budget tourist. One strange thing happens every week, from Monday to Thursday many Hua Hin town hotels have somehow reasonable prices, around baht 1000,- but every Friday when the Bangkok crowd is expected to arrive on their travel to Hua Hin the prices double. This hotel price gambling can be partially offset, if you have a car or motorbike by using a Hua Hin hotel located on the road to the city. On the road from Hua Hin towards Prachuap Kiri Khan, means to the south, is a small hotel on the left side, its the Highway Inn, just about 5 km behind Hua Hin. This Hua Hin hotel offer good new rooms with everything needed for between Baht 400,- to 900,-. The best choice are the rooms for about Baht 600,- and this hotel wont change prices every day like most other hotels and beach resorts at Hua Hin are doing. | | | Hua Hin has some excellent golf courses and even a vineyard, ok its not like Bordeaux Chateau Lafitte but its not bad, they also have a huge wine cellar. | - Hua Hin after dark nightlife | When you are bored of walking along the beach at Hua Hin, laying around at the swimming pool and so on think about a little intermezzo. There are 2 day trip attractions out of Hua Hin, unusual and exiting, giving you some insight what this part of Thailand has to offer. First would be a journey from Hua Hin to the famous Erawan waterfall in Kanchanaburi Province. The falls are to the north west of Hua Hin, easily reachable via a excellent road, not the Bangkok road, in about 3 hour road travel. You could rent a car at Hua Hin, do a full insurance ! and drive there. Or take a limousine and let you drive from Hua to Erawan Waterfall, maybe ask the travel agent if they have a tour to the Erawan falls, this is not for sure. With the travel agents in Thailand always be careful, they will demand their commission from the final tour operator, this are always other peoples, and you pay this commission. This is not visible to you but it is. In any case be aware that Thailand is a dangerous place to drive since most drivers have no traffic education at all and don't care even of the most basic road driving rules, the worst are the small motorbikes. Visiting the Erawan falls out of Hua Hin, is a real experience of a lifetime, you wont find something like that again, just nearby is a other very popular waterfall the
Sai Yoke waterfall. Both are integrated in Thai National Parks on the road from Kanchanaburi to the 3 Pagoda Pass on the Thai Myanmar border. There is absolutely no problem of any kind in that area, don't belief if anyone telling about any problems, its pure nonsense talk. The area from Kanchanaburi town to the mountainous border with Myanmar is one of the most beautiful in Thailand. Its very hilly, interrupted by huge reservoirs for electricity generation the River Kwai and other rivers cut the landscape. On many hills are small monasteries and temples, its typical Thai rural as life went on since hundreds of years. | 
Erawan Waterfall
River Kwai at Kanchanaburi | 
Orchids | 
Hua Hin travel | 
Myanmar Orchid Market | 
Myanmar People | 
Lake with Water Lilies at the Orchid Market | 
Thailand Myanmar Border | | The second day trip attraction out of Hua Hin would lead you south, further into Prachuap Khiri Khan Province and at the first intersection into Prachuap Town you will see a huge road sign pointing to Myanmar, do a turn and drive on after a couple of kilometers the road splits, follow the sign ..to border. The landscape is real beautiful reminding at Tuscany in Italy with smooth hills narrow and high trees, a small lake and so on. Once you reach the border you can experience one of the biggest orchid markets in Thailand. Every day about 100 -200 people from Myanmar come over and try to sell their flowers. Its the best place to see Myanmar rural scenes. As a foreigner you cant cross into Myanmar here, there is a full Thai border post but on the Myanmar side is only a military post without immigration facility. If you intend to buy any of the orchids on sale don't buy some with yellow or brown leaves or spots on the leaves since this indicates a fungus infection. About 80% of the orchids on display and on sale are infected. Also don't touch it, the fungi will stick on you fingers, if you touch anything go to wash your hand afterwards with soap. | | | | | |
