🇹🇭 Bangkok · Getting around

Transport and the shape of the city in Bangkok

Two elevated train lines, a metro, and traffic bad enough that anything not near a station is a different city.

The thing people get wrongThe BTS and the MRT are separate systems with separate fares and, historically, separate cards. Interchanging costs you two fares, so a commute that crosses systems is more expensive and slower than the map suggests — check your actual route, not just the station count.

The rail network

The BTS Skytrain runs the Sukhumvit and Silom lines above the main commercial spines, the MRT runs the Blue Line loop and the Purple Line, and suburban and airport services fill in around them. Rail is fast, air-conditioned and immune to the traffic below it, which is exactly why rents fall so sharply as you walk away from a station. Fares are distance-based and modest, and fare policy has been under active reform, so check the current structure rather than assuming.

Rabbit card for the BTS; the MRT has used its own stored-value card.
Interchange between systems generally means paying a second fare.
Trains are crowded at peak, particularly on the Sukhumvit line into Siam and Asok.

Everything else on the road

Metered taxis are cheap and plentiful, though drivers refusing the meter at tourist points is a persistent annoyance; Grab and Bolt remove the argument. Motorcycle taxis in orange vests wait at the mouth of every soi and are the fastest way to cover the last kilometre from a station to a flat, which is a real transport mode here rather than a novelty. Buses are very cheap and hard to use without Thai.

Grab and Bolt are the default for cars; app fares are transparent.
Motorcycle taxi from the station into the soi: a few tens of baht, and the reason a long soi is liveable.
Traffic peaks are long and unpredictable; allow far more time than a map estimate.

Boats

The Chao Phraya express boats run up and down the river with piers linked to the BTS at Saphan Taksin, and the Saen Saep canal boats cut straight across the centre from the old town to Ekkamai. Both are cheap, fast and genuinely useful commuting options that visitors treat as sightseeing and residents treat as transport.

Driving and licences

Driving in Bangkok is possible but rarely rewarding: parking is scarce in the central districts, and the time saved over rail is usually negative. If you do drive, an international permit covers a short period and a Thai licence is issued by the Department of Land Transport on production of a certificate of residence, a medical certificate and a short test. Rainy-season flooding closes roads with little warning.

Thai licence: certificate of residence, medical certificate, written and practical checks.
Helmets are required on motorcycles and enforced sporadically but expensively.
The rainy season runs roughly May to October; some sois flood reliably.

Rather have someone do this with you?

Your Insider has done getting around in Bangkok many times over. On Premium they do it with you, in person, rather than sending you a checklist.

Get started Not sure which plan is right for you? →