Bangsaen & Ang Sila

North of Pattaya, towards Chonburi, Bangsaen is the beach the Thais come to — a long, tree-lined seafront that's low-key and local rather than touristy, busiest at weekends when Bangkok drives down. Nearby Ang Sila is an old fishing and market town famous for its seafood and hand-carved granite mortars.

Together they make a good 'see how locals do the coast' day trip — beach deckchairs and grilled seafood at Bangsaen, then the fresh market and temples at Ang Sila.

Come for what it is rather than what Pattaya is. This is a Thai seaside town with excellent seafood, and if you are looking for Western food and Western menus you have picked the wrong day out — that is the whole point of coming here.

Two things visitors miss. Bangsaen has a strip of genuinely good nightlife venues that almost no tourist finds, tucked away from the beachfront. And for one week a year the town becomes something else entirely: the Bangsaen Grand Prix turns the seafront roads into a temporary street circuit for the B-Quik Thailand Super Series — GT3, GT4, touring and production cars — usually in the first week of July, with free public entry. It is billed as Southeast Asia's biggest street race, and it is not Formula 1 despite what you may be told.