What to do in Hua Hin Thailand - A Quick Guide

What to do in Hua Hin for affordable luxury travel?

Lay by the pool.
Lay by the beach.
Swim.
Stick to our travel keto diet in Hua Hin.
Get a massage.
And, of course, visit a dentist.

Click or tap here to see how and why we have replaced local SIM cards with eSIMs for our full-time travel lifestyle.

Where and What is Hua Hin Thailand?

Hua Hin is a beach town about 200 km (120 miles) southwest of Bangkok.

The drive from Bangkok takes 2.5 to 3 hours depending on traffic.

We were arriving from Penang, Malaysia on AirAsia and pre-arranged a car for the drive directly from Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok to Hua Hin.

Hua Hin was originally built as an escape from Bangkok for Thais.

This includes Thai royalty who have summer palaces in Hua Hin.

As a result, there are far more Thai tourists in Hua Hin compared to other Thai beaches, including our affordable luxury time in Koh Samui.

Hua Hin is also popular with retirees from Europe.

Here are some tours, activities and things to do in Hua Hin.

Where to Stay in Hua Hin Thailand for Affordable Luxury Travel?

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After about 5 months in Southeast Asia we came to Hua Hin for a week of affordable upscale relaxation before fast travel from Asia to America to Europe.

Our priorities for finding a place to stay for a week in Hua Hin were, in order: location, price, a pool, the beach.

We ended up somewhat sacrificing price for location, pool and beach.

That’s because we wanted to be close to the Soi Bintabaht Walking Street area and have a pool that overlooks the beach.

We searched and searched.

We even briefly considered the Hilton even though it would be luxury travel rather than affordable luxury travel.

In the end we found Baan San Ploen Condo just south of the Soi Bintabaht Walking Street area: a perfect affordable luxury accommodation.

Baan San Ploen Condo

Baan San Ploen Condo is a large-ish condo complex on a quiet stretch of beach with an enormous swimming pool.

We paid around $90 US per night. The condo would have cost 4 times that in other beach resorts around the world! The Hilton up the beach was charging $350 per night…for a small standard room!

That’s affordable luxury!

And the pool at Baan San Ploen is amazing and the seating areas all have views of the ocean.

This seems to be rare in Hua Hin. When we walked the beach we noticed that our property was one of the few that didn’t have a big wall blocking the property from the beach.

And it’s an easy walk from Baan San Ploen Condo to the hopping Soi Bintabaht Walking Street area in Hua Hin.

To us, it was the ultimate in affordable luxury accomodations.

Especially the pool area where we lounged a lot and swam laps every day.

What to do in Hua Hin Thailand for a week

Hua Hin Beach

Of course, the main attraction in Hua Hin is the beach.

The beach in Hua Hin is neither the best nor the worst beach we have seen.

The water was never crystal clear when we were there, but the sand is soft and white.

Because of the way our pool was situated right on the beach we never did lounge on the beach itself, preferring to look at it from the pool deck.

But we did take long walks along the beach and saw some interesting things.

Like one day when a model and photography crew were engaged in a photo shoot.

The model looked pretty miserable in her big dress in ankle-deep water.

But she shot us a big peace sign when she saw us filming!

Walking further up the beach all the way to the Hua Hin Hilton, we saw how lucky we were that we decided to stay further south at Baan San Ploen Condo.

Bad enough that the place charging 3 times the price for their worst rooms. The beach there was not only packed with sunbathers, there were beach hawkers aggressively selling their wares.

So the Hua Hin Hilton was neither affordable nor luxury!

Soi Bintabaht Walking Street Area

The Soi Bintabaht Walking Street area (also known as Hua Hin walking street) is chock-a-block with restaurants, bars, massage parlors and shops.

We spent nearly every evening walking this area to find dinner and the occasional massage!

Keto Diet Food in Hua Hin

Other than lounging around, Hua Hin may be best know for over-water restaurants.

A meal in one of the half dozen or so stilted restaurants in the central area of Hua Hin Beach is pretty much a must-do here.

In our case, it was Brasserie De Paris Hua Hin.

Run by Frenchman Thierry Scheidweiler, this gorgeous spot serves authentic French as well as Thai food.

We found plenty of tavel keto diet items on the menu to choose from.

The beef in particular was fantastic.

We also found a fantastic keto-friendly go-to lunch spot in the Soi Bintabaht Walking Street area called M & G’s Thai Food.

It has all of the Thai keto favorites we fell in love with in Chiang Mai: chicken wings, green curry, Thai omelette, pork with ginger.

Finding this Keto diet restaurant in Hua Hin made having a keto diet lunch easy!

We also had a fantastic (if slightly pricey) Hua Hin keto diet restaurant dinner at Carlo Restaurante Italiano.

The ambiance is perfect, especially at the outside tables. And Carlo is always on hand to personally take care of his guests.

We have mastered the art of ordering a keto diet meal at Italian restaurants. This was no exception.

Lisa had fish that was cooked and served in a tin foil sculpture of…a fish (duh…I guess that’s why Lisa is sticking her tounge out below!). I had a wonderful duck leg.

We ate at several other Hua Hin keto diet restaurants that were just fine : Anoma’s, Hua Hin Hot Pan, Heidi’s and La Paillote.

Of these, the only real disappointment was La Paillote French Bistro.

It was as expensive as Carlo but nowhere as good in terms of ambiance nor food.

Massage in Hua Hin

Massages are cheap all over Thailand and Hua Hin is no exception.

In Hua Hin’s case the rate for a 60 minute Thai or foot and leg massage ran from 250 – 300 Baht. That’s about $8 – $10 US!

We did two foot and leg massages during our week in Hua Hin.

These sixty-minutes of indulgence are followed by a few minutes of head, neck, back and arm massage.

We like doing them after dinner as a way to relax and unwind before heading back to the condo.

Dentist in Hua Hin

Also like the rest of Thailand, Hua Hin is a popular destination for medical tourism. This is because the cost of health care is both excellent and cheap in Thailand.

We found this out first hand during my brief hospital visit in Chiang Mai a few months earlier.

But this time it was Lisa who was in pain: her upper teeth on her right side had been in pain for a few days.

So we called one of the hundreds of dental clinics in Hua Hin and made an appointment for that afternoon – they had no trouble fitting us in!

And it was only about a mile south of our condo. So we walked.

Unfortunately, about half-way there the skies opened up and a torrential downpour soaked us to the bone despite our umbrellas!

The dentist was as modern as any western dentist we have ever visited. And FAR more efficient.

They took in Lisa’s info in and she was in to see the dentist in a jiffy.

The good news was that Lisa’s teeth were in great shape.

The bad news was that they still hurt.

At this point we all suspected a sinus infection that was being translated by nerves as tooth pain.

This being Thailand, the dentist couldn’t give Lisa antibiotics. But a pharmacist could!

So we walked down the block (by this point the rain had stopped and it was sunny again!) to a pharmacy.

Lisa described her symptoms, the pharmacist gave her antibiotics and we were on our way!

Ah, Thailand!

Work Work Work!

We also managed to get some work done during our week in Hua Hin.

The time we spent in Chiang Mai in January and February sourcing new products from China started to fruition. The Weekender Travel Beach Tote Bag, our first new product of the year, made it to our warehouse in North Carolina and then to Amazon for sale.

So we got the listings live and updated the enhanced brand content with photos that we had arranged to have shot while we were in Penang, Malaysia.

We think the listing looks GREAT! But see for yourself:

We were and still are thrilled.

This bag (and the many other products we sourced during our travels) are proof of concept that we can run our business while traveling the world!