As a family we love to learn about history. Whether it be a museum or some ruins. Each offers a unique glimpse into the past. What makes Sukhothai Historical park unique is that it is amazing to visit with a family as it offers a safe place to explore and run around freely. And we all know that kids and adults learn best by interacting and being able to touch stuff. On top of that, Sukhothai is more off the beaten path than the more famous and busy Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya attracts many more visitors simply because it is close to Bangkok. Sukhothai is more difficult to get to, but the reward of taking the time to go there is totally worth it!
History of Sukhothai, Thailand
Found in the central heartland of Thailand, Sukhothai was the first capital city of a united Thailand. The Sukhothai era lasted between the 1200’s-1400’s before the Ayutthayan powers took over and the capital city moved to Ayutthaya. The Sukhothai Historical Park has been created to showcase the ruins of the old kingdom. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it has been thoroughly excavated and the grounds are well kept. Learning about Thailand’s ancient history at Sukhothai is a great experience for children.
Location
Sukhothai Historical Park is located on the western edge of the modern city of Sukhothai and an hour west of the larger city of Phitsanulok. When you look at a map of Thailand, you can find it almost exactly halfway between Thailand’s capital city of Bangkok and the touristy city of Chiang Mai in the north.
Map of Sukhothai Historical Park
Below shows the tourist map of Sukhothai Historical Park. The main section of the map is the central zone of the park. This is the area that doesn’t allow regular cars through. The north, south, east, and west zones all have ruins, but they are on the side of regular public roads. We preferred to mostly stay in the central zone where we could leisurely ride our bikes from one ruin to another and not worry about roads.
How to Get Around Sukhothai Historical Park with Kids
There are a variety of ways to tour the central zone of the park. We, as people who prefer to walk when possible, would actually not recommend walking in this instance. It was humbling to admit this. But it is really too large and spread out to walk from place to place unless you have all day. So unless your children are older and prefer to walk, we would not recommend this option. Even with a stroller, it would be too much for young children.
It can get hot quickly, places to buy water are limited, and the toilets are spread out around the park. We highly suggest bringing in some kind of wheels with you into the park to move around easier.
So here is the list of the best ways to see the park:
Bicycle
There is a 10 baht entrance fee to bring a bike into the park. There are bike parking spots at many of the stops within the park. Here you can lock your bike up while you are walking inside the ruins. It is very easy to get around on a bike, and there are many bikers to be found inside.
To rent a bike, you can find them at many hotels and along the outside edge of the central zone before the entrance. There were a few stalls with kid bikes but most of the bikes are adult size. Pay your 10 baht entrance fee for your bike at the ticket office. Below you will see how much you should be paying to rent a bicycle. This is our recommended option for families with older children.
Cost to rent a bicycle (per day rate)
THB 50 - average bicycle rental cost
Rent a Golf Cart
There are options for golf cart rentals. You have different sizes available to rent. You can rent them directly at the entrance to the park, but there are also a number of shops offering rentals outside the park before you arrive. There is a 50 baht entrance fee for golf cart.
These are easy to rent directly outside the main entrance to the park by the hour. Small and large options are available. Then you go pay the golf cart entrance fee at the ticket office. The golf cart will get you from place to place faster, but you should be comfortable driving them, which is not difficult. This is our recommended option for families with small children who cannot bike well. It is easy to park at each ruins in order to get off and walk around the ruins before hopping back on to go to the next spot. The downside is that you are renting per hour, so you need to watch your time.
Cost to Rent Golf Cart (per hour rate)
THB 50 - small golf cart (2 seater)
THB 250 - large golf cart (6 seater)
Please note that renting golf cart prices are not fixed but are negotiable with the shops. Renting more hours can give you more ability to bring hours price down.
Tram
The cost for riding the tram is 60 baht per person (foreigner price) – There is a hop on hop off tram that you can sign up for at the ticket office. The positive to this type of transportation is that you do not need to worry about moving yourselves around the park.
One thing to consider is that once you alight, you have to wait an unknown amount of time for another tram to come back to pick you up. We would only recommend this if you do not wish to walk around or exit the vehicle. Great for grandparents who just want to sit back and relax. This may be a very good choice to get an overview of the park quickly.
Cost to Ride the Tram (hop on hop off style)
THB 60 - per person
Entering the Sukhothai Historical Park
Coming in from the east side of the park, you will see a 7-11 on both sides of the street and then a whole host of bike/golf cart renting shops. This is your indication that you’ve arrived at the entrance to Sukhothai Historical Park.
Cost
When you approach along the main road you will see the entrance gate. To the left of the entrance is the ticket office. You will have to park your car and pay for the park. There is ample parking. It is important to note that payment is cash only.
Entrance Free Prices (updated April 2024)
THB 100 - Adult/Child Foreigner
THB 10 - To Bring a Bicycle Inside
THB 50 - To Bring a Golf Cart Inside
CASH ONLY
Opening Hours
6:30 am - 7:30 pm
There were also bathrooms next to the ticket office. Bathrooms around the park are all free, but toilet paper is 5 baht or bring your own. There is not much in the way of restrooms throughout the park, so it is best to use it.
Dress Code for Sukhothai Historical Park
At the entrance of the park, there is a sign about appropriate dress. Shorts were fine to wear in the park. Skirts were not required to be worn as they are in other religious areas we have been to around Thailand. You can see below on their guidance when it comes to the dress code.
How To Best See the Ruins with Kids
Each spot to stop and look at the ruins is marked with a sign. The signs are in Thai and then English with information about the history of the buildings you are looking at. If there is a bridge to cross to view the ruins, you must walk (no bikes allowed). The signs may also have a QR code on the bottom which will take you to a YouTube video with more information. When we tried the QR codes at one spot in all languages offered, only the English language option worked.
Family Tip – The amount of information on the signs is overwhelming. For my youngest child, I would read the sign as he was locking his bike and then give him the most important information that I wanted him to take away from that area. As I didn’t want him to get bored looking at one ruin to another, we also spent time looking at nature – the flowers and birds are really beautiful in the park.
Park your vehicle and walk into the ruins. If you cannot go in a certain area or up a set of stairs, there will be signs marking the out of bounds area. Otherwise, you are free to roam around at will. One of my children was especially fascinated with the number of pigeons he found making nests in all the nooks and crannies of the ruins.
Weekend Market at the Ruins
There is one special thing to make note of. That is the Tha Nam Rap Sadet Market that comes to the park every week. It is located just inside the central zone of the park, and it is a weekend night market that pops up just before sunset on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Mostly consisting of food stalls, there is a good variety of different Thai dishes available and seating on the ground at little tables next to the lake. It is also an incredible spot to watch the sunset over the ruins. As the market is geared toward Thai tourists, you will notice that the price of food is extremely reasonable.
Places to Eat Around Sukhothai
You are allowed to eat inside Sukhothai National Park, and if you are traveling with kids we encourage you to make sure you get food to eat and snack. Unless it is the weekend and you can go to the Tha Nam Rap Sadet Market there will not be much available to buy within the park. It is wise to bring in your own water and snacks for the duration of the time you are in the park.
Aside from eating what you bring into the park, another good option is to leave the park and find food outside. You are allowed to leave the park and come back without extra cost.
Our hotel recommended we eat the local dish that Sukhothai is known for. Sukhothai noodles. And they recommended this restaurant as the best place in town to eat the local dish: Ta Puy Restaurant. This restaurant is about a 15 minute drive from the front of the park. It is located in the newer part of town.
Another option is to eat at the 7eleven that is just a few minutes away from the entrance. If you are familiar with Thailand, you will understand why 7eleven is the place to go. If you are not familiar with Thai 7elevens, then just know that this convenience store offers a ton of options for food. Thailand literally runs on 7eleven.
They have the largest selection of drinks you can find, prepackaged foods are plentiful, and they even have many options of hot meals you can choose from. 7eleven is great as you can each get something different; a small bun for one kid, hot gyoza with dipping sauce for another, and a toasted cheese sandwich for a third. This is also a great place to stock up on water and snacks to take back into the park. Read all about our recommended snacks here!
Our Experience at Sukhothai Historical Park
Our family spent two nights and one full day in Sukhothai. We were there on one of the hottest days of the year, in mid-April, and temperatures were a high of 107F/41C that day. So, we had to plan out our day with that in mind as we couldn’t stay outside for too long. We stayed in a hotel in the old city and rented bikes for 50 baht from our hotel. We did bring our kids’ bikes with us for this trip, so they did not rent bikes. With a 7 and 9 year old, it took us 15 minutes to bike to the front entrance of Sukhothai Historical Park. We paid our entrance fee of 100 baht each and 10 baht for each of our bikes. We used the bathroom at the front entrance and were ready to enter.
At the gate, we showed our tickets to the guard and were on our way. We did a circle around the park first to get our bearings and then made our way through the north side of the park before moving south. Due to the intense heat, we stopped our bikes to read many signs, but only walked into the ruins a handful of times. Wat Si Sawai on the south side of the central zone was our favorite stop and we took some time to walk around inside and take some pictures.
After two hours we had finished all our water bottles and were ready for a rest. We went back to the hotel and switched out our bikes for our car. The receptionist at our hotel had given us the name of the most well-known Sukhothai noodle restaurant in town and so we went to check it out. The restaurant was filled with locals, crowding into the two small airconditioned rooms in the back of the restaurant. Most of the restaurant is open air, but that part was largely empty on this insanely hot day.
The menu was all in Thai and with the help of Google Translate and the little bit of Thai we can read, we figured out how to order our soup. You had to make choices in four categories: type of noodle, type of broth, meat, and special/ordinary. After we each individualized our soup order, the waiter asked us if we wanted moo ping (pork on a stick) and so we ordered a set of 10 sticks. It turned out to be more of a satay with peanut sauce than traditional Thai moo ping, but it was still fantastic tasting. As it turned out, we noticed every table had soup and the moo ping, so it looks like we ordered the right thing!
After enjoying our Sukhothai noodles, we headed back for some time at the pool as temperatures soared. We then decided against taking our bikes back out in the heat, so we returned to the park to rent a golf cart. The large golf cart costs 300 baht for an hour and a half. We were able to go back to some ruins that we had not walked inside of yet as the golf cart made it less tiring to get around the park.
One of the things our older children liked to see was the statue of King Ramkamhaeng. It is found in the northeast section of the central zone. He is the most well-known king from the Sukhothai era, being the 3rd of 8 kings to reign in Sukhothai. Thais remember him as the inventor of the modern Thai alphabet. He helped to make Sukhothai great and create a stronger fortress and the statue and grounds surrounding it are a memorial to him.
The historical park was quite a bit busier as there were several tours around and local runners were using the park for exercise. We also were able to get to the Tha Nam Rap Sadet Market when it opened, buy dinner, and watch the sunset. We did one more loop through the park and returned the golf cart before heading back to the hotel. It was a very full, hot day, but worth all the time in the Sukhothai Historical Park to truly learn history and enjoy our experience.
Sukhothai Historical Park vs. Other Historical Parks in Thailand
We would not feel complete in giving you a quick run down of a few notable places you could visit similar to Sukhothai Historical Park. There are two other major sites that are worth exploring if you are able. The first is Ayutthaya and the second is Kamphaeng Phet.
Sukhothai or Ayutthaya
The benefits of Ayutthaya is that it is closer to Bangkok. If you do not have the time to go up to Northeast Thailand, making a trip to Ayutthaya is going to be a good option. Just know that Ayutthaya is much busier. Ayutthaya became the capital of ancient Thailand after Sukhothai. So it is more modern, although still old. You will have to walk around the ruins, and there are more rules about touching things and climbing on the ruins. A trip to Ayutthaya can be found in in our Complete 10 Day Bangkok Itinerary.
Sukhothai or Kamphaeng Phet
Sukhothai and Kamphaeng Phet sort of go hand in hand, and they are very close to each other. While Sukhothai was the capital city and center of governing, Kamphaeng Phet was the religious center of the nation during the same time. These two historical parks actually fall under the same UNESCO umbrella and earned the spot together.
Kamphaeng Phet is not a good park to walk through. It is designed to be driven or biked. We recommend you to have your own wheels. The sites are more spread just enough that it makes walking just not worth it.
This historical park is less maintained, which means that there are very few visitors. This means your ability to freely explore is much higher. Many of the ruins are also still found among the trees so the temperature is more comfortable. Our kids loved romping around this park very much.
The main downside to Kamphaeng Phet is that many of the ruins are less maintained, which means they are in more ruins and harder to know what you are looking at.
We feel that Sukhothai Historical Park offers the best balance to visit with kids. It is well maintained. It is easy to get around with options such as golf carts and bikes, so you can get to the sites quickly and easily. And finally Sukhothai is not frequented by visitors, so you can explore without the crowds.
Places to Stay near Sukhothai Historical Park
The chances are very high that if you are visiting Sukhothai you will also be needed to find accommodations. Most likely you will want to spend more than one day exploring the park so finding a good place to stay that is nearby is essential. Here is our recommended list of places that work great with families.
Thai Thai Sukhothai Resort
This resort is amazingly beautiful. Thai Thai Sukhothai Resort lies just about 2 kilometers away from the historical park, and it offers bicycles to rent for the day from the resort. Biking along the road was doable even with younger children as there is enough of a shoulder on the road to feel safe. The resort itself was very accommodating of children. They offer family bungalows which are great. The normal rooms are also large and have a shared balcony area, so it is easy to get from room to room if you need more than one.
Old City Guest House
This option gets you very close to Sukhothai Historical Park. At just a 4 or 5 minute walk from the entrance, Old City Guest House is amazing for its location. The rooms are not quite as large as at the Thai Thai Sukhothai Resort, but the deluxe rooms have multiple beds. As there are many bike rental shops just outside on the main road. As such they do not offer bike rentals from the hotel. You walk out to the main road and you can get yourself a bike or golf cart.
Thanaburi Resort
A third great option is the Thanaburi Resort. It is located around 1.5 kilometers from the park. They offer some amazing rooms that can fit larger families. Their Family Loft Room is really great as it offers two separate sleeping areas upstairs (in a loft) and down. This is great as you can fit a family of 5 in there easily. The resort also offers free bicycles for you to use to visit the park.
