Background
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.
Ways to Visit
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 is really too large and spread out to solely walk from place to place unless you have all day, and your children are older and prefer to walk. 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.
Here is a list of the best way to see the park:
Bike – 10 baht entrance fee for a bike – There are bike parking spots at many of the stops for you to 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 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. Pay your 10 baht entrance fee for your bike at the ticket office.
Rent a Golf Cart – 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. Downside is that you are renting per hour, so you need to watch your time.
Tram – 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 exit the vehicle and walk around, and you just want to sit back and relax. This may be a very good choice to get an overview of the park quickly.
Entering the 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 renting shops and then you’ve arrived at the entrance to Sukhothai Historical Park. To the left of the entrance is the ticket office.
Prices (as of April 2024)
Adult/Child Foreigner 100 baht
Bike 10 baht
Golf cart 50 baht
Open 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.
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 like other religious areas we have been to around Thailand.
At The Ruins
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 are 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.
Special Notes of Interest
Tha Nam Rap Sadet Market – Inside the central zone of the park, a weekend night market pops up right 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. Prices of food were extremely reasonable during our visit.
King Ramkhamhaeng Statue – The statue of King Ramkamhaeng 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. He is remembered 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.
Our Experience
We 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.
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. We rented a large golf cart for an hour and a half for 300 baht. 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.
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.
