The Emotional pull that keeps travellers coming back again and again to Thailand

[CharlieH]

 

In his memoir A Moveable Feast, the American author Ernest Hemingway wrote about his struggles and journeys in Paris.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you… For Paris is a moveable feast.”

 

His description of enjoying oysters by the Seine, the chill of white wine and the sense of fullness, both physical and emotional, could just as easily depict a moment in Thailand.

A bowl of khao soi in an alley in Chiang Mai and the soothing heat of tom yam gai on a rainy Bangkok afternoon.

 

The flavours are bold, layered, unforgettable.

Hemingway and Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company in the 1920s | Photo taken from Paris Insider Guide

 

Just like Hemingway’s Paris, Thailand is a movable feast of its own – a place you carry in memory, mood, sensation, and spirit.

What pulls us back to Thailand?

A place people come back to

Last year, Thailand welcomed more than 35 million international visitors, and between January 1 and March 31 of this year, over 9.37 million foreign tourists entered the country.

While exact figures on repeat travellers are hard to pin down, it’s widely acknowledged that a significant portion return year after year. Some come to escape harsh northern winters. Others return because Thailand has become a place that simply feels like home.

As one long-time visitor puts it…

“For me, it’s less about the place in a physical sense and more about how it makes me feel, connected, welcomed, and at ease.”

Craving Thailand

 

A post from the travel blog Our Big Fat Travel Adventure captures the transition from first-time tourism to something more lasting. After months of travelling through Southeast Asia, the writers found themselves craving Thailand, not for its landmarks, but for its feeling.

“We missed the vegetarian cafés, comfortable hotels, fast Wi-Fi and reliable buses… Instead of seeking out new destinations, we returned time and again to our favourite spots.”

 

Instead of just passing through, they settled in. They rented apartments. Found routines. Built a kind of temporary home, which they wrote about after returning to Chiang Mai.

“We went to bed full of food and feeling at home.”

Contradictions that coexist

Thailand is filled with contradictions. Here, you find saffron-robed monks next to shopping malls, silent temples behind roaring traffic, and humble street carts beside polished cocktail bars.

 

But unlike in other places, these contradictions don’t clash – they coexist. And that’s part of what makes Thailand so endearing to many travellers.

As British novelist and long-time Bangkok resident Lawrence Osborne writes in Bangkok Days…

“I came to Bangkok with no plan, no reason. I stayed because I didn’t want to go anywhere else.”

Emotional loyalty

Thailand’s real soft power may be its emotional loyalty. Travellers don’t return for rewards points or five-star polish, they return for the feeling.

There are many ways to travel through a country, and plenty of opinions on how it should be done. But in the rush to define quality tourism, it’s easy to overlook the values that foster genuine connection.

It’s those intangible qualities, ease, grace, and unspoken generosity, that make people feel at home and turn one-time visitors into lifelong returners.

 

Thailand follows you home

 

 

I can’t say it quite like Hemingway. But I can say this:

Thailand is a place of spice and sweetness, rhythm and heat, kindness and calm.
It follows you home in unexpected ways.

In the scent of lemongrass in a distant city.

In the way you move, just a little more slowly.

In the belief that there’s still a place in the world where things feel gently human.

Thailand always waits for you and when you return, it meets you where you are.