A Short Family Getaway to Krabi (2018)

In April 2018, my wife, our son and I took a short getaway to Krabi, Thailand, before my wife started her new job. We weren’t planning a busy holiday. The idea was simply to spend a few days together, relax and enjoy a change of surroundings.

We flew from Singapore to Krabi on 20 April and stayed for three nights at the Holiday Inn Resort Krabi Ao Nang Beach.

An airport departure hall seen from an upper level, with a large white floral sculpture over planted garden beds and travellers walking below. — At the airport before the flight to Krabi.

A Pool Just Outside Our Room

One of the best things about our stay was the room itself. We had direct access to the swimming pool from our terrace, which meant we could step outside and straight into the water.

The view from inside a hotel room through sheer curtains to a terrace with a chair and low table, the pool just beyond, loungers, blue umbrellas and palm trees, with hotel slippers on the floor. — Our room opened straight onto the pool.

A young child in a swim top floating in a blue-tiled pool, seen from behind, with loungers, folded umbrellas and hotel buildings around the pool. — Our room opened straight onto the pool.

With our young son, that was almost all we needed.

We spent much of the holiday enjoying the pool and relaxing around the hotel. There was no pressure to visit attractions or fill every day with activities. We could swim, return to our room and head back into the pool whenever we felt like it.

An empty open-sided restaurant in the evening, with wooden tables and chairs, round chandeliers, hanging ferns and sea creatures etched on the glass screens. — The hotel's open-air restaurant.

Although we could see the beach from the road, we didn’t actually spend any time on it. For this trip, the hotel pool was more than enough.

A tall palm tree against a purple dusk sky, above a beachfront road with parked scooters and a tuk-tuk, a small lit kiosk, and the sea beyond a line of trees, with a wooded hill at the left. — Dusk over the beachfront road and the sea.

Sunset at The Hilltop

Some of my friends happened to be in Krabi around the same time, although they were staying at a different hotel. We arranged to meet up one evening and went to The Hilltop in Ao Nang.

The view from up there was beautiful. We watched the sunset over the bay, with the islands in the distance. It was one of the highlights of our short holiday.

The sun setting through cloud over a wide bay dotted with islands and hills, seen from a hillside lawn with large illuminated orange letters reading “The hilltop”, a hanging lantern and a few visitors. — Sunset over the bay from The Hilltop.

Afterwards, we went somewhere else for dinner.

Several of my friends were serious food lovers, so they knew where to find good places to eat. There were seven of us that evening, and somehow we ended up ordering far more food than we could comfortably manage.

By the end of dinner, we had thoroughly overeaten.

It was one of those evenings where the company, the food and the laughter were more memorable than anything else we could have planned.

Good Food, Even When It Took a While

Food was another enjoyable part of the trip.

On one occasion, just the three of us went to a restaurant we had found through Google reviews. It was tucked away farther along a road, rather than somewhere immediately obvious.

We ended up waiting quite a long time for our food.

Fortunately, when it finally arrived, it was superb. I can’t remember the restaurant’s name anymore, but I still remember how much we enjoyed the meal.

We also had dinner at the hotel on another evening. Looking back at the photographs, I can see a prawn cocktail and fish and chips, although I no longer remember exactly which night that was.

A prawn cocktail in a martini glass, topped with prawns and parsley, on a white plate, with fried fish and chips on a plate beside it. — A prawn cocktail and fish and chips at the hotel.

A Few Days to Slow Down

We flew back to Singapore on 23 April, bringing our little getaway to an end.

It wasn’t a holiday where we explored much of Krabi. We spent most of our time at the hotel, enjoyed the swimming pool, met up with friends for a beautiful sunset and ate some very good food.

And that was really the point of the trip.

Before my wife began her new job, we had a few days to ourselves as a family, without much of a schedule or anything we needed to accomplish.

Sometimes a short break like that is all you need.