Hi, VISA question.
My wife and I live in Scotland and plan on visiting SE Asia early next year. We have looked at flights and the best option appears to be to arrange return flights from Edinburgh to Bangkok.
Although the flight dates are likely to be approximately 6 weeks apart, and therefore over 30 days, we will only actually be staying within Thailand for no more than 17 days in total. After travelling around Thailand, we are looking at taking a slow boat from northern Thailand into Laos and exploring that country for around 2 weeks prior to flying intoto Cambodia for the last 2 weeks of our trip. We will then fly from Siem Reap back to Bangkok to catch our flight back home.
My question is: Will we be able to go on a 30 days visa exemption due to fact we are actually staying in Thailand for less than 30 days or do the authorities just look at the flight dates and insist on the 60 days VISA? I have emailed the Thailand Embassy in London asking the above question but just received a generic response providing a link to the Thai visa website, so fairly unhelpful.
I can’t find any similar queries on this site or on that web page and therefore hoping that someone has been in similar circumstances in the past and can advise the correct situation as far as VISA requirement(s) are concerned
TLDR : Answer Summary
The user inquired whether they could enter Thailand on a 30-day visa exemption, as their stay will not exceed 17 days despite their return flight being scheduled for over 30 days from their departure. Community responses suggest that as long as they have proof of leaving Thailand within the 30-day window (like onward travel tickets or hotel bookings in Laos), they should encounter no issues with immigration authorities.
