Welcome to Cha-Am, Thailand
Onlychaam.com is a personal webpage exclusively dedicated to Cha-Am, in Thailand. Our goal is to provide free and up-to-date information for tourists and expats.
About Cha-Am
Cha-Am (it can also be written Cha am or Chaam, in Thai ชะอำ) is located 170 km south from Bangkok (2 hours by car) and 25 km north from Hua Hin, the famous seaside resort. Whereas Hua Hin has more facilities and a lot to offer for tourists (shopping, restaurants, entertainment...), Cha-Am is appreciated for its quiet and laidback atmosphere, its 5 km long beach, and its wide range of restaurants and accomodations.
Why visit Cha-Am
While Cha-Am successfully caters for foreign tourists, it remains a Thai resort, with a large majority of Thai tourists. So if you are looking for the "real Thailand", for an "authentic experience", well this is it! However, the sea isn't really crystal clear, so if you want to do some diving or snorkelling, you should go further down south, to an island like Ko Tao or Ko Pha Ngan. Please also note that there is hardly any nightlife in Cha-Am. There are much better places elsewhere if you are after partying and nightlife action.
Thai people visiting Cha-Am usually come from Bangkok for the weekend. So the beachfront is very quiet during the week, and gets more animated during the weekends and national holidays. No need to say, Cha-Am is THE place to go if you are travelling with your Thai wife or Thai family. They will love it and they will feel comfortable here, which is not always the case in other popular resorts. Cha-Am is also ideal for western families, as there are a lot of activities for children and no bar scene like in Pattaya or Phuket. Expats and long term tourists in Cha-Am are mostly retirees from Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Netherlands...).
Latest posts from our blog
01/07/09 - Cha-Am getting ready for a long weekend
July 7, Tuesday, will be Asahara Bucha day. It is a religious holiday in Thailand, and the government has also granted July 6 as a day off, so that Thai people can enjoy a four day long weekend. There will probably be a lot of traffic on the roads, and let’s hope, for the sake [...]
28/06/09 - Free tourist visas (well, almost!)
Since June 25 and until March next year, tourist visas will be free for everyone visiting the kingdom. It will affect people staying at least one month (and less than 3 month). For short stays, i.e. less than 30 days, most nationalities are already exempt from visa. Extensions of tourist visas (from 60 to 90 [...]
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If you live in Cha-Am or if you visit frequently, we would like to invite you to join our forum, where you can meet other expatriates living in the area, and share your knowledge to help first-time visitors who have questions about Cha-Am. But not all topics are necessarily about Cha-Am, so everyone is welcome, whether you have a question or any interest about Thailand or about this website.
Enter our forum and meet our friendly members!
Purpose of this website
Onlychaam.com aims at providing free, detailed and up-to-date information about Cha-Am for tourists and expats. It is a non profit website run by an expat living there.
Our projects
Our next project is to add some videos of Cha-Am. We will start shooting soon, and when we have enough material we will edit the rushes and compile them. Stay tuned!
