On a recent trip to Bangkok I discovered that one of the best ways to get to know a city is to spend time in its cafes. Often when traveling to new places, people get caught up in filling every moment with activities. But running between monuments and museums rarely allows you to understand your destination on a personal level. 

As a trend of “superficial traveling,” characterized by Insta-worthy destinations, grows, the idea of slow travel has emerged in response. Slow travel is both a practice and philosophy that emphasizes connecting to your destination through the local culture and people. Rather than doing the typical sightseeing tours, people are opting for activities that are more sustainable and emotionally impactful. Similar to the slow food movement, slow travel trades quantity for quality, prioritizing meaningful interactions over covering all the bases of your destination.

As I was traveling, I wanted to embrace the slow travel philosophy by doing the things that locals were doing, and letting the city itself guide my actions. With the realities of COVID-19 making my interactions with actual people difficult, my approach was two-fold. The first strategy was to wander around the city aimlessly, but with purpose. No destination, no plan, just my camera and transit pass. This allowed me to discover Bangkok without being distracted by any preconceived notions. It was both deliberate and free of expectations. The second strategy I employed, often while wandering around, was to spend a few hours in as many cafes as I could.

Bangkok, like every big city these days, is full of cafes. With an infinite number of aesthetics to cover, niches to fill, and trends to adapt, the options are truly never ending. It was an added bonus that sitting in a mostly empty space for most of the day kept my COVID-19 exposure much lower than doing anything else in a city of nearly 11 million.

Despite everything else, cafes continued to be a place for people to gather, hold business meetings, get their coffee fix, and stare at their laptops (that one is me). So I set off to try all the cafes I could find, sitting for hours on end milking my Thai iced teas as I soaked in the cultural nuances of Bangkok.

These were some of my favorite cafes in the city:

Tom N Toms

With over 400 locations across 9 countries, Tom N Toms Coffee is not exactly the quaint local cafe I was in search of. But the South Korean coffeehouse drew me in with its leather interior and glass paneled walls. Located right off the Ekkamai BTS stop, it is right in the center of two malls and several restaurant options, making it a perfect place to meet up with friends, grab coffee to fuel a shopping spree, or indulge in a sugary dessert. Tom N Toms also features ample seating, lots of outlets, and free WiFi, so it’s a great spot to camp out with your laptop. In pre-COVID times, Tom N Toms was one of the several 24 hour cafes in this city, catering to students’ late night study sessions and other insomniacs. Now it closes at 11pm, but students still flock here and spread out with their textbooks and study groups.

One of my favorite things about Tom N Toms is the entirely glass wall that faces the street. With its central location and the BTS right above, there is so much happening right on the other side of the glass. If you are lucky enough to snag one of the seats by the window, it is a prime spot to watch the city go by. And as the sun fades from the sky, the cafe becomes flooded with the lights and sounds of the city.

Nourish Cafe

Nourish cafe is a cool little spot located above Bangkok Fight Lab in Sukhumvit Soi 50. It has a fully vegan menu with sandwiches, pasta, Thai classics, Mexican food, superfood bowls, and a variety of juices, smoothies, and fruit slushes. In addition to their already substantial menu, they periodically offer chef’s specials, and sell their in-house energy bars, power balls, and “candy” bars.The gym downstairs is a training facility for Muay Thai and other styles of traditional boxing, so the cafe primarily serves the people who train there. Although the space is mostly boxers and gym bags, I have found that it is a great place to hang out and work free of distractions. Branded as a “plant-based cafe concept,” the first Nourish Cafe was opened in Myanmar in 2016, and this is the second location which opened in 2018.

Despite the struggles gyms have been facing because of the pandemic, there is a persisting community feel in the cafe. The owner, a woman named Tammy, knows virtually every person that comes through and can generally be found standing behind the counter taking orders or working away at her laptop. Even with her working hard to keep her business afloat with the changes to COVID regulations, she was happy to chat with me about what this past year has been like for her personally and professionally.

Nap Lab

This one is not strictly a cafe, it’s a co-working space. Well technically, a co-napping space. Nap Lab is an innovative concept that integrates work, play, and sleep in a quiet two-storied building. I came across it in my search for late night cafes and was extremely happy with what I found. The small reception area offers walk-in passes for 4 hours (~$3.50), 12 hours (~$7), or 24 hours (~$10), as well as various membership models. The first floor has a Japanese style seating area on a raised platform, complete with cushions, low tables, and window seats. It also includes bunk bed-esque napping cubicles, which include ledges for holding laptops and books. The first floor also has a small cafe, serving coffee, teas, chips, and cup noodles. Next to that, there is an air hockey table, assorted card games, and magazines. Up a flight of stairs, the space is more traditional to a co-working environment with individual desks and chairs along with larger tables for group work. There is an entire wall of napping cubicles, and a slide, adorned with degrading Donald Trump comics, to take you back down to the first floor. 

Occupied almost entirely by students, identifiable by their textbooks and looks of despair, Nap Lab offers a comfortable space to spend an indeterminate amount of time camped out in one cubby or corner of the building. The combination of instrumental covers of pop songs, the all yellow everything, and the sight of people napping away peacefully, somehow makes for a very productive environment.

Oh La La Cafe

Oh La La is probably my favorite cafe I visited. Just a 10 minute walk from my apartment and masked by an entirely unassuming storefront, this tiny cafe became the place I kept going back to. The main main draw for me was the cafe owner, Oh. Oh is the kind of person who not only knows everyone coming into her cafe, but will also recognize people walking on the street and wave to them as they pass by. She is this bright smiley presence who is always chatting with her customers or sitting at the window working on her paint by numbers. I’m not the only one who goes there just to hang out with her. Most of the time, the tables are filled with regulars who have been visiting as long as the cafe has been open, to regulars who have only been coming for a few weeks.

Polaroids and photographs featuring people of all ages and races, smiling at the very tables I was sitting at filled the small space along with books and board games in several languages. Surrounded by Oh’s infectious friendliness and the photographs of previous visitors, there was a genuine feeling of community. Every time I walked over, I got to glimpse into the lives of some very interesting people. The Taiwanese native who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French, and is now learning Thai. The German software developer who came to Thailand eight years ago on a whim and never left. And of course, lots of Americans who came to teach.

As if the company wasn’t enough to keep bringing me back, the food was also amazing. Their seven page menu included all the American brunch classics, cold and hot sandwiches, pasta, smoothies, Asian grain bowls, and a special menu with all things avocado. No matter what you order it is always fresh, delicious, and highly photogenic. With great food, interesting people, and a magnetic owner, Oh La La was an instant favorite of mine.