100,000+ Tickets, One Week: What 12Go’s Travel Data Reveals About Songkran in Thailand
Every April, Thailand hosts two celebrations at the same time. Most people only know about one of them.
The one they know is the water fight – Songkran, the Thai New Year, when tourists descend on the islands and the streets turn into a nationwide splash zone. The one they don't see is the homecoming: millions of Thai people boarding buses to towns and villages across the country.
Their top 10 routes don't include a single ferry. No islands, no beaches. Just buses taking people back to their families in places no travel guide has ever mentioned.
For the first time, 12Go’s dataset—covering over 100,000 transport tickets across 106 nationalities in 2025—offers a clear picture of how tourists and locals move during Songkran. Tourists concentrate. Locals disperse. Same week, same country, almost zero overlap.
“100,000+ travel transactions across 106 nationalities revealed what surveys rarely capture at scale: human behavior is far more predictable, and far more cultural than most ever admitted. The data doesn’t just show where people go, it shows what each traveller needs,” said Jorge Miranda, CEO of 12Go Asia.
What emerges from a deeper look at the 12Go data is something different. Each nationality visiting Thailand for Songkran leaves a behavioral fingerprint so consistent that it looks almost scripted.
12Go’s Travel Data Insights
Europe Quietly Dominates Songkran Travel
The UK, Germany, and France send the most international travelers to Songkran – ahead of Australia, the US, or China. But the ranking barely scratches the surface.
What the data actually reveals is that every nationality travels Thailand on a completely different logic – different islands, different timelines, different behaviour.
The patterns are so consistent that each group starts to look less like a demographic and more like a character with its own signature moves.
The Backpacker (UK) – More Than Half Decide Two Days Before
British travelers are the largest international group during Songkran, and they get there through sheer impulsiveness. More than half decide where they're going within 48 hours of actually going there.
Their signature circuit is the Gulf triangle — Samui to Phangan, Phangan to Tao, and back again — bounced between on fast ferries, with the occasional overnight bus escape to Pai when the islands feel too small.
The Backpackers are just going with the flow, updating plans as they travel. They move constantly. Their Songkran is the party version — every island has its own water fight, its own scene, and they want to catch all of them.
The Master Planner (Germany) – Eastern Islands Nobody Else Reaches
German travelers are the mirror image. They start planning almost two weeks before Songkran begins — the longest lead time among European nationalities — and they go places others don't.
While most international travelers cluster around the popular Gulf islands, Germans push toward Thailand's quieter eastern coast: Koh Kood, Koh Chang, Koh Yao Yai.
The uniquely German route runs from Koh Tao through Bangkok ferry connections to Koh Chang and onward to Koh Kood — a circuit that barely registers in anyone else's data.
They don't just visit the islands. They systematically map them. While everyone else fights for space on the Samui–Phangan ferry, Germans are on a quiet beach in Koh Kood — they've essentially planned their way around the chaos.
The Balanced Nomad (France) – The Only Nationality on Sleeper Trains
French travelers are the hardest to predict, which is exactly what makes them distinctive. They use more types of transport than any other nationality — and they're the only group riding overnight sleeper trains in significant numbers, specifically the Ayutthaya-to-Chiang Mai line.
Their signature route is a northern cultural loop: Bangkok to Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, balanced against island-hopping on the coast.
They spend more per trip, plan ahead, and split their time almost evenly between mainland and sea.
If UK travelers go with the flow for Songkran and Germans prefer order, the French somehow love both. They're also the nationality most likely to brush up against the traditional side of the festival — temple ceremonies in Chiang Mai, offerings in Ayutthaya — before heading back to the coast.
The Insider (Thailand) – 951 Bus Routes, Zero Ferries
Thai people experience an entirely different Songkran. While every international nationality clusters on a handful of ferry routes and tourist corridors, Thai travelers scatter across the country on 951 distinct bus routes — more route diversity than all international nationalities combined.
Their top 10 is 100% bus. No ferries, no islands, no overlap with the tourist map. This is the original Songkran — temple visits, family meals, blessings from elders.
The water fight everyone associates with the festival is secondary here. For locals, the journey home is the festival.
Travelers Already Know What They Want
Three smaller but distinct groups — Israeli, American, and Dutch travelers — share one thing: none of them are figuring it out on the go.
Israeli travelers put 40% of all their Songkran transport on a single route, the Koh Samui – Koh Phangan shuttle, and rarely deviate.
American travelers plan the furthest ahead of anyone, spend the most per trip, and are the only Western nationality drawn to the Pattaya corridor.
Dutch travelers lock in Bangkok to Chiang Mai three weeks early, then improvise their island ferries days before departure.
Different destinations, different budgets, different timelines — but each group arrives with a clear blueprint.
What Songkran Planning Styles Reveal About Culture
What's remarkable isn't the destinations — it's the decision-making. The same ferry, the same island, the same festival week, approached through completely different philosophies of travel.
Ferry demand on the Samui–Phangan–Tao triangle is enormous and compressed into a very short window. If you're heading north to Chiang Mai by bus, you're sharing road space with the Thai homecoming, one of the largest annual domestic migrations in Southeast Asia.
And if you want to avoid the crowds entirely, the German playbook — eastern islands, longer horizon — is the closest thing to a cheat code the data offers.