Phuket

Phuket's camps span everything from beginner-friendly fitness gyms to serious fighter factories, often under one roof. The island's training culture grew up around international students, so coaches are used to teaching technique from scratch and scaling sessions to your level — whether you've never thrown a kick or you're cutting weight for a fight.

The rhythm is twice-a-day if you want it: a morning session, a long beach-and-recovery break through the heat, then an afternoon round of bag work, pads and clinch. Chalong and Bang Tao are the two best-known training areas, each a cluster of gyms, healthy cafés and physios within scooter distance.

Phuket is southern Thailand at its most cosmopolitan. Centuries of tin mining and sea trade drew Hokkien Chinese, Malay and Indian communities, and you can still read that history in the Old Town's shophouses and on every plate. It feels more international than anywhere else in the country.

The south also runs hotter and spicier than the north — in the kitchen and in temperament. Each October the island erupts into the Vegetarian Festival, nine striking days of processions and ritual unlike anything elsewhere in Thailand.