A Day in the Life of a Dental Tourist in Bangkok: Combining Oral Health with Cultural Exploration

As a field, dentistry continues to evolve, leading to concepts like dental tourism. Simply put, it’s tourism with dentistry on the side. Nearby countries in Southeast Asia or Australia and New Zealand could go to Bangkok and get work done.

Meanwhile, they can also go enjoy the sights and sounds of Bangkok or the rest of Thailand while they’re there, mixing business with pleasure.

What’s more, Bangkok adopts every new dental technology because they’re designed to improve upon the previous technology’s flaws, leading to world-class service at a discount.

With that said, what is it like in a day in the life of a dental tourist in Bangkok exactly?

A Combination of Oral Health and Cultural Exploration

Curiously, while dental tourism is made for convenience, there are Americans from the United States who are willing to take a 19-hour flight to Bangkok to get a more affordable root canal treatment (endodontic treatment).

Then again, when you take into consideration the state of medical and dental insurance in the U.S., maybe taking such nearly all-day flights is a sacrifice many U.S. citizens are willing to pay.

Dental tourism is advantageous for many, especially in today’s world economy and rapid inflation. Even when you take into consideration travel expenses, it can be much cheaper to get dental work done in Bangkok than locally elsewhere.

You can buy tickets to Thailand weeks or months in advance (short-notice flights cost more) during off-peak season or avail of direct dental tours to certain dental centers.

Why More and More Tourists Want Dental Work in Thailand

There’s a myriad of reasons why tourists from faraway lands like the United States, the United Kingdom, most of Europe, and even the Middle East go to Thailand for dental services, chief among them is savings despite travel costs.

• The Search for Savings: Your trip will start as a search for savings. Not in terms of a budget vacation, mind you. It’s dental tourism for affordable dentistry. You, yourself or a significant other and family can go together.

  You might need to pay $5,000 to $6,000 to do a root canal treatment on an affected tooth. It’s prohibitively costly dental care, especially if you lack dental insurance to cover for it so you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for everything.

  In contrast, a root canal in Bangkok, Thailand can cost between ฿9,000 and ฿15,000 per tooth, depending on the type of tooth. This is roughly equivalent to USD $265–$442. Your savings are astronomical, in short.

  Dental emergencies naturally will have to be local, but if you have time and lack money, you can get a better deal with a dental tour to a destination of your choice.

• Proximity or Nearness: You can get loads of recommendations for hotels, clinics, hospitals, and dental centers by advertising yourself as a “dental tourist” on Facebook, actually. Many of which lead straight to Bangkok.

  On one hand, in the U.S.A., there’s a nearer alternative. There’s Mexico, Costa Rica, or the Dominican Republic.

  Proximity-wise, they fulfill your requirements along with savings compared to going local. In a pinch, you’d get affordable travel and dentistry in a neat package in those countries.

  On the other hand, you’d be surprised by the number of Americans who’d rather travel beyond those countries to get crowns, whitening, and implants.

• Simply Amazing Dentistry Standards: It’s worthwhile to go to Bangkok for your crown, whitening, implant, or root canal requirements because they observe international-level standards.

  Also, they’re at least among the Top 5 dental tourism destinations around next to the likes of Turkey, Poland, Croatia, and India. Bangkok dental centers also cover everything from orthodontics to cosmetic dentistry.

  They’re even on top of the latest technological advancements for dentistry such as digital scans and impressions, CAD/CAM dentistry, 3D printing, and AI-powered diagnostics.

• Thailand Is Also the Land of Cosmetic Dentistry: Bangkok is the capital of a country renowned for its cosmetic dentistry. For a super-cheap, bargain-basement price, you can whiten all your teeth by several shades with laser whitening.

  You can also get veneers if you have misshapen or crooked teeth. They even offer dentures for good measure for people who are too old for surgery.

  The idea here is that most dental insurance policies don’t allow coverage for what’s considered cosmetic dentistry. Therefore, it’s a bit of a life hack to opt-in for dental tourism instead to make cosmetic dentistry more affordable to you.

  At the very least, you can get a vacation along with whiter teeth when all is said and done.

• A Tropical Vacation in an Unfamiliar Land: Many Americans realize that the long flight hours and the extra money needed for travel is worth it when it’s Bangkok. Thailand, for good reason, is known as the land of smiles.

  16 hours of waiting in an airplane is no easy task. However, Bangkok itself is quite touristy. It’s one of the most visited places in Southeast Asia.

  Just beyond the urbanity of Bangkok is tropical paradise as well, full of delicious food, friendly locals, and a majestic Asian culture.

  It’s also certainly a refreshing change from the subfreezing temperatures of the winter months of December. You’re like a bird flying south for the winter, but with dentistry involved.

• How to Find a Dentist in Bangkok: You will get loads of recommendations on social media or referrals from friends and family. Gather these and choose the ones that make the most budgetary sense to you.

  From there, just get a reservation or appointment. Some clinics will just wait for you to get there so you have to book flights on your own, while others offer entire tour packages with hotel reservations included.

  Some clinics only offer general dentistry while others include specialist dentistry like wisdom tooth removal or surgically putting in a dental implant.

  However, your best bet remains going for a Bangkok dental clinic or center with the best and most complete dental care possible. The idea here is to get a bargain on top of a vacation in one.

A Look at the Average Bangkok Dental Tourism Experience

First, you’ll need to make appointments and book flights for about a week or so. You naturally pay more if you wish for a short-notice trip, as mentioned. You can book a few days in Bangkok while getting your root canal (endodontic therapy) done.

You can also go to Thailand during peak holiday months such as December and still get cheaper work done than when paying out-of-pocket for a local dentist because you lack dental coverage.

• Planning Ahead: One of the main appeals of dental tourism for tourists is the tourism part, with the dental part being more of a side note in between swinging on hammocks, drinking coconut water, and splashing at the beach.

  Depending on your operation or operations, you can plan ahead on where else to go, like taking a weeklong side trip to other Thailand places-of-interest like Koh Samui or Phuket.

  Just make sure to check with the dental clinic or center how long the treatment will take, how many visits are required, and if you’ll need to stay at a nearby hotel for convenience.

  Plan your vacation around the clinic visits so that you can fit in healing time with your shopping time or exploration time. For example, maybe a day of doing nothing is more appropriate after your root canal operation?

• Dealing with Flights: Sometimes, the flights are the smoothest part of the journey. Sometimes, they’re the first hurdle to your path towards a better smile in the Land of Smiles.

  You can have a quick lay-over in places like Seoul to get to Thailand ASAP or a longer one if you wish to see the sights (in December, it can get as snowy as Siberia in South Korea though).

  Stock up on movies you wish to watch or series you wish to marathon while traveling sky-high towards Bangkok to get work done on your teeth. You can also sleep your way through most of the flight so that it’s over before you know it.

  There’s no shortcut to long flights. You’ll just have to grin and bear it to have a better grin by the end of it.

• Keep Your Priorities Straight: According to patient anecdotes—particularly from Americans taking long flights from New York or Chicago to Bangkok—they tend to underestimate the long flight and jet lag.

  Be careful about lay-overs in other places in Asia you wish to visit, because during December, they’re not as tropical as Thailand.

  Remember that you’re mainly there for affordable dental work so therefore once you land that should be your priority while you maintain a flexible schedule for the rest of your Bangkok trip.

  You’re also less likely to deal with long wait lines if you keep up with your scheduled appointments. Be sure to at least reschedule with the center if you won’t make it.

• Get a Consultation and Dental Work Done: Once you get off the airport and check-in to the hotel, you should make it to dental clinics or centers like Thantakit, where you’ll be treated professionally with English-speaking staff.

  Instead of planning your Bangkok vacation, it’s more prudent to plan how much work you’ll get done there. Some patients decide to take turns with going through the dentist’s drill.

  It all depends on if it’s a single-visit issue or if the consultation and diagnosis has noticed other issues that require immediate attention. A root canal takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours.

  In contrast, it takes 30 minutes to an hour and a half to whiten teeth. It only takes 1-2 hours to place a crown, but it can take weeks (or faster if the center has CAD/CAM) to make a custom crown in the first place.

• The Number of Visits and What to Do In Between Visits: A root canal can be done in a single visit or multiple visits. Most root canals can be done in one or two visits depending on when you get the crown.

  If you need to put on a temporary crown, then this means you’ll have to stay at your hotel and wait for the next visit to get the actual crown cemented onto your treated tooth.

  It’s at this point you can schedule vacation-type things to do in the exhausting metropolis that is Bangkok while recovering from your root canal procedure (and your jetlag).

• Keep Your Next Visit in Mind When Vacationing: You don’t want to miss your next appointment as you explore places outside of Bangkok like Trat with its $20 guest houses near trays of drying coconut meat and courtyard garden full of Buddha, bamboo, and bougainvillea.

  Nothing numbs a recently treated tooth filled with “inert material” than a day at the beach. Make sure to eat soft foods first to keep that crown inserted.

  You should have ample time to get that final crown fitted the next day while paying for private sedans with drivers or taking the much cheaper air-conditioned buses. You might even come across a songthaew or two.

• Finishing Up with Your Dental Business: After you’ve finished up with your crown placement, dental cleaning, dental fillings, deep cleaning, orthodontics, and so forth, you’re now free to go.

  Many patients prioritize the dental business so they can go with the tourism part of their travel to Thailand. The procedures should be quick and abbreviated.

  From there, they’ll be more concerned about outlining their exploits in Bangkok or outside of it, with them club-hopping in any place with a nightlife or relaxing in seclusion in the more provincial areas.

  Otherwise, they’ll be making a beeline to the nearest airport so that they can get back home immediately now that their affordable dentistry business is finished.

The Funny Thing about Dental Tourism Patient Anecdotes

The funny thing about most dental tourism anecdotes is that the dental work part is usually summarized in a paragraph or so, followed by long entries regarding how much they spent to get from Bangkok to one of Thailand’s many islands.

They won’t spend time talking about the smoothness of the operation, how attentive the staff and crew were, how long the root canal operation was, or any pertinent details regarding the service.

They’d rather talk about plastic baggies of chili sauce and how a clumsy friend ended up shooting the liquid into her face, leading to her screaming as slices of pepper ran down her face and clumped on her blonde curls.

Yes, the vacation part of a dental tour will naturally be the more memorable part of the deal, but this is also a sign of the quality of service that Bangkok dental centers have.

Instead of inciting long tirades of how Bangkok root canals are excruciatingly painful and belong to the days of Medieval torture or how the equipment in the office looks like they came from the 1970s, patients have nothing else to add.

The dental operation went so smoothly that they had more commotion while eating out at one of many Bangkok restaurants than they did when getting the tooth root ripped from a dying tooth.

The “crazy” part of the trip is the rest of their exploits after their dental work is done, which is preferable (and expected). You want a sentence-long summary of the root canal!

Enjoy Quality Bangkok Dental Tourism Today

The Thantakit Dental Center offers loads of advanced equipment, world-class dentists, and dental services to satisfy your dental and oral health needs when push comes to shove. Besides root canal therapy, they also cover everything else.

Contact Thantakit ASAP to get a virtual quote or personalized consultations on a variety of oral and dental solutions. They’re at the forefront of Bangkok dentistry for a reason.

Thantakit International Dental Center is Thailand’s longest established dental center. Situated in Bangkok, our clinic is renowned across the world as a destination for world-class dentistry, with most of our patients flying to us from Australia.

Get in touch with our clinic today and get a FREE dental consultation!