CHIANG MAI · NORTHERN THAILAND
Mountains, monks and night markets.
Lanna temples and hill-tribe villages. Sticky waterfalls and bamboo rafts. Cooking classes, elephant sanctuaries and the long road to Chiang Rai.
The Chiang Mai classic
If you only book one thing, make it a cooking class.
The half-day class everyone takes home with them. A morning market run, four northern Thai dishes by lunch, the recipes you’ll cook for years.
The classics
Chiang Mai’s Most Popular Tours
Cooking classes, elephant sanctuaries, the road up Doi Suthep, the temples of Chiang Rai. The trips Chiang Mai is built around.
A Lanna day
What a day in Chiang Mai actually looks like.
Morning on the mountain. Afternoon in the kitchen. Evening in the night markets. Three stops, one good day, all bookable. The shape of every first trip here.
Up the mountain
Three climbs everyone makes.
Doi Suthep at sunset. Doi Inthanon at altitude. The Sticky Waterfall you walk up barefoot. Three different mountains, three different reasons to go up.
The Lanna kingdom
Three things Chiang Mai kept for itself.
The walled capital of a 700-year-old kingdom. Six hill-tribe nations within a day’s drive. A kitchen with its own ingredients. Three threads that still run here and nowhere else in Thailand.
700 years inside the walls
The Old City
Chiang Mai was founded in 1296 as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom. The square moat is still there. Thirty wats sit inside the walls — most still active, monks chanting at dawn, gold leaf peeling off the chedis in the afternoon sun. Wat Chedi Luang was hit by a 1545 earthquake and never fully rebuilt; that scaffolding is permanent.
- 1 Chiang Mai: 3 Hour Old City and Temples Guided Walking Tour
- 2 Chiang Mai: Historic Temples and City Guided Walking Tour
- 3 Chiang Mai: Historic Old City Bike Tour – Morning or Night
Six tribes, six languages
Hill Tribes & Highlands
Hmong, Karen, Akha, Lahu, Lisu, Long Neck — six tribes within a day’s drive of Chiang Mai, each with their own language, dress, and origin story. None of them are Thai. Most arrived from southern China and Burma in the last two hundred years, settling the highlands the lowland kingdoms left alone.
- 1 4-Hour Doi Suthep & Hmong Hill Tribe Village from Chiang Mai
- 2 Chiang Dao Cave & 5 Hill Tribe villages
- 3 Half Day – Small Group – Doi Suthep Temple and Hmong Village Tour
Khao soi, sai oua, nam prik
The Northern Table
Northern Thai food isn’t Bangkok food. Coconut-curry noodles with crispy noodles on top, Burmese-influenced curries, Yunnanese braises, sticky rice in every meal. Khao soi alone — the dish that defines Chiang Mai — exists in this exact form nowhere else on the planet. A half-day class teaches you four of them.
- 1 Half-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang Mai
- 2 Chiang Mai: Cooking Class, Market & Thai Herbs Garden Tour
- 3 Chiang Mai: Authentic Cooking Class with Market & Farm Visit
By place
Pick a corner of Chiang Mai.
Old City for the moat and the temples. Doi Suthep for the golden chedi at sunset. Doi Inthanon for the country’s highest peak. Mae Kampong for coffee and cool air. Chiang Rai for the White Temple. Chiang Dao for the caves and the road north.
By activity
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Cooking class if you want to come home with the recipes. Elephants if you want the sanctuary, not the saddle. Bamboo raft if you want the river. Tuk-tuk if you want the night markets. The temples are everywhere; pick one of those too.
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