There are around 300 temples in and around Chiang Mai, and that is before you count the mountains behind the city. You will not get through that in three or four days, and you do not need to. This is not a city you tick off. It is the city where backpackers get stuck, because every day there is something that makes them push their bus back again.
A few things really belong on the list: the mountain above town, a bowl of khao soi at a night market, and one morning where you ride up into the hills yourself. Others make a great day trip if you stay longer, although the best of it starts just twenty minutes from your hostel.
So where do your Chiang Mai days go, and what do you save for next time?
How many days Chiang Mai can fill and which area to sleep in is all on our Chiang Mai page.
Into the hills on a scooter at sunrise
What sets Chiang Mai apart from the rest of Thailand is how fast you are out of the city. Twenty minutes after you leave the moat behind, you are riding through the mountains: viewpoints, roadside coffee stops and small markets where no other tourist pulls over. For us this is the best thing you can do here, and it costs almost nothing.
Scooters go from about €5 a day. Ride towards Doi Suthep and keep climbing to the village of Mon Jam, or just take the first road up the hill with no plan at all. Leave early, because around sunrise the mist is still sitting in the valley and you have the road to yourself.
Sort two things out before you go. You need an international driving permit, and they really do check here. And never hand over your passport as a deposit. Never ridden a scooter before? Do not start on a mountain road: book a tour instead.
Our verdict: the best thing you can do in Chiang Mai
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
The most famous temple in the north is not in the city but on top of the mountain behind it. Gold, glittering, and on a clear day with a view over the whole valley. Even if you have ten temples behind you by now, this one feels different, if only because of the ride up.
From the car park you climb 306 steps. Not on a scooter? Songthaews run up the mountain from the Old City. Bring something to cover your shoulders and knees, even when it is thirty degrees.
Go early. Later in the day the tour buses arrive and there is more often haze over the valley, and then you miss exactly what you came up for.
Our verdict: absolutely, the one temple worth leaving the city for
Khao soi at a night market
The north has its own kitchen, milder and saltier than Bangkok’s, and khao soi is the proof: a coconut curry noodle soup with a nest of crispy noodles on top. A bowl costs around €1.50 and you will find it at almost every night market.
There is a market somewhere every night, and at the weekend it gets big. On Sunday evening the centre turns into one long Sunday Walking Street full of street food, clothes and local crafts. Walk a lap before you order anything, then get several small things instead of one big meal.
Sticky rice is eaten with your hands, straight from the basket. Squeeze a bit into a ball and use it to scoop up the sauce. A spoon is cheating.
Our verdict: a must, and one evening is not really enough
The temples inside the moat
Of those 300 temples you only need to see a handful, and the best ones happen to sit inside the moat, within walking distance of each other. Wat Chedi Luang with its huge old chedi in the middle of the grounds, Wat Phra Singh, and the quieter Wat Chiang Man.
You do this in one morning, on foot and without a route. The Old City is a square you can walk around in an hour, so you pass them anyway. Finish with a massage for a few euros, because this is also the cheapest city of your trip for that.
Keep it to a morning and do not count how many you have seen. After the third one you start noticing the similarities instead of the differences, and that is when a coffee bar is the better plan.
Our verdict: go, and a morning is exactly right
An elephant sanctuary where you only watch
There are dozens of elephant camps around Chiang Mai, and you cannot tell a good one from a bad one by the photos on the booking page. You recognise a good sanctuary by what does not happen there: no rides, no bathing with tourists, no tricks. The animals get on with their day and you fit around them, not the other way round.
Most programmes take half a day and pick you up from your hostel. You get an introduction, feed the elephants from a distance and walk alongside them for a while. Lots of travellers combine it with the Bua Thong Sticky Waterfalls, which are in the same direction.
Do not let words like sanctuary, rescue or ethical in the name reassure you. They mean nothing, because anyone can use them. Read the programme and only book when there is no riding, washing or shows in it.
Our verdict: go, but only once you have checked where you are going
The Bua Thong Sticky Waterfalls
Here you climb up the waterfall, and that is not a figure of speech. The limestone under the running water is so rough that your feet and hands grip, so you simply walk up against the flow. It is childishly fun, and it takes a while to realise how strange it is that this works at all.
The falls are outside the city and take half a day. There are tours with a transfer from your hostel, but you can also ride there yourself on a scooter. Flip-flops are useless here, bare feet work perfectly.
Come in the rainy season, between May and October, and you catch them at their best. That is also the best reason not to write Chiang Mai off if your visit falls outside high season.
Our verdict: the most fun half day outside the city
A cooking class that starts at the market
The better cooking classes do not start in a kitchen but at a local market, where you first learn what is actually in all those little bowls. Then you cook a few dishes yourself: pad thai, green curry, and at most schools khao soi as well.
You get picked up from your hostel, it takes half a day or an evening, and at the end you eat everything you made. It costs more than a few rounds of street food, for sure, but you get something out of it for the rest of your trip.
Do it at the start of your stay, not on your last day. Afterwards you walk around that same market with completely different eyes, and that is half the point.
Our verdict: fun and tasty if you have a third day
Got time to spare in Chiang Mai?
Chiang Rai, with a night there
Chiang Rai is three hours away, so a day trip means six hours in a van. Better to go and stay the night, because it is on your way north anyway, and then you see the White Temple and the Blue Temple at your own pace. If a day trip includes a visit to a long neck village, ask whether it can be left out: you walk around a village where the residents themselves are the attraction, and for most travellers that does not feel right.
Another temple that speaks to you
There are around 300 of them. Do the three inside the moat plus Doi Suthep and you have seen the best. If you pass another temple after that which catches your eye, do walk in, because the quietest ones are often the small ones.
Doi Inthanon if you have a week
The highest point in Thailand makes a beautiful day, a good chunk of which you spend in a van. With a week in Chiang Mai it is a great day trip. With three or four days, the mountains close by are every bit as beautiful: the road to Mon Jam starts twenty minutes from your hostel.
A day with no plan in between
You can book a tour for almost everything here, and for the elephants and the cooking class that really is handy. But Chiang Mai is also one of the few places in Thailand that is easy to do yourself: on foot inside the moat, by songthaew for about a euro, or on a scooter into the hills. Mix every organised day with a day with no plan, because those are usually the days you remember.
Our top five in Chiang Mai
Only got a few days? These are the five we would do no matter what:
- Into the hills on a scooter at sunrise, towards Mon Jam
- Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, early, before the tour buses
- Khao soi at a night market, and at the weekend on the Sunday Walking Street
- Half a day at an elephant sanctuary where you do not ride and do not bathe
- The temples inside the moat, on foot in one morning
Still got time after that? The Bua Thong Sticky Waterfalls are the most fun half day outside the city, and a cooking class is the best way to understand what you have been eating all those evenings. Fancy something different? Ziplining through the jungle or a night ringside at a Muay Thai fight both work a treat.
So what do you really have to do in Chiang Mai?
Everything on this list is worth your time, but Chiang Mai is above all a city to experience. The travellers who got the most out of it took time halfway through for the places that spoke to them. This list is here to help you choose, and to leave room around it.
If we had to pick just one thing: ride into the hills. Rent a scooter, leave before it gets light and ride the road behind Doi Suthep upwards until you find a spot where the valley lies below you. You are back before breakfast, and you have already seen more of northern Thailand than most people do in three days.
And eat that bowl of khao soi. Not in a restaurant with an English menu, but on a stool at a stall on a night market, for €1.50. That is the bit of Chiang Mai you will still be telling people about a year from now.
