Backpacking Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is the one people warn you about, in the nicest possible way. You book three nights, and a week later you are still there, you know the woman at the khao soi stall, and you have quietly stopped looking at buses.
It is 700 kilometres north of Bangkok and it feels like a different country. Cooler, greener, slower. The old town is a square kilometre wrapped in a moat and a crumbling 700-year-old wall, and inside it are three hundred temples, more cafés than anyone needs and dorm beds for €5.
It is also the jumping-off point for the north. Elephant sanctuaries, waterfalls you can climb up, mountain roads, and the 762-bend minibus to Pai. Digital nomads worked this out years ago, which is why the coffee is unreasonably good.
Why Chiang Mai is popular with backpackers
- Beds for €5 and dinner for €1.20
- Hostels that actually organise things
- The base for every trip into the northern mountains
- Night markets every night, not just at weekends
- Ethical elephant sanctuaries within an hour
- Some of the best scooter roads in Thailand
Best time to visit Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai sits in the mountains, so it runs a few degrees cooler than the rest of the country. There is one period you genuinely need to know about, though: burning season, when the air fills with smoke for weeks.
Do not come in March or April if your lungs give you trouble. In those months Chiang Mai regularly tops the global list for worst air quality, which is not a ranking you want to experience. The other ten months of the year you would never know.
Backpacker budget: around €18 a day
- €5hostel bed
- €1.20local meal
- €1.20beer
- €1songthaew ride
Guide prices from our own days in Chiang Mai. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Chiang Mai
Stamps Backpackers Chiang Mai
Probably the most famous backpacker hostel in the city, and the 9.7 from five and a half thousand people is not an accident. They run something every single day: food tours, games nights, trips out. If you arrived alone and would like that to stop being true by dinner, book here.
Mad Monkey Chiang Mai
The party one, and unapologetic about it. Pub crawls, beer pong, and the same crowd you met at the Mad Monkey in Bangkok. Great for the social side of Chiang Mai, less great if tomorrow involves a sunrise.
The Yard Hostel Chiang Mai
Green garden, hammocks, and people who are here to do things during the day and read in the evening. Still social, just at a volume where you can hear the other person. The 9.8 comes from a smaller crowd who all wanted the same thing.
Best things to do in Chiang Mai
Day trip to the temples of Chiang Rai
The White Temple is not an ancient anything. It was started in 1997 by an artist who is still working on it, and it has a bridge over a pit of reaching hands. It works as a long day trip, three hours in a van each way, but a night in Chiang Rai gets you more out of it: it is on your way north anyway, and you get the Blue Temple thrown in at your own pace.
Waterfalls you can climb up
The Bua Thong “sticky” waterfalls are limestone, which means you can walk straight up the rock while the water runs over your feet. It sounds like a lie until you are doing it barefoot with no rope.
A Muay Thai fight
Smaller and closer than the Bangkok stadiums, which means you are near enough to hear the corner shouting instructions. The live band playing through every round takes about ten minutes to make sense and then it is the best part.
Ziplining through the jungle
Half a day flying between trees above the canopy, with lunch and transfers included so you do not have to work out how to get back. The kind of thing that costs four times as much at home.
An elephant sanctuary, the right kind
Feeding and walking, no riding and no bathing. Read the next paragraph before you book anything, because plenty of places use the word “sanctuary” and mean something else entirely.
Thai cooking class
Starts at the market working out what half the ingredients even are, ends with you eating four dishes you made yourself. This is the souvenir that survives: you will still be making that curry paste two years later.
Best area for backpackers
Old City
Stay inside the moat. The Old City is a square of narrow streets, temples and hostels, and everything worth walking to is within that square. Outside it the city spreads out fast and you start needing transport for everything.
What you get in this area:
- Cheap hostels and cafés on every street
- The easiest place to fall in with other backpackers
- Walking distance to the temples and the night markets
- Street food, coworking cafés and more coffee than you can drink
- The pickup point for basically every tour and day trip
The atmosphere inside the walls is a big part of why people overstay. It is a city of 130,000 that behaves like a village.
How to plan your days in Chiang Mai
Plan three, expect four, do not be surprised by seven. Pick how long you have.
The Old City on foot. Walk the square inside the moat and take in the big three: Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh and Wat Chiang Man. Finish with a massage for the price of a coffee at home.
Tonight: the night bazaar, or the Sunday Walking Street if the timing works.
Elephants and waterfalls. A sanctuary where you feed and walk and nothing else. Pair it with the Bua Thong Sticky Waterfalls, where you climb up the rock face with the water running over you.
Tonight: eat over in Nimman, the cooler neighbourhood outside the moat.
Doi Suthep and the mountains. The temple above the city, 306 steps up, with the whole valley laid out below. Keep going and you reach Doi Inthanon, the highest point in Thailand.
Tonight: a cooking class that starts at the market and ends with your own curry.
Pai, or the zipline. Pai is three hours and 762 bends away and is an entire destination of its own. Staying put? The jungle zipline is the classic way to spend the day.
Tonight: the night bus back down to Bangkok, or on to Pai or Chiang Rai tomorrow.
Food and drink in Chiang Mai
The north has its own kitchen, milder and saltier than Bangkok’s, with dishes you simply will not find in the south.
Khao soi is the one. A coconut curry noodle soup with crispy noodles piled on top, and it costs about €1.50 at any market. Order it once and you will order it every day.
What to eat here:
Sticky rice is finger food. Squeeze a bit into a ball and use it to scoop up the sauce. A spoon here is basically cheating.
Getting there and onward
Chiang Mai is the gateway to the north. Everything going further up, or across to Laos, leaves from here.
Getting there. The night train from Bangkok takes thirteen hours and is far more comfortable than the bus. Flying is often under €30 and takes an hour, which is a hard argument to beat.
Around town. You can walk the Old City in an hour. For anything else, flag down a red songthaew, a shared pickup truck: stick your hand out, say where you are going, pay about a euro.
Onward. Pai is three hours by minibus and 762 bends. Chiang Rai is three hours on a normal bus. For Laos you go via Chiang Khong and the slow boat down the Mekong, which is two days and worth every minute.
- Night trainBangkok 13 hrs, sleeper berths bookable
- MinibusPai 3 hrs, 762 bends · Chiang Rai 3 hrs
- SongthaewShared pickup around town, about €1
- ScooterFrom about €5 a day
- PlaneBangkok in an hour, often absurdly cheap
Staying safe in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is relaxed and safe. The two things worth thinking about here are the road to Pai and which elephant place you give your money to.
- Pick an elephant sanctuary where you do not ride and do not bathe with the animals
- Take travel sickness tablets before the Pai minibus. Those 762 bends are not a joke and the back seats are worse
- Bring something that covers shoulders and knees for the temples, even at thirty degrees
- Consider a mask during burning season if your lungs are at all sensitive
- Ride an elephant, however gentle the offer sounds
- Take a scooter up the mountain road to Doi Suthep on your first day riding
- Hand over your passport as a scooter deposit
- Forget you need an international driving permit. They do check here, and your insurance checks harder
At a genuine sanctuary the elephants keep their distance and the animal decides whether it wants contact. If there is riding, painting or bathing with tourists, it is an attraction wearing the word sanctuary, and your ticket is what keeps it running.
Rebels on the Road tip
Rent a scooter and ride up towards Doi Suthep or the village of Mon Jam early, before seven. The mist is still sitting in the valley, the road is empty, and you will pass viewpoints and tiny roadside coffee places that nobody is at yet. It costs about €5 and most people who do it call it the best morning they had in Thailand.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do you need in Chiang Mai?
Three to four covers it properly. Budget for more, because a genuinely large number of people end up staying a week or two.
Is Chiang Mai cheap?
It is one of the cheapest cities in Thailand for backpackers. Around €18 a day, with €5 dorm beds and €1.20 meals doing most of the work.
Is Chiang Mai good for solo travellers?
It is arguably the easiest place in Thailand to travel alone. The hostels are built around it and half the people you meet arrived on their own too.
Do you need a scooter in Chiang Mai?
Not in the Old City, which is walkable. For waterfalls, mountain roads and day trips it changes everything, and it is about €5 a day.
When is the best time to visit Chiang Mai?
November to February: cooler, dry and clear. Try to avoid March and April, when burning season fills the valley with smoke and the air quality gets genuinely bad.
