Search hotels in Chiang Mai

We stayed in Baan Montien which was a comfortable affordable hotel in an excellent location within the city walls.Breakfast wasnt great though and i love my food so we ventured out one of the mornings and ate in a recommended place called The Overstand. I had eggs and bacon on toast with parmesan and a really good coffee. There are loads of lovely cafes around, just brilliant to sit in drink good coffee and watch world go by. We found near the night market a place where there were food trucks at night selling all different kinds of food and beer and a band played every night. Everyone sat on straw barrells or plastic chairs listening to music chatting and eating and it was perfect, we ended up going there every night! Very easy to get around Chiang Mai, we walked everywhere and sometimes got tuc tucs at night. Excursions are offered everywhere and nearly always will pick you up from hotel. We visited The Peak Spa for a relaxing spa massage package and they also picked us up and dropped us back to hotel for free. My favourite experience in Chiang Mai was partaking a thai cooking class with the Farm School. It was amazing!!! Such a fun interesting day. we had a wonderful relaxing time in Chiang Mai. Loved the markets, relaxing chilled out vibe and the beautiful temples

Doi Suthep was a beautiful trip, we rode in an open backed pick up truck which was a lot of fun and the view from the top was amazing. Got some great photos of the temple and Chiang Mai way down below. Also we stopped at a nice waterfall on the way back to CM. The air inside the forest where the waterfall was is some of the cleanest, most crisp air I have ever breathed. I wanted to bottle it up and take it home. We took a tut tut around the moat one day and stopped at some food stalls. People will tell you to avoid tut tuts but as long as you negotiate a price before hand they can be a lot of fun. The food around Chiang Mai is amazing and the prices are super reasonable. The best part of our trip to Chiang Mai was visiting the Elephant Nature Park. It is about two hours north of CM but the transfer is included in your reservation. We booked about a month ahead so we were able to stay over night and I'm already planning my trip back. This place is about conservation, not tourism. There is no riding but you hand feed them and spend all day walking among them on the grounds. Also there is an opportunity to give them a bath in the river. The room we had overnight was beyond our expectations. It was just gorgeous and listening to elephants toot and trumpet all night was an experience I will never ever forget. The best night of my life.

We really enjoyed spending a couple of days in this cozy and generally laid back city. Night markets and markets in general are an excellent and clean (eat things that are roasted or well cooked) location to eat the local treasures, one of the best places we tried was Aroon Rai, (a bit seedy looking, but totally normal in Thai standards) family run restaurant close to the gate. Best papaya salads we have tried in Thailand, don't miss Chiang Mai sausage! Chiang Mai compared to Bangkok is really cheap, easy to find good quality silk and souvenirs for a reasonable price. Nature is the best part here, don't miss spending time outside and with the elephants. If you have time, try the 2-3 day jungle tours. We have visited Wat Doi Suthep what was beautiful, but full of visitors that was bothering, maybe best to visit early in the morning. Bo Sang was worth to visit, Tiger Kingdom was a bit of a disappointment since we were not really able to play with small and smallest tigers (you can't touch their head) and the tigers are sleepy during visiting hours. Most of the time we were walking, but easy to get a tuktuk. Really nice and helpful people everywhere, spending time in the North of Thailand was one of the highlights of our stay. Would love to go back soon...

Chiang Mai seems to offer a lot of nature excursions and extreme sports. It's also a good place for backpackers to do absolutely nothing. There's nothing in the city that'd come in your face there, you can just chill out and hang around and not feel bad about doing nothing. Skip the Doi Suthep temple, it's super boring. Or if you do go up there, just make a trek into the jungles for waterfalls. Doi Inthanon is beautiful and a nice experience especially if you just hire a songthaeow for you. There aren't that many scenic views in the area, but on Doi Inthanon you'll get one. There are plenty of temples, but they are pretty similar each, so once you've seen couple, you've seen them all. The old town is best experienced just by walking around, it's so small anyway. The food court in the night bazaar has a nice atmosphere with live music and everything, worth a night or two.

I enjoyed my day cooking at the Thai Farm Cooking School and my day with the elephants at the Elephant Nature Park. The Night Safari was also a nice evening treat. The Sunday walking street was very interesting but sooooo crowded even though I went early at 5. Staying in the old part of the city was an excellent choice for me even though the streets are narrow and like a maze. I toured the city temples and Doi Suthrep. The trip to see the local industries was a shopping trip but I expected that. I was very happy to buy some painted umbrellas as gifts but most of the other stops were just for looking. I did find some unique souvenirs during my stay. Most of the street food was very good and it was possible for me to avoid too many chilies as I have a problem with spicy food. I left feeling I had not seen all I wanted to and it is possible I will return to Chiang Mai in the future. Nice weather, nice people, good food, good things to see and overall a good place to visit.

Highly recommend the Sunday evening "walking street" market that goes along (closed to vehicular traffic) Ratchadamnoen road between Wat Phra Singh and Tha Pae Gate - we found better prices and quality than in equivalent markets in Bangkok. For food, although we wanted to go to the highly acclaimed Huen Phen restaurant, it was temporarily closed for the New Year's holiday when we were in Chiang Mai, but we found similarly named Baan Huen Phen and its roof-top restaurant close by, with a great view of Wat Chedi Luang, and we had a excellent meal there of local speciality (pork sausage) and shrimp with glass noodles at one of the outside tables. Another nice surprise was the Riverside restaurant with deck overlooking the river and the mountains, large food portions and great draft beer, and not far from interesting Wat Kate Karam - Finally, I must say how much we appreciated the travel support we got from Cool Asia Travel, which is based in Chiang Mai, in terms of getting bus and train tickets for our departure from Chiang Mai, as well as advice on the best way to get from point X to point Y in Thailand. These are the people who can assist you in making your own itinerary and to avoid uninformed decisions - definitely saved us time and worry in our trip planning - and the tickets were delivered to us at our hotel.