Discover Rural Thailand By Trekking Around Chiang Mai

The northern Thailand city of Chiang Mai, known as “The Rose of the North” by locals due to its beauty and friendly people, is the capital of Chiang Mai Province. This bustling place is an important historical city and full of traditional and modern Thai culture. It is also the base for many tours and treks to the hills and mountains of northern Thailand.

Getting to Chiang Mai is fairly straightforward; the real travelling comes when you are on your tour. International flights to Thailand usually drop you off at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport so you may choose to spend some time soaking up the sites of this famous city and then moving on to Chiang Mai Province. From Bangkok there are plenty of ways to reach Chiang Mai, with regular flights, buses and trains to the city. Travel time by plane is just over an hour, train is between 11 and 15 hours (first class sleepers are fairly cheap though, but popular so book ahead) and the bus is around 10 hours.

After you have spent a few nights in your hotel room in Chiang Mai, maybe visited one of the city’s famous markets or temples and enjoyed some traditional Pad Thai, you can embark on your adventure. There are many different ways of touring the north. Some choose to go as part of a group, or hire a guide. You can also choose to drive yourself. This may seem like a scary prospect, but the rentals are very reliable and the roads are pretty well maintained.

Once you’ve decided how many people you want with you on your trip, it’s time to decide how you want to tackle it. There are varying degrees of difficulty to each tour with different amounts of walking and hiking, so choose one that suits your fitness level. Short hikes will be okay for people with reasonable fitness levels, but anything longer than three days should really only be tackled by those with an adventurous nature and good physical fitness.

Activities during your tour will vary depending on what you have booked. Treks can include elephant rides through the jungle, bamboo rafting down a river and stays with friendly hill tribe villagers. Hill tribes in Thailand are very unique and you will find many speaking different languages and lots of variations in culture, clothing and belief systems.

There are many a few different types of accommodation options if you are out trekking. This can vary from a beautiful tented resort to a hotel room or a matt in a hut. Some tours will take you on a home stay where you can sleep in a village and enjoy some traditional Thai village life, watch traditional dance performances and sample some exotic food.

Thailand holidays to the Chiang Mai Province offer a wealth of unique experiences for the adventurous traveller. With many different options available, most people can find something to suit them and travelling through this beautiful mountain terrain will leave most people with a holiday to remember.