The Ultimate Guide to the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek (2024)

Table of Contents

Overview of the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek

The Chiang Mai Jungle Trek is a 3 day, 2 night trek through the surrounding jungle in northern Thailand. This is an experience that will push the average traveler out of their comfort zone, but it’s well worth it! You’ll see insanely beautiful views, learn interesting facts about the nature, and taste some amazing Thai food. While the hiking isn’t extremely difficult, it is humid and you won’t have access to some of the amenities such as hot water that you’re used to. In this post we’ll go over everything you need to know, things to pack, and a detailed itinerary so that you can get an idea of what to expect. The trek took place just southwest of the Chiang Dao Wildlife Sanctuary and roughly halfway between Chiang Mai and Pai. All in all, this was one of my favorite experiences and I can’t recommend this enough!

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Know Before You Go

Your tour operator will likely store your bigger luggage while you go on the tour, so just pack a smaller backpack with a few changes of clothes and other essentials we’ll go over in the next section. The tour does end closer to Pai so you can take a bus for 150 baht (~$4) from there to Pai, which our amazing tour guide organized. The hike is very slippery and has some questionable stream crossings so a decent fitness level is necessary. However, both kids and senior travelers can do this trek without issue. Be warned that you might get at least one leech stuck to your ankle or foot during these few days, so check for those as well as ticks often!

Packing List for the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek

Toilet paper: There are toilets but no toilet paper!
Small Backpack: We recommend this hiking backpack, which we fit all of our stuff into
Water: Some free water is provided on the first day, but you pay for it during the trek
Snacks: We were well fed but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared
Cash: You’ll need cash to buy waters, beer, or soda at the homestays
Sunscreen: We love La Roche Posay for face sunscreen
Bug Spray: There are a good amount of bugs in the jungle
Shower Materials: Soap, shampoo, and conditioner
Towel: These micro-fiber towels are great for packing light
Bathing Suit: There are a few places on this trek to take a dip!
Ear Plugs: The roosters in the villages are fairly loud in the early morning!
Electrolyte Packets: Great for staying hydrated without carrying more water bottles than you need
Good Hiking Shoes: The hike can get muddy and slippery. It can be done with regular sneakers, but make sure you have decent traction!
Sweater: It gets cool at night so make sure to be prepared!
Waterproof Camera or Phone Case: This is great for taking photos and videos of the waterfall and during the bamboo raft ride
Extra Plastic Bags: We regretted not having a couple extra plastic bags for dirty clothes and to keep our items fully dry on the bamboo raft
Cards: It’s nice to have some games to play for the night!

Where You’ll Sleep

During the trek, you’ll stay in homestays in local villages. In these homes, your whole trekking group will sleep in one giant room that has lots of large mattresses on the floor with mosquito nets that cover them. There’s no air conditioning, but it gets cool enough at night so that you won’t need it. The bathrooms are extremely basic and there isn’t any toilet paper, so be prepared! There also isn’t any hot water but you’ll be happy with any shower after a long day of trekking.

The homestays as well as homes along the path will also provide your group with delicious meals. We honestly ate really good on this trek which we were surprised by! The meals were always full of fruit and for dinner we had amazing curries. You certainly won’t go hungry, but it’s always a good idea to pack snacks for when you’re on the trail.

Difficulty of the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek

There are three levels of difficulty that our tour operator offers. The easiest is geared towards kids and senior travelers, the medium-difficulty is for the average hiker, and the hardest is geared towards those in better shape. We did the medium-difficulty trek which we didn’t think was that difficult; most people should be able to do this without issue. It is fairly humid and there are some steep inclines so you’ll definitely sweat a lot. The first day is only 3 hours of hiking, the second day is 5 hours, and you don’t do any hiking on the last day. The trails are slippery and muddy so shoes with good grip are a must. There are a few stream/river crossings that require a basic level of athleticism if you don’t want to get your shoes wet.

Typical Trek Itinerary

Day 1

The tour starts off around 8-8:30 am with the tour operator picking you up from your hotel. We drove to the tour operator’s office in Chiang Mai to drop off our bigger luggage and drove about an hour to a small market for some snacks and coffee. This is also a good place to withdraw money if you haven’t already. We then drove another hour to a beautiful waterfall for a quick dip, before driving 30 minutes to the trailhead.

We said goodbye to our transportation and cellphone service and set off on the 3 hour, 5 km hike! The first hour of the hike was a fairly steep uphill climb, but the other two hours were downhill. We saw an amazing view and all sorts of trees that looked like 4-5 climates mixed into one. There were pine trees, regular spruce/oak and trees that looked like they were straight out of the Amazon.

During the hike, we tried tea leaves, hot chili peppers, and our amazing guide would point out all sorts of interesting plants in the jungle. Later, we arrived at our accommodations for the night which was in a beautiful and small village in a very remote location. We had an amazing dinner of fried chicken, a chicken soup, a fruit similar to Lychee, and a stir fry of vegetables. There were also beers, waters, and sodas available for purchase. Two brave souls (Cullen and one other person) had maggots and some delicious deer skin.

Day 2

This is the most intense day of hiking! Breakfast was served at 9 am and we started hiking around 9:30. We hiked for around 3 hours (8.7 kilometers) before getting to a small village where we had the most delicious passion fruit, as well as noodles, watermelon and pineapple for lunch. You can take a refreshing dip in the river (we recommend going upstream from the cattle taking a bath). We hung out here for an hour or so after lunch and got to observe life in this small village. A few people were constructing bamboo rafts, kids were rollerskating (with only one rollerskate), and we saw an elephant taking a bath. We hiked another 2 hours (4.3 kilometers), which had a lot of slippery downhill parts.

Our accommodation for the night was a homestay in Lahu village. We had another amazing dinner of chicken potato curry, green beans and a stir fry of vegetables with a sweet and sour sauce. The view from this place was absolutely incredible. It was on a hill overlooking the river and other tree-filled hills around and across the flowing river. We had beers around a camp fire and played with the local kids who absolutely loved climbing on us and doing somersaults.

Day 3

We woke up at around 8:30 for breakfast before taking a bamboo raft 2 hours down the river. You will get wet on the bamboo raft so wear a bathing suit! This was one of our favorite parts and the views from this were simply amazing.

After the rafting, we had an amazing meal of pad Thai and fruit and then drove to our final destination, the elephant sanctuary. We got to feed them sugar cane and fruit and then bathed with them and threw water on them to cool them down. We also found out they live until they’re around 100. The elephants are allowed to roam around in the jungle at night and they return to the sanctuary in the morning to be fed and bathed!

Chiang Mai Jungle Trek Elephant Sanctuary

At the end of the tour, we drove 40 minutes to Mae Malai market and our tour was done! Our group went to Pai afterwards, but if you’re going back to Chiang Mai, you’ll go back with the tour operator.

Read all about the best things to do in Pai!

Best Time of Year for Trekking in Northern Thailand

If you’re researching a trip to Thailand, you’ve likely come across the fact that different parts of the country have different rainy seasons. In northern Thailand, the dry season runs from November to May, but the best time to visit is between November and February. During this time, temperatures are noticeably cooler than the later months of the dry season, which you’ll certainly want for trekking!

How to Get to Chiang Mai

This trek – and lots of others that trek through the jungles of northern Thailand – leave from Chiang Mai. As the capital city of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai is super accessible by various forms of transportation, depending on where you’re coming from!

How to Get to Chiang Mai from International Destinations

The easiest and fastest way to get to Chiang Mai from international destinations is by flying into its airport (CNX), which is well-connected to major Asian and international destinations.

Check Skyscanner for Cheap Flights!

How to Get to Chiang Mai from Domestic Destinations

If you’re coming from anywhere that’s not in northern Thailand, you should definitely check out the flights – they’ll likely be the most expensive option, but you can certainly score some great deals depending on what date you’re flying. The buses or trains can also just be very long trips, so flying is definitely the answer for people short on time.

From Bangkok, you have two options aside from flying: train and bus. Both take around the same amount of time (~11-12 hours) and the prices are similar. You can pay more to get better seats that recline, but for the cheapest options expect to pay between 10 and 20 USD.

If you’re coming from within northern Thailand, the bus will be your best bet! Most of you already in northern Thailand will be coming from Chiang Rai, from where you can grab a 3.5-4 hour bus to Chiang Mai!

Book your Bus and Train Tickets on 12Go

Last Thoughts on the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek

This is such an amazing way to experience the Thai jungle in a safe but adventurous manner. There’s tons to do in Chiang Mai, but going a couple hours outside of it to see how the people in rural Thailand live is truly humbling. We highly recommend going with Chiang Mai Trekking. Our amazing guide was named Kay, and he kept us safe, well-informed, and made sure we had a great time. He even helped the local families at the homestay cook for us! The nature, the cuisine, and the overall experience was amazing and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone looking to explore the other side of their comfort zone!

Why you should do the Chiang Mai jungle trek

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Our Favorite Travel Resources

Accommodations: We use Booking.com for hotels and HostelWorld for hostels. We also use VRBO or TrustedHousesitters for longer stays.

Flights: We recommend using Skyscanner to find the cheapest and best flights.

Ground Transport: We use 12Go and Omio for buses and private transfers, and rentalcars.com and Discover Cars for rental cars.

Activities: GetYourGuide and Viator are the best websites for booking organized tours.

International Medical Insurance: We highly recommend SafetyWing for Digital Nomads and HeyMondo for those not traveling full-time, or who frequently engage in higher-risk adventure activities.

eSIM: We recommend Airalo or Holafly for getting data internationally.

Check out our Travel Resources Page for more of our favorite travel-related products and services!

The Ultimate Guide to the Chiang Mai Jungle Trek