Chiang Rai overnight trek into the nearby hills

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wilder-beast migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
7
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
6
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
6
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling food market
9
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
3
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
4
Overall Score
The highest score of nature or culture, + fun factor, + avoid the crowds, + the highest score of world famous or unique. Then turned into a score out of 100. More details at the bottom of the page
65 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
continent
Asia
country
Thailand
Length of time
1-2 days
Rough cost
Obviously people have different tastes, so this will depend on those tastes, but this is a rough idea of price of the whole experience based on 2 people able to split the accommodation costs and excluding travel there and back
$ 90
Time of year visited
February
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Forests Hiking Hilltop towns
All Tags
Local villages Mountains Rice terraces / terraces Sunrise Waterfalls
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site
180th/380 This travel experience's ranking compared to all the other experiences on this site
Top 50% SUMMARY RATING: Great Experience

Summary

The countryside around Chiang Rai is some of the prettiest in Thailand, and January / February time is PERFECT for hiking and staying overnight in one of the nearby villages.  The combination make this worth doing (I really was blown away by how nice the weather is Northern Thailand at this time of year), but note that the countryside is more on the pretty side rather than the dramatic side.  Over the border in Loas is more spectacular

High-level tips:

  1. Go with the 2 days trip – 1 day would just be a bit rushed once you factor in the transport, hiking, food etc, plus you won’t get that sunset feel of being in the village.  3 days – whilst there is a lot of countryside, you’ll see that it is the same few highlight spots that get called out and 3 days will feel quite samesy
  2. I’d recommend going with Bamboo Tours – we actually went with Rai Pian Karuna, who were well organised and nice but, as with so many of these things, our experience depended on the guide who unfortunately wasn’t great.  After doing a bit of research, Rai Pian Karuna tend to simply get people from the villages (often with very poor english) to walk you from drop off to their village and cook for you at home – which is nice, but it felt a little bit of a waste compared to having a proper guide who showed you more.  Note that Bamboo Tours rated 5/5  on Tripadvisor, whereas Rai Pian Karuna 4.2/5.  Certainly, not the be-all-and-end-all, but indicative.  Both were around 3000B (USD80)
  3. Try to go October to February – the weather is just perfect, with dry heat, bright blue skies, cool mornings and evenings, and hit afternoons.  Plus, March is when they start the burning and you don’t want to be there for that
  4. Chiang Rai itself is nice as a base, but no more – yes it has the temples and market, yes it has some nice hotels for recharging, but you are there for the surrounding countryside
  5. The highlight of the nearby area for us was – Mopeds along the Thai / Laos border near Chiang Rai.  Spectacular scenery and something fun about zipping about on the windy roads with a moped

highlights

#1 Hiking through the pretty countryside surrounding Chiang Rai and especially at this time of year

#2 Spending the evening in one of the very basic small villages that will be the home of your guide. Hope you like roosters! (I fantasised about killing all of them at around 4am)

#3 Seeing elephants as you walk through the area. Some roaming, some unfortunately not

#4 Waking up early for the walk to be the only ones seeing the sunset from the Doi Bo Viewpoint (gets rammed later in the day by the day-trippers from Chiang Rai)

#5 The rice paddy fields offering a nice verdant contrast to super dry surrounding countryside

#6 Stopping for a swim in the beautiful waterfalls dotted all around

Experiences nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Other Beautiful Muliti-day Hikes

Hiking and zip-lining in the Colca Canyon
Overall Score: 88

Hiking the 4 day / 3 night Inca Trail
Overall Score: 85

3 days / 2 nights hiking the Quilatoa Loop
Overall Score: 83

Hiking the Lost City Trek
Overall Score: 83

Hiking Bhutan’s Druk Path at the end of winter
Overall Score: 83

Hiking the stunning Zhangjiajie National Park
Overall Score: 83

Hiking near the hot springs of Altyn Arashan near Karakol
Overall Score: 80

3 very civilised days in Torres del Paine National Park
Overall Score: 75

Climbing to the summit of Cotopaxi Volcano
Overall Score: 88

Hiking along Hadrian’s Wall
Overall Score: 80

Score Detail

Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"?  That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others.  That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score

This overall experience score is calculated by:  take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10).  Then convert into a score out of 100

Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique".  Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides.  So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique".  But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience).  So, both of these scores are standalone