Chiang Mai Travel Tips is simply the easiest to use website to discover Chiang Mai!
Hello Everybody,
Welcome to my own little website on Chiang Mai. My name is Tim and I'm a travel enthusiast. I created Chiang Mai Travel Tips so that I can share with you all that I know about Chiang Mai, a wonderful travel destination in northern Thailand. Even if you have no plans to visit Chiang Mai, I hope you will enjoy exploring it online with me.
I hope you find Chiang Mai Travel Tips very easy to use. I try to make its layout and navigation intuitive. No information is no more than 2 clicks from the homepage, so you never have to dig deep. To update yourself on what's up at Chiang Mai Travel Tips, go to the Newsletter Subscription Center, and subscribe to your own free Chiang Mai Travel Tips Newsletter. I use it to provide you updates on what's the latest in Chiang Mai Travel Tips.
Exploring Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai Travel Tips is created with budget travelers in mind, particularly those who will be arriving in Chiang Mai without a tour package in hand. It doesn't mean that if you arrive in Chiang Mai on a tour, you won't benefit from this website - the articles I've written describing each tourist sight should certainly enhance your knowledge. But for free independent travelers, I have included tips on "getting there" for each sight, complete with Google Map illustrating its location, so that you can decide on the best option to visit them. Chiang Mai is reasonably small that you can reach most places within the Old City on foot. However, I would encourage you to also explore other places in northern Thailand, all the way to the Golden Triangle, if you have the time. For such excursions, the best way is to book a day tour. Within Chiang Mai itself, taxis are not plentiful. However, you can get around quite cheaply by hiring a tuk tuk (motorized 3 wheeler) or take a songthaew (pickup truck with benches). From my experience in Chiang Mai (which I can't say the same for Bangkok or Phuket), tuk tuks and songthaews are a good option to travel around the city. You will certainly cut down on time otherwise spent walking.
The Table of Content on the right column lists all the attractions of Chiang Mai. As new pages are completed, I add them here. For some background knowledge about Chiang Mai, do read the article called About Chiang Mai. Also, find out a bit about Chiang Mai's History so that you explore with a degree of knowledge. Going to Chiang Mai soon? Check what's the weather's like for the next five days.
Once you have settled down and are ready to explore Chiang Mai, we will have lots of fun together. You will find one of the most comprehensive articles describing all the tourist attractions of Chiang Mai right here. For each place that I describe, I will include some information on how you can get there, preferably on your own. For sights which is easy to visit through arrangement by tour agency, I will mention that too.
Chiang Mai Entry Requirements
If you arrive in Chiang Mai via Bangkok, you would have cleared customs and immigration there. If you're crossing the border to enter Thailand from Laos, then immigration procedures apply. Visitors of most countries holding a valid passport and a ticket for a return or onward journey are given 2 to 4 weeks entry permit on arrival. Citizens of Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden get a 90-day entry permit. You cannot extend your permit while in Thailand, so if you plan an extended stay in Chiang Mai, you need to leave and return before your permit expires. There's a fine of 500 baht waiting for you if you overstay. Alternatively, you can apply for a 60-day tourist visa or 30-day transit visa at a Thai embassy or consulate outside Thailand. These can be extended at the Chiang Mai branch of the Thai immigration at Thanon Fang, just outside Chiang Mai International Airport. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8:30am-12noon and 1:00pm-4:30pm. Phone: 053-277 510. Always dress neatly and decently when you visit the Immigration office. Its officers are known to turn away visitors who are not, in their opinion, decently dressed.
You can get your visa extended at Mae Sai, on the Thai-Burmese border. The way to do it is to get an exit stamp at the Thai side immigration office, pass the checkpoint and cross the bridge into Myanmar. On the Myanmar side of the bridge, you'd see a small office on the right side of the bridge where an officer takes your passport, along with a S$10/400 baht "processing fee", and give you a receipt. Linger around window shopping at the stalls selling Chinese goods, CDs, clothes, handicrafts, and 30 minutes later pick up your passport at the Myanmar immigration, return to Thailand, and fill up the form like you're a newly arrived tourist.
Guide for First Timers
If you are visiting Chiang Mai for the first time, you should start by visiting the places within the Old City. It is located to the west of Chiang Mai City. You can see the Old City on the map as the square section surrounded by roads and a moat. There is so much to discover within the Old City, that we greatly recommend you do a walking tour exploring the sights there. The experience will be well worth your visit. And when night falls, we have lined up recommendations of how you can experience the nightlife in Chiang Mai, from browsing its famous Night Market to attending cultural shows and enjoying the cuisine of Northern Thailand. There's also information on what's good to buy and what sort of activities you can join.
When you're done with exploring Chiang Mai, it's time to go further afield. Chiang Mai is your base for discovering Northern Thailand, and we'll introduce all the places here to you systematically. There is so much to see, all the way from Chiang Mai to the Golden Triangle, to Mae Hong Son, Doi Inthanon, Lamphun, and many other fascinating destinations all around Northern Thailand.
The easiest, most affordable way to go about in Chiang Mai is to hire a motorized three-wheeler called a tuk tuk. You can hire them for single journeys, or to take you around per hour or even for the whole day. More information about hiring tuk tuks here.
Chiang Mai is truly a lovely city, and we hope you will enjoy your stay here, and that this website has provided you all the details to make that stay all the more enjoyable and memorable.
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Thank you very much for visiting Chiang Mai Travel Tips! My name is Tim. I am the writer of this website. I created it to share with travel enthusiasts information that I have assembled about Chiang Mai, which I hope is useful to you, and is as accurate as I am able to put together.
Chiang Mai Travel Tips combines my knowledge of Chiang Mai with talking to people, asking questions, taking photographs, snooping around, and lots and lots of research. I hope that through Chiang Mai Travel Tips, budget travelers can explore Chiang Mai on their own. This is one of over a dozen websites that I write - my websites are all listed above. I enjoy writing and describing sights so much that I never get tired doing it. All my photos are available for commercial printing - find out the photo usage rights here. If you wish to share your photos on this website, upload them to Panoramio (www.panoramio.com) and send the URL to me for consideration. I would love to display your photos here. Also, if you have additional information about the places I have written about, please write and tell me about it. If I include your information, I will provide an acknowledgement within the page.
I want to thank all of you who have written to me providing support and encouragement, and thanks also to those who helped me make the information more accurate. If you'd like to correspond with me, send your mails to my address as shown below:
