Everything practical, including the bits people leave out
How to get in from the airport, how to move around, and what to know before choosing your dates.
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Chiang Mai is an easy city to arrive in. It is small, the airport is almost in town, and nothing about it is intimidating on a first visit to Asia. The one decision that genuinely changes your trip is when you come, so that section is first.
When to come, and the season nobody advertises
Roughly from mid-February into April, and sometimes May, crop burning, forest fires and smoke from across the region settle in the valley Chiang Mai sits in. In bad weeks the city has topped IQAir's live ranking of the world's most polluted cities. Doi Suthep disappears, the sunsets turn a strange orange, and people with asthma have a genuinely unpleasant time.
Almost no travel site will lead with this, because March is cheap and easy to sell. We would simply not book Chiang Mai in March. If your dates are fixed and March is what you have, come anyway, keep a good mask in your bag, check an AQI app each morning and plan the outdoor days around it, but go in knowing.
Everything else about the calendar is straightforward.
November – February
Cool, dry, mostly clear, though the air can start to turn from mid-February. 15–30 °C, cold enough at dawn on Doi Inthanon to want a jacket. The best months, and the busiest and priciest.
March – April
Hot and smoky. 35–40 °C. Burning season, often into April and sometimes May. Songkran, from 13 to 15 April, is worth planning around, but it is not a clean-air window.
May
Hot, the first storms arrive, the landscape starts to turn green again. Underrated.
June – October
Green season. Heavy rain most afternoons, rarely all day. Waterfalls at full flow, rice terraces at their most photogenic, half the visitors and much lower prices.
Loy Krathong and Yi Peng fall together on the full moon of the twelfth lunar month, in November. Krathongs go on the river, lanterns light up the temples, and the whole city stops. It is the single most beautiful thing that happens in Chiang Mai, and hotels fill up well ahead. The mass lantern releases at the ticketed venues outside town are a separate, expensive, and much more staged event than what happens in the city itself.
Songkran, 13 to 15 April, is the Thai new year and in Chiang Mai it is a three-day water fight of national reputation, centred on the moat. Nothing normal happens during it. Either come for it deliberately or avoid the dates.
The Flower Festival takes over the first weekend of February with floats and the botanical displays at Suan Buak Hat.
Chiang Mai International (CNX) is about four kilometres from the Old City, ten to twenty minutes depending on traffic, and one of the shortest airport runs of any major city.
Grab and Bolt both work well and are the simplest option: order from the app inside the terminal and walk to the marked pick-up point. Expect somewhere around 120 to 200 baht into the centre. The official airport taxi desk in arrivals is a fixed-price alternative at a slightly higher rate and is entirely legitimate.
There is a red songthaew stand outside arrivals and a public bus, but with a suitcase and a first arrival, the app is worth the few extra baht.
The city's real public transport: converted pickups with two benches in the back, no route and no timetable. Flag one down, say your destination through the passenger window, and if the driver nods, get in the back and pay when you get out. He will pick up others going roughly the same way. Agree the fare before boarding if you are going somewhere unusual or out of the centre. A short hop inside the moat should be around thirty to fifty baht per person, and being quoted two hundred means he has decided you are chartering the whole vehicle.
Grab and Bolt
Price fixed in the app
Both work throughout the city. The price is set before you accept, which removes the whole negotiation, and cars are usually four to eight minutes away. Slightly more expensive than a songthaew for one person, cheaper for three. This is what most residents use after dark.
Tuk-tuk
Negotiate, always
Faster than a songthaew, noisier, and priced by whatever the driver thinks you will pay. Fine for a short hop if you enjoy them; agree the number before you sit down. There is no meter and there never was.
Scooter
200–300 baht a day
The way to see the countryside, and a real decision rather than a formality. You legally need a licence covering motorcycles plus an international driving permit; police checkpoints around the moat are routine and the fine is small but the real issue is insurance, which will decline everything if you were not licensed. Helmets are mandatory and enforced. If you have never ridden, Chiang Mai traffic is not the place to learn.
On foot
Inside the Old City only
The moat square is about a kilometre and a half on each side and the temples inside it are best done walking. Beyond that, pavements are unreliable, shade is scarce, and from March the heat makes a two-kilometre walk a genuinely poor decision.
Money
The currency is the Thai baht. Thai ATMs charge a fixed foreign-card fee of around 220 baht per withdrawal on top of whatever your own bank takes, so withdraw large amounts rarely rather than small amounts often. Always decline the machine's offer to convert to your home currency: that conversion is where the bad rate hides.
Cards work in hotels, malls, chain restaurants and most cafés. They do not work at markets, street food stalls, songthaews, small guesthouses or temple donation boxes, which is most of what makes Chiang Mai worth visiting. Carry cash and carry small notes.
Tipping is not expected and not a system. Rounding up a restaurant bill or leaving twenty or fifty baht for a good guide is normal and welcome; ten per cent as a rule is not a Thai custom.
Phone and internet
AIS, TrueMove and dtac all sell tourist SIMs at the airport for roughly 300 to 600 baht with generous data for seven to thirty days. Setup takes five minutes at the counter and they will put the card in for you. An eSIM bought before you fly is now equally viable and often cheaper.
Wifi is excellent and everywhere. Chiang Mai's remote-work economy exists because the connection is genuinely good, in cafés as much as in hotels.
Entry, health and the small print
Many nationalities, including most of Europe, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia, currently enter Thailand without a visa for a stay of up to sixty days. This has changed twice in recent years and it can change again, so check your own government's advice and the Thai e-visa site in the month before you fly, not the month after you book.
No vaccinations are required for entry. Dengue is present year-round and rises in the rainy season, so repellent in the evenings is sensible. Don't drink from the tap; everyone here drinks bottled or filtered water, and restaurant ice is made commercially and is fine.
Chiang Mai Ram and Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai are private, fast, English-speaking and used to treating travellers. Take travel insurance that covers scooter riding if you intend to ride, because the standard policy does not.
A note on prices on this site
Everything above is given in ranges and rounded deliberately. Fares, fees and admissions in Thailand move, and a site quoting an exact figure from two years ago is worse than one that admits the range. Where we do not know a current price, we say so rather than inventing one.
Around three hundred temples inside the city, more than thirty within the old walls alone. Nobody sees them all and nobody should try. Here are the nine that earn a place in a short stay, in the order we would visit them.
Chiang Mai is small but it is not walkable end to end. Pick the wrong side of town and you will spend your week in the back of a red truck. Here is what each neighbourhood is actually like.
Every camp around Chiang Mai now calls itself a sanctuary. The word alone tells you little. Here is what to look at instead, what your money actually pays for, and what nobody selling you a day out can honestly promise.
Worth a full day from November to May, for the ridge, not the summit. Outside those months we would spend the day somewhere else.
Common questions
When is the best time to visit Chiang Mai?
November to February: dry, clear and between fifteen and thirty degrees. It is also high season, so book accommodation early, especially around Loy Krathong in November.
What is the burning season in Chiang Mai?
Roughly mid-February into April, sometimes May, when crop burning, forest fires and regional smoke fill the valley. In that window Chiang Mai has at times topped IQAir's live ranking of the world's most polluted cities. If you can choose your dates, choose others.
How do I get from Chiang Mai airport to the city?
The airport is about four kilometres out, ten to twenty minutes. Grab or Bolt from the app is the simplest option at roughly 120 to 200 baht; the official taxi desk in arrivals is a fixed-price alternative at a slightly higher rate.
How do songthaews work in Chiang Mai?
Flag down a red truck, tell the driver your destination through the window, and get in the back if he agrees. You pay on arrival, typically thirty to fifty baht per person inside the city. Agree the price first for anywhere unusual or outside the centre.
Can I use my card in Chiang Mai, or do I need cash?
Both. Cards work in hotels, malls and most cafés; markets, street food, songthaews and small guesthouses are cash only. Thai ATMs add a fixed foreign-card fee of around 220 baht per withdrawal, so take out larger amounts less often.
Do I need a visa for Thailand?
Many nationalities currently enter without one for up to sixty days, but the rules have changed twice in recent years. Check your own government's travel advice in the month before you fly rather than relying on any travel site, including this one.
