Northern hills and Khao Sok: 14 days walking Thailand
Thailand is not thought of as a walking country, which is why the walking is so quiet. This route puts two nights in the hills west of Chiang Mai, a national park with the highest ground in the country, and three nights on a rainforest lake you reach by boat because there is no road.
- Duration
- 14 days
- Pace
- Active
- Hotel changes
- 7
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $1,400 per person
It is the least polished of our Thailand itineraries. Some of the accommodation is simple, one night is a mattress on a wooden floor, and you will be wet at some point. It is also the one our own consultants book for themselves.
We run it from November to February. The hills are dry and cool then, and the burning season that fills the northern valleys with smoke from late February to mid-April has not started.
Who it suits: walkers of ordinary fitness who want a country rather than a resort. Days on foot run four to six hours over uneven ground. No technical skill required.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive in Bangkok. Late arrival, one night near the airport or by the river depending on your flight. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Morning flight, an hour and fifteen. Afternoon walking the old city and its temples on foot, which is the gentle version of what the rest of the trip does. Kit check with your guide in the evening.
Day 3: Chiang Mai to the hills. Two and a half hours west by road into the Mae Chaem district, then walking from mid-morning. Four hours through forest, terraced fields and a Karen farming village where you stay the night. A wooden house, a shared meal cooked on a wood fire, a mattress and a mosquito net. The household is paid directly for hosting you.
Day 4: Trekking. Five to six hours over a ridge to a second village, through bamboo and old-growth forest, with a river swim in the middle. Same standard of accommodation, different family, different valley.
Day 5: Out of the hills to Doi Inthanon. A shorter morning walk down to the road, then into Doi Inthanon national park. An afternoon on the Kew Mae Pan nature trail along an exposed ridge with a real view when the air is clear, and a night in a lodge with hot water and a bed, which will feel extravagant.
Day 6: Doi Inthanon to Chiang Mai. The waterfalls on the way down, then back to the city by early afternoon. Laundry, a massage and an evening off.
Day 7: The elephant day. A full day at an observation-led project outside Chiang Mai, walking with a herd across their ground rather than riding, washing or performing with them. It is a long day on foot in forest and it fits this trip better than any other we build. We name the project in your proposal.
Day 8: Chiang Mai to Khao Sok. Fly south to Surat Thani, about an hour and a half, then two hours by road inland to the edge of the national park. A lodge on the river outside the park boundary. Evening walk to listen to the forest, which is louder than any city you have slept in.
Day 9: Khao Sok, the jungle floor. A guided day inside the park on the valley trails, looking for gibbons at first light, hornbills through the morning and the rest of it in the understorey. Rainforest here is older than the Amazon and it feels it. Afternoon tubing on the Sok river if the level allows.
Day 10: Khao Sok to Cheow Lan lake. An hour to the dam, then 90 minutes by longtail across a reservoir with limestone towers standing straight out of the water. You sleep on a floating raft house tied to the shore, with no road, limited electricity and a swim off your own veranda. This is the best night in Thailand and it is also the simplest room on this trip.
Day 11: Cheow Lan lake. Dawn safari by boat when the mist is still on the water, a jungle walk to a cave if the water level is safe, and an afternoon of swimming and doing nothing. Second night on the raft.
Day 12: Lake to the coast. Back across the water, then two hours west to Khao Lak on the Andaman coast. A quiet beach hotel, a proper shower and a bed with sheets.
Day 13: Khao Lak, free. Nothing scheduled. Between roughly mid-October and mid-May you can add a day boat to the Similan islands, which is some of the best snorkelling in Thailand and which we will book if you want it. Outside those months the national park is closed and we will say so rather than sell you a substitute.
Day 14: Departure. An hour and a half to Phuket airport and your flight home.
What is included
Accommodation throughout with breakfast, two nights of village homestay with all meals and direct payment to the households, two nights on a Cheow Lan raft house with full board and boat transfers, both domestic flights with a real baggage allowance, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on transfer days, a trekking guide from the region who speaks the village languages, national park fees and permits, the guided Khao Sok jungle day, the full-day elephant project, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our representatives in Thailand for the whole trip.
Honest notes
About hill tribe trekking. This is a product with real ethical problems and you should know what they are. Large parts of the market run the same route past the same villages six times a day, treat households as photograph stops and pay the operator rather than the community. In Mae Hong Son province there are ticketed villages where Kayan women wearing brass neck coils, many of them refugees from Myanmar with restricted legal status, are displayed for an entrance fee. We do not sell those, at any price, under any description.
What we do is smaller and slower: a guide from the region, groups of no more than six, routes that reach households paid directly for hosting you, and two nights in homes rather than in a purpose-built trekking lodge. It is less photogenic than the brochure version. Ask us who guides it and we will give you a name.
The accommodation is simple. Two nights on a mattress in a village house, two nights in a raft house with a shared bathroom block and power for part of the evening. If that is not what you want, say so now and we will build you a different fortnight rather than have you discover it on day 3.
Leeches. Present in the Khao Sok forest, more so after rain. They are harmless and unpleasant. Long socks help, salt helps more, and your guide carries both.
Weather. Khao Sok gets rain in every month of the year, which is why the forest is what it is. The driest run is roughly January to April. We plan the lake nights with a spare day of flexibility and our partner team moves them if the water is dangerous.
What we leave out. Pai, which is a pleasant town that has become a backpacker circuit, and the Mae Hong Son loop, which needs its own week and three more days of driving than this route has room for.
Built by Osnat Angerman, our Southeast Asia specialist, and walked by our partner team before it goes out.
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