Massive terra-cotta brick city wall with crenellated watchtowers flanked by green trees

Uniquely

Chiang Mai

Thailand

Things you can do here and essentially nowhere else. Not everything there is to do — just what you would travel for.

Stefan Fussan · CC BY-SA 3.0

6 records·within 50 km30 mi

Ornate temple facade with intricate gilded carved wood panels and tiered gold-tipped roof — Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0

See the only ordination hall in the world made of silver

Wat Sri Suphan

Wualai has been the silversmiths' quarter for five centuries. In 2004 they started re-skinning their temple's ordination hall in hand-beaten silver, and finished in 2016.

Repousse silver, and men only inside

Red brick gate with crenellated parapets and wooden doors, weathered masonry showing age and detail — Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Release a lantern at the festival that invented the image

Free

Tha Phae Gate

Yi Peng is Lanna, not Thai. The photograph everyone has seen of a sky full of lanterns is this festival, in this city.

24 and 25 November 2026

Climb up a waterfall that cannot be slippery

Free

Bua Tong Sticky Waterfall

The rock is tufa limestone, laid down grain by grain by a calcium-heavy spring. Algae will not grow on it, so you climb up the falls instead of looking at them.

Barefoot, against the water

Wooden boardwalk winding through misty alpine grassland with forested mountainside beyond — Witthawat Yutthagosa · CC BY-SA 4.0

Stand on the highest ground in Thailand

Doi Inthanon National Park

The country's highest point is a cool, mossy cloud forest rather than a view. The view is at the twin royal chedis five kilometres below it.

2,565 metres, and often frozen

Earthen meditation tunnel entrances with sloped roofs built into a forested hillside, showing shaded brick passages — Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Walk the meditation tunnels dug for a single monk in 1297

Free

Wat Umong

The king's favourite monk could not find quiet inside the city walls, so the king had tunnels cut into a forested hillside for him. They are still there, and you can walk them.

Brick tunnels, 1297

Massive brick chedi with tapered form and carved architectural details, tall railings surrounding base — Chainwit · CC BY 4.0

Stand under the broken chedi that held the Emerald Buddha

Wat Chedi Luang

For most of a century Thailand's most sacred object lived in this tower. An earthquake took the top off in the 1500s and it has been left that way ever since.

82 metres, until the earthquake

Notable art and monuments in Chiang Mai

Worth stopping for, but a few minutes rather than an afternoon. Statues, murals, markers and monuments.

1 entry

Stand at the surviving gate of the old walls

Free

Tha Phae Gate

The eastern gate of the 13th-century city wall, and the square in front of it where Chiang Mai gathers.

The city's front door

More experiences in Chiang Mai

Not unique, and not pretending to be. Good things to do here that you could also do somewhere else.

5 entries

Golden Buddha statue seated within ornate gold shrine frame in yellow-walled temple interior — Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Visit the temple with the Lion Buddha

Wat Phra Singh Woramahawihan

The finest of the old city temples, 14th century, with a mosaic-inlaid viharn and gilded chedis.

The old city's grandest

Soaring red-lacquered wooden columns supporting ornate ceiling in vast temple interior hall with natural light — ekeidar · CC BY-SA 3.0

See the teak throne hall that became a temple

Free

Wat Phantao

A small hall built entirely from carved teak panels, which served as a royal throne hall before it became a temple.

All carved teak

Jade Buddha figure in ornate pose adorned with jeweled gold chest armor and elaborate necklace — Deepak-nsk · CC0

Climb the naga staircase to the mountain temple

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

The city's signature temple, 15 km up Doi Suthep, reached by a 306-step staircase flanked by two enormous naga serpents.

306 steps

Spend a Sunday morning in a built artists' village

Free

Baan Kang Wat

A purpose-built village of artist studios and workshops in Hang Dong, 5 km southwest of the old city.

Studios, not shops

Eat with your feet in the water at the reservoir

Huay Tueng Thao Reservoir

A reservoir 15 km north ringed with bamboo huts built out over the shallows, where lunch arrives while you sit in the water.

Bamboo huts on stilts