🇹🇭 Thailand · SE Asia
Chiang Mai
Northern Thailand's mellow hub — temple-filled old town, cheap eats, mountain treks.
culturenatureslow☀ best: Nov – Feb
The Chiang Mai guide
Inside the premium guide
A preview of the real thing — a detailed premium guide, researched and checked in 2026. Click a page to enlarge.
THE COMPLETE CITY GUIDE
THAILAND · RESEARCHED 2026
Chiang Mai
Northern Thailand's mellow hub — temple-filled old town, cheap eats, mountain treks.
sama·sama
The cover
What this guide covers
38 pages, A4 — cover to back. A phone edition comes with it.
What’s inside + how to use
The place & what a day costs
City at a glance — the best-of snapshot
What & how to eat
Where to eat — cheap & local
Mid-range & special occasion
Sweets, cafés & coffee
Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Supermarkets & typical prices
Markets & food halls
Souvenirs & shopping
Where to stay — neighbourhoods
Budget, boutique & luxury stays
Hostels — the backpacker shortlist
Six big things to do
Top 10 experiences — book & compare
Nightlife & after dark
Best day trips
Insider tips + safety & scams
Ready-made day plans
Getting around
Arrival, tickets & transport cheat sheet
When to go + best time to visit
Cash, cards & tipping
Connectivity & insurance
Health, safety & entry
The travel toolbox
Every link, one place
Sama·Sama · Chiang Mai guide38 pages
Everything it covers
STRAIGHT FROM THE GUIDE
Designed cover to cover
One real entry from the Chiang Mai guide
The price tables further down give you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — 35 of them in Chiang Mai, each priced, each one tap from Google Maps.
€1.30-2.10Khao Kha Moo Chang PhueakThe stall everyone means when they say the Cowboy Hat Lady — she has worn the hat for decades, she works a cauldron of pork leg braised in five-spice and soy until it collapses, and she ladles it over rice with a boiled egg and pickled greens. The queue starts before she opens and the pork is often gone well before closing, so come at six rather than nine.📍 Open in Google Maps →One of 35. The rest are in the guide.
Everything. Two files. One price.
This isn’t a blog post saved as a PDF — it’s a detailed, premium, 38-page A4 magazine — researched and checked in 2026, designed to be used. And every purchase comes as two files: the A4 edition for your laptop, tablet and printer, and a phone edition laid out tall and narrow so you never pinch or zoom — the same guide re-flowed into 119 phone-sized pages. Keep it on your phone or print it, open it at a street corner in Chiang Mai and it answers the question you’re standing there with.
38A4 pages — cover to back
119phone pages — same guide, re-flowed
376+researched prices in €
262live, verified links
124jump straight to Google Maps
56hand-picked photos
Add it up: 694+ researched details — every price checked, every venue placed, every link live. More usable information than a week of blog-tab hopping, in one beautiful file.
- Made for the phone in your pocket — as well as the A4 magazine you get a phone edition: one attraction per screen, nothing cut, every link still live. No pinching, no sideways scrolling.
- Every venue is one tap from navigation — 124 Google Maps links mean you never type an address on holiday.
- Real prices, not vibes — three honest daily budgets (€26 / €56 / €122) and prices on everything from a dorm bed to a splurge dinner.
- Zero sponsorships — nobody paid to be in this guide. If it’s in, it’s in because it’s good.
- Book everything from the page — stays open on Booking.com & Hostelworld, experiences on GetYourGuide, Trip.com & Klook, transport on official operator sites.
- Plan-it-for-me included — ready day plans, a Top 10, a best-of snapshot, and neighbourhood “best for” labels that choose your base with you.
Buy the Chiang Mai guide — €9.95 →Or buy Chiang Mai on Etsy ↗
Was €14.50 — now €9.95, every city the same.
This page gives you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — every venue named, priced and linked.
SHOESTRING
€26/day
dorms, street plates, transit
COMFY
€56/day
private room, sit-down meals, a treat
FLASH
€122/day
nice hotel, good dinners, no maths
🧮 Trip maths
€395 total
What Chiang Mai costs, day to day
🛵 Getting around
Grab
Songthaew (red truck)
Scooter rental
Songthaew shared ride€0.9–€1.7
Grab bike hop€1.3–€3.5
Scooter / day€4.3–€6.9
Airport to old town€3.5–€6.9
🛏 Stays
Per night
Hostel dorm bed€5.2–€12
Airbnb / apt 1-BR€26–€56
3-star hotel€22–€52
Boutique / resort€78–€191
Monthly
Studio€304–€564
1-BR, decent area€391–€738
🛒 Groceries & daily life
Big C / Lotus's — hypermarkets, open late
Tops — mid-range supermarket
7-Eleven — everywhere, cheap eats
Fresh market — cheapest produce
Milk 1L€1
Bread€0.9
Eggs 12€1.6
Cheese 1kg€10
Chicken 1kg€3
Rice 1kg€0.9
Beer 0.5L€1.4
Coffee jar€4.3
🍜 Eating out
Khao soi€1.3–€2.6
Market / street plate€1.3–€2.6
Northern-Thai dinner€4.3–€8.7
Nice restaurant dinner€10–€22
Fine dining tasting€39–€95
🎡 Things to do — with kids
Ethical elephant sanctuary (no riding)€43–€69
Doi Suthep temple€0.9–€4.3
Night bazaar + zoo€0–€13
🌙 Things to do — grown-ups
Doi Inthanon / mountain trek day€26–€52
Thai cooking class€22–€35
Old-city temple + café hop€0–€8.7
Sunday Walking Street market€0–€8.7
🌤 Climate
Day °CRain
Best: Nov – Feb · Wet: May – Oct
Cool dry season Nov–Feb is perfect. Avoid the Mar–Apr 'burning season' when crop smoke chokes the valley; May–Oct is green and rainy.
✈️ Getting there
AirAsiaThai Lion AirBangkok AirwaysNok AirBangkok€22–€61
Phuket€35–€87
Kuala Lumpur€43–€113
CNX airport is 10 min from the old town. Cheap, frequent hops from Bangkok; some regional international routes too.
🏧 ATMs & money
Fees: The region's worst: a flat 220 ฿ (~$6) surcharge on every foreign-card withdrawal, at every bank. Soften it by withdrawing the max (20,000–30,000 ฿) in one go.
Limits: 20,000–30,000 ฿ per pull (Krungsri and CIMB sit at the generous end) — max it out to dilute that flat fee.
Best machines: Bangkok BankKasikornKrungsri
Thailand is an EXCHANGE country: bring crisp USD/EUR notes and change at SuperRich (the green/orange booths) or Vasu in Bangkok — rates beat any card path. Counter cash-advance inside a bank branch (passport needed) also dodges the 220 ฿.
🩺 Health & safety
Vaccines: Routine shots up to date, plus Hepatitis A and (for street-food adventurers) Typhoid. Rabies and Japanese encephalitis only for long rural stays — a travel clinic will tell you in five minutes.
Health: Dengue mosquitoes bite at dawn and dusk — repellent is the one habit that matters. Skip tap water (sealed bottles and purified ice are everywhere); busy stalls with turnover are the safe street food. Private hospitals are world-class and affordable — Bangkok is where the region flies for treatment.
Tap water: ❌ Don't drink the tap. Sealed bottled water is cheap and everywhere; ice in established places is factory-made and fine.
Safety: Violent crime against visitors is genuinely rare — the real risk wears two wheels: traffic. Helmet on every scooter, Grab at night, and you've handled 90 % of it. Classic scams (gem shops, 'closed temple' tuk-tuks) are annoyances, not dangers — a smile and a walk-on solves them.
Emergency: 191 police · 1669 ambulance · 1155 tourist police (English)
🌱 Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Plant-based: Easy if you say it right: 'jay' (เจ) means fully plant-based and every market has a jay stall. Watch fish sauce and oyster sauce — ask 'mai sai nam pla'.
Gluten-free: Rice-based heaven: most noodles and rice dishes are naturally gluten-free; soy sauce (wheat) hides in stir-fries — ask for 'no soy sauce'.
Veg = 'gin jay' · no fish sauce = 'mai sai nam pla' · Bangkok's Chinatown runs a whole Jay festival every October.
🛂 Visa & entry
For most short tourist trips, citizens of the US, UK, EU/Schengen, Canada, Australia and New Zealand either enter visa-free or get a simple online authorisation (an eVisa or eTA) before flying. Typical visa-free stays run 30–90 days. Some countries want a visa arranged in advance, and a growing number ask you to fill an online arrival or eVisa form even when 'visa-free' — so always check the official portal for your exact nationality before you book.
Rules change — always verify with an official source for your nationality before you book.
💬 Traveller tips & reports
Skip elephant rides — choose sanctuaries — Chiang Mai's ethical elephant sanctuaries let you feed and bathe rescued elephants without riding them (riding harms their spines). It costs a bit more (~$50–80) but it's the humane choice — and honestly the better day. Book a no-riding, small-group place ahead.
@ele.ethical · Jun '26 · ▲ 111