Why visit Chiang Mai?

Because it is the cultural heart of Thailand, and cooler in every sense than the south. Three hundred temples, a six-hundred-year-old Lanna capital inside a moat, the country's best craft tradition, serious wellness retreats, mountain hill country an hour away, and northern food that is sourer, more herbal and better than most people expect. It also pairs perfectly with a beach week.

When is the best time to visit Chiang Mai?

November to February, without much argument. Those months are dry, sunny and pleasantly cool, especially at altitude. Avoid March and April, when the burning season fills the valley with agricultural smoke and air quality falls sharply. The June to October rains are greener, quieter and cheaper, and usually fall in short bursts rather than all day.

Where should I stay in Chiang Mai?

Depends what you want. The Ping River and Wat Ket give you the old merchant quarter and a walk across the bridge to the market and the Old City. The Suthep foothills give you forest, quiet and wellness, ten minutes from the centre. The mountains an hour north give you altitude and hot springs. All three are covered in the guide above.

How many days do you need in Chiang Mai?

Three to four days covers the temples, a cooking class, the markets and Doi Suthep without rushing. Give it a week if you want to add the hill country, a wellness programme or a spell of doing very little, which is arguably what the city is best at.

Is Chiang Mai better than Bangkok?

They do different jobs. Bangkok is the food and energy; Chiang Mai is the culture, the craft and the cool air. Most good Thai trips include both, with two or three days in the capital at either end and longer in the north. If you only have time for one and you want temples and calm, come here.

Can you visit Chiang Mai and the beaches in one trip?

Easily. Domestic flights connect Chiang Mai to Phuket, Krabi, and Samui in an hour or two, and the north's dry season, November to February, coincides with the Andaman coast's. A fortnight comfortably takes in Bangkok, three or four days here, and a week on a beach.

Boutique Hotels in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Where to stay in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is small enough to cross in twenty minutes and varied enough that the twenty minutes matter. Four areas, four different holidays.

The Ping River and Wat Ket

The east bank was the foreigners' quarter in the teak-trading years, and it still feels slightly apart: merchant houses, riverside cafés, a lived-in calm that the Old City lost some time ago. A pedestrian bridge drops you at Warorot Market and the moat is a short walk beyond. 137 Pillars House is the anchor here, thirty suites arranged around the restored 1889 teak house that served as the Borneo Trading Company's headquarters and later as the home of Louis Leonowens, whose mother tutored the royal children of Siam. A little further downstream, The Chiang Mai Riverside takes the same idea smaller: fourteen suites on the Ping, personal butlers, breakfast brought to your room.

The Suthep foothills

West of the city, the land tilts up towards Doi Suthep and the noise stops. This is where you come for forest, temples and space, ten minutes from the Old City but a different proposition entirely. Villa Mahabhirom is the most singular thing in Chiang Mai: fourteen antique teak houses, bought from villages across central Thailand, dismantled, moved and rebuilt here without a nail. Close by, Aleenta Retreat takes the wellness route, restored Lanna teak, a spa built around personal consultation, and a green ethos that runs to cleaning the rooms with ozonated water.

The mountains

An hour north, the road climbs to Mae Rim and the air turns genuinely cold at night. Onsen at Moncham sits at 1,200 metres, a Japanese ryokan with a natural hot spring, tatami suites and gender-segregated thermal baths, which is an odd thing to find in northern Thailand until you have spent a January evening at that altitude.

The Old City

Inside the moat is where the temples are: Wat Chedi Luang, its enormous ruined stupa, Wat Phra Singh, Wat Chiang Man. Nowhere to stay in our collection sits within the walls, which is no great loss, because everything inside is walkable and everywhere outside is ten minutes away.

What to do

Climb, or drive, to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep for the view over the plain, ideally at first light. Walk the moat's temples in a morning. Take the Sunday walking street if you are here for it, and Warorot Market if you are not. Learn to cook, properly, for a day. Get out to the hill country north of Mae Rim for coffee farms and rice terraces. And spend an hour at Wat Umong, the forest temple with its brick meditation tunnels and lotus ponds, which almost nobody does.

When to go

November to February is the season, and it is a real one: dry, sunny, cold enough at night in the hills for a jumper, warm enough by day for a pool. March and April bring the burning season, when agricultural smoke settles in the valley and the air quality drops sharply, worth avoiding outright. The rains run from June into October, greening everything and thinning the crowds, and are rarely all-day affairs.