Chiang Mai Night Safari

Chiang Mai Night Safari is a government-run zoo in Hang Dong district, about 20 minutes south of Chiang Mai city, where animals are viewed after dark by open-sided tram and on a walking trail. It had a soft opening in November 2005 and opened officially in February 2006, covers roughly 819 rai (about 132 hectares), and holds more than 400 animals across 50-plus species. Foreigner admission runs 800 THB for adults and 400 THB for children; Thai nationals pay 300 THB and 150 THB — a pricing gap the park doesn’t hide, since both rates are listed at the ticket counter.

Two tram routes cover the main zones: Predator Prowl, where lions, tigers, bears and hyenas are kept, and Savanna Safari, with zebra, giraffe and various antelope in a more open enclosure. A separate 1.2-kilometre walking path, Jaguar Trail, loops around the park’s lake and can be done on foot without the tram. A nightly multimedia fountain show at the park’s central plaza — around 1,200 water jets projecting onto a screen roughly 40 metres wide — runs on its own schedule and is included in general admission.

Watch out: this is a captive wildlife park, not a sanctuary, and it draws consistent animal-welfare criticism in visitor reviews — enough that some travel-booking platforms exclude it from their listings on welfare grounds. If close-up animal encounters without captivity concerns matter more to you than seeing predators at night, Elephant Nature Park in Mae Taeng is a better-reviewed, no-riding alternative near Chiang Mai.

Arrive after 6pm for the Predator Prowl and Savanna Safari trams, since the nocturnal zones don’t open until then even though gates open at 11am for the daytime Jaguar Trail. Bring a light layer — the hillside site cools down once the sun’s gone — and book tram tickets in advance in high season (November-February), when queues build fast. Don’t confuse this with Chiang Mai Zoo, a separate, older daytime zoo on the other side of the city near Doi Suthep.