Mae Taeng Elephant Camp

Maetaeng Elephant Park sits on the Mae Taeng River in Chiang Dao district, about 45 minutes from central Chiang Mai — one of the valley’s older camps, founded in 1994 by the Chailert family (the same family behind Elephant Nature Park, run separately by a different branch). Its standard package, roughly 1,600 THB and about four hours, bundles elephant trekking, a trained-elephant show, bamboo rafting, an ox-cart ride and lunch.

We don’t recommend riding or performance camps, and the park’s core package is one. “Trekking” here means riding, and the show puts elephants through football, drawing and instrument-playing routines taught by repetition — training built on control, not natural behaviour. Riding itself places sustained, unnatural load on an elephant’s spine. The park has also added a separate five-station “Hug Elephant” education programme, around 1,650 THB, that drops riding entirely in favour of feeding, herbal soap-making and bathing — a genuine step, but it runs alongside the traditional package rather than replacing it, and third-party booking sites still sell the trekking-and-show version as the default.

If you book here, ask by name for the no-riding “Hug Elephant” programme rather than the standard trekking package — the two are priced and marketed separately, and it’s easy to end up booked onto the wrong one through a tour agent who doesn’t distinguish them. The park also runs a clinic, opened in 2006, originally for pregnant elephants and now handling minor medical issues — a genuine welfare service, but one that operates alongside the visitor trekking business rather than as an alternative to it.

Watch out: package tour listings for this camp often bundle it with Chiang Mai city hotel pickup and market the whole day as an “elephant sanctuary experience,” language that blurs the distinction between the riding package and the newer educational option. Read the itinerary line by line — “elephant trekking” or “elephant show” in the inclusions means the ride-and-show format described above.

For a cleaner choice, Elephant Nature Park — also on the Mae Taeng River, a short distance further up the valley — is the country’s best-known no-riding, no-show model: walking alongside rescued elephants, feeding, and watching them bathe, with no chains, no bullhooks, and no performance schedule. Our guide to ethical elephant sanctuaries in Thailand breaks down what separates a genuine sanctuary from a repackaged camp and lists more vetted options.

We keep this page live so anyone searching for the park finds an honest account of what’s actually on offer, rather than a booking pitch.