Many experiences in Chiang Mai are ideal for the budget traveler – grazing on street food, enjoying relaxing traditional Thai massages, sipping red iced tea, renting a scooter to buzz out to waterfalls and hot springs – but everyone knows that the best things in life are free. And Chiang Mai has experiences by the bucketload that cost absolutely nothing at all.
Start with the city’s myriad ancient wat (Buddhist monasteries), most of which can be visited any day of the week without paying an entry fee. Then there are Chiang Mai’s mesmerizing markets, where you can immerse yourself in local culture for nothing (if you can resist the urge to splash out on drool-inducing street food and incredibly artful handicrafts).
That’s just the beginning – cultural encounters are a recurring theme when exploring Chiang Mai for free. Here are the top things to do in the northern Thai capital without spending a baht.
More than 100 ancient monasteries dot the streets of Chiang Mai’s historic center, and most can be visited for free, though donations are appreciated (and Thai visitors usually make a contribution). Start with the big hitters – Wat Phan Tao is an astonishing fantasy of towering teak pillars that would not look out of place as a Game of Thrones location, while revered Wat Phra Singh is lavishly adorned inside and out, and Wat Srisuphan gleams with the work of local silversmiths.
The only monasteries where you’ll need to pay an entry fee are Wat Chedi Luang, with its towering ruined stupa supported by stucco elephants, mirror-mosaic adorned Wat Bupparam, Wat Suan Dok with its floor-to-ceiling Buddha image, and Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the city’s most impressive shrine. And those entry fees are modest – typically less than 40B, around the price of a plate of fried rice.
Planning Tip: Don’t overlook the city’s outlying monasteries. Beyond the historic center, Wat Chet Yot is covered with stucco depictions of devas (angelic Buddhist spirits), while Wat Umong Maha Therachan sits over a maze of brick passageways, built in the 14th century to contain the wanderings of the “mad monk” Therachan.
There’s nothing surprising about free conversation, but Chiang Mai’s organized Monk Chat sessions are both free and fascinatingly insightful. At monasteries such as Wat Suan Dok and Wat Srisuphan, chatty monks with good English language skills take a seat at designated tables at fixed times and wait for interested travelers to pull up a chair so they can share stories of their journey into the sangha (brotherhood) and the day-to-day experience of being a Buddhist monk. There’s also a monk chat session at Wat Chedi Luang, but you’ll have to pay the entry fee to join the sessions.
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
British skies dazzle when the sun sinks, and there are a handful of dark sky reserves and discovery sites where the lack of light pollution can help stargazing enthusiasts feel that bit closer to the universe. Take a winter stomp across freezing moors or a late-night summer drive up to a remote hilltop to find a sky full of stars with distant planets glittering overhead on clear nights. Often, there’s no need for a telescope either — star clusters such as Pleiades and Hyades, the Milky Way, nebulae and shooting stars can often be seen with the naked eye or with the help of a pair of cheap binoculars and stargazing apps such as Stellarium Mobile.
People may think of Thailand as a food-focused destination, or a place for great nightlife or even a wellness center and somewhere to go and be pampered.
If we adopted a child’s-eye view of the world, how would we choose to have fun? It’s likely to be about more than the usual incentives, such as an ice cream, suggests research from Nature Communications. According to the journal, children as young as four seek experiences that deliver positive results, guide action, answer questions about the world — and are just plain fun. Whether it’s getting up-close with crustaceans on a rockpooling adventure, diving into a good book at a literature festival, learning to surf, taking to the stage or gazing at the stars, these 12 UK-based experiences deliver hands-on learning and creativity.
For anyone who has traveled abroad recently, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that traveling outside the country can sometimes be cheaper than traveling within the States. One of the places that’s true is in Thailand. Currently, $1 is worth roughly 35 Thai baht. Back here in the States, that wouldn’t even get me a pack of gum, but in Chiang Mai, that can get you a motorcycle taxi ride. If you’re traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand, here is what you could spend a day in Chiang Mai.
The eclectic city of Istanbul, the fantastical rock forms of Cappadocia, the ancient ruins of Ephesus, and the glimmering Mediterranean and Aegean coastlines are Türkiye’s biggest draws, but each region of the country has something distinct to offer.
On Antigua, there’s “365 beaches, one for every day of the year.” It’s a long-standing motto that keeps tourists coming to the shores of this dual-island country (along with neighboring Barbuda). Antigua is the bigger of the two, covering 108 square miles and more beaches than you’ll likely be able to squeeze into one visit, from the easternmost secluded white sands of Halfmoon Bay, to Galley Bay Beach, known for its surf-friendly waves and sea turtle hatchlings.