Thailand National Parks: Back to Nature

Thailand is an adventurer's paradise, with more than 100 national parks. Into the wild: Thailand's national parks offer nature enthusiasts diverse experiences. Khao Yai has a bat exodus, Ang Thong provides opportunities for reef shark snorkelling, and Khao Sam Roi Yot boasts a cave temple accessible via a trek. As described in the Thailand travel guide, the southern coastlines are a jigsaw of limestone cliffs that plunge into green seas. Waterfalls, rare orchids, and even elephants sometimes appear in the inland woodlands, making it a must-visit destination for adventurers and travellers with My Way Travel.

Our Thailand experts are here to help you narrow down the options and settle on the perfect amusement park in Thailand. Many may be paired together for a comprehensive nature tour or contrasted with city visits or beach relaxation.

Khao Sok National Park: a night in the jungle

To curb parkland development, most Thai national parks provide nearby hotel choices. Elephant Hills has developed another strategy for dealing with the situation in Khao Sok. The Rainforest Camp has 20 safari-style tents on platforms above Cheow Lan Lake, in the middle of Thailand's biggest unspoiled rainforest.

The only sound you'll hear all night is the click of cicadas, and the only sound that will wake you up in the morning is the shriek of gibbons.

You may swim in the turquoise waters right from the balcony of your tent or take your kayak out into the lake and explore. Thai curries and salads are available at the floating restaurant's buffet.

The park's landmass was raised from the ocean bottom millions of years ago when the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates collided. As a result, we see a landscape that ranges from lowland scrub and azure streams to soaring limestone crags covered in a lush tropical rainforest. According to the guides, the natural diversity there is greater than that of the Amazon.

Staying at Elephant Hills Tented Camp, the camp's sibling resort, is recommended as part of a three-day, two-night Elephant Hills vacation. As part of their rehabilitation from working in the forestry business, the resident elephants may use your aid with basic tasks like eating and bathing. You may also go on kayak trips, see a bat colony in a cave, and go on guided walks.

How to get to Khao Sok

Phuket, on Thailand's southwestern coast, can be reached in an hour and a half by plane from Bangkok. Elephant Hills' personnel will meet you at the airport and drive you three hours to the Elephant Hills Tented Camp, where you'll spend your first night. Krabi and Khao Lak, popular beach destinations, may be reached within three hours of departure.

Kui Buri National Park: where herds roam free

After visiting many of Thailand's national parks on foot, I thought I knew what to expect on my many trips around the country. Kui Buri National Park made me taken aback.

Kui Buri National Park

This under-visited park has a single designated path leading northeast towards the town of Ruam Thai. From the town, you and your guide or local ranger will travel into the lush woods and meadows of the Tenasserim Hills in an open-air 4x4. The car may stop at various spots, and passengers can get out to search for signs of Kui Buri's biggest residents, such as broken branches or faeces.

You may go no farther into the park than the Huai Luek Wildlife Watching Area, which is your last destination. The view from the top of the hill is of a broad, open valley below. I counted more than 40 elephants in the dense grass below me, their young huddled close to their moms.

My tour guide quickly reminded me that what I had seen wasn't an isolated incident. About 320 wild elephants call this park home; it's the only spot in Thailand where you may view a herd in the wild. Seeing no elephants here would be a stroke of bad luck. The world's biggest bovine, the gaur, and gangs of golden jackals are also possible sightings.

Plantations of pineapples and rubber trees extend right up to the park's border in the rural settlement of Ruam Thai. You may see a community effort that allows communities to live in peace with their neighbors, elephants that have historically been a source of trouble because of their need for free food.

You may have lunch with a local family if you visit their village. They were eager to share stories about living in rural Thailand with me. They described the system of glass bottles they had set up that jingle when the elephants got too near as an example of how they modified their agricultural practices to keep the animals safe. Later, I was given a tour of the settlement and shown a stilted tent where farmers take turns sleeping above their fields, lighting fires to scare away curious elephants.

Where to stay to visit Kui Buri

Baan Rai Kong Mun is a locally operated guesthouse on Ban Rai's outskirts. Though basic, each room offers a private bathroom, a hot shower, and air conditioning/Wi-Fi. You can have breakfast at the neighboring ranger station with great park views, and a local family can serve you supper.

How to get to Kui Buri

The coastal town of Ruam Thai is about a four-hour journey south from Bangkok. Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, described below, is an hour's drive from here and would make a great addition to your stay.

Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park: find a cave of kings

Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, sometimes known as the "mountain of 300 peaks," is a jumble of limestone peaks that rise out of a vast swamp like the fangs of a gigantic beast. The park's undeveloped white-sand beaches border the whole length of Thailand's central-east coast.

While the paths are well-marked, the jungle can be thick in certain areas, making scrambling challenging. Therefore, I recommend taking a guided day trip into the park. My guide and I boarded a motorboat from the adjacent hamlet of Bang-Pu and traveled down the coast to a beach inside the park's boundaries.

We hiked up the limestone cliffs and around the headland to better understand the Gulf of Thailand. The park's namesake, Phraya Nakhon Cave, is located among a network of caverns and sinkholes that make up its core. The golden Kuha Kharuehat Pavilion perches on the rise on the cave floor, and if you visit between 10 and 11 in the morning, the sun will shine through the open ceiling of this enormous cavern and reflect off it.

The pavilion first welcomed King Chulalongkorn of Thailand in 1890 and many subsequent Thai monarchs. You may return to the beach from the cave and have a beachside lunch, a dip in the ocean, or a stroll along the shore.

Where to stay to visit Khao Sam Roi Yot

Cha Am, a quiet fishing village on Thailand's eastern coast, is just a two-hour drive from Bangkok. The SO Sofitel Hua Hin, a hotel decorated with art photography and furniture, plucked them from a postmodern design studio and placed them on a secluded stretch of beach on the outskirts of the hamlet. Traveling south to Khao Sam Roi Yot takes about an hour and a half.

Khao Yai National Park: where the wild things are

Amid the woods, as the sun was about to set, my 4x4 stopped. A huge log had fallen across the street and stopped our progress. My advisor advised me to hold off on relocating it. As it slithered away into the bushes, we saw that the log was a fully-fledged reticulated python.

We paused again to watch a porcupine amble past as we continued to Khao Luk Chang Bat Cave. We were on our way to the weekly bat exodus when more than three million wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bats emerged into the night sky (the cave was empty by the time we got there; it takes approximately 40 minutes for the bats to leave the cave, and fly away from the bat hawks).

You should visit Khao Yai because the fauna is fantastic. Thailand's first national park provides a haven for various animals. The park's 50 km (31 km) paths are ideal for daylight trekking. You should hire a guide to assist you in finding your way around the trails and a park ranger to help you find the most elusive animals.

As you go through the evergreen forest and towering grasslands, you may hear the cries of macaques or gibbons below and the soaring of giant hornbills above. You can see the sparkling pill bugs and vivid pink dragon millipedes. If you want to see wild elephants, your best bet is to climb the Nong Phak Chi Watchtower and look out over a pond and salt lick.

How to get to Khao Yai

It takes around 1.5 hours to travel from Bangkok to the park. It would be a great addition to a trip to central Thailand that also takes Ayutthaya and Kanchanaburi.

Where to stay to visit Khao Yai

Forest hills form a background for the Kirimaya Golf Resort and Spa on the park's outskirts. There's a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, a turquoise pool, and a spa with 12 treatment rooms. Two nights is plenty of time to see all the park offers.

Ang Thong National Marine Park: an island wilderness

Ang Thong National Marine Park is a good option to take it easy in a Thai national park. The park, which consists of 42 limestone islands, can be reached from Koh Samui or Koh Phangan in under an hour by motorboat.

In the park are several interior marine lakes, coves, and forest-topped islands, and I spent the day bouncing between them on a speedboat trip with a small group (private charters are also available).

At each stop, you may participate in one of the many excursions offered by your guide, or you can rest on the boat's deck or the beach. Ang Thong's coral is in better shape than other popular marine parks. You might see a green sea turtle or a reef shark while you join a guided snorkeling excursion from the boat.

Smaller islands may be explored by kayak, bringing you up close to the rugged limestone cliffs and mangrove forests that plunge into the sea. Tale Nai is an emerald saltwater lake on Ko Mae Ko Island linked to the sea by underwater caverns.

The Moken are a nomadic fishing tribe that has settled on a few of the islands. There is a little eatery on Ko Wua Talap where you may feast on heaping plates of prawns and squid.

Where to stay to visit Ang Thong National Marine Park

The Anantara Rasananda finds itself on a tranquil stretch of white sand on Koh Phangan's northeast shore. Many of the contemporary apartments and villas include private pools and park views. The hotel has a jetty where guests may board the speedboats for the excursion.

Doi Inthanon National Park: cool mountain climes

The Thai highlands, of which Doi Inthanon is the country's highest mountain at 2,565 m (8,415 ft), is a portion that extends north towards the Laotian border. The neighbouring national park has a cold, cloud forest atmosphere home to some of Thailand's rare lady's slipper orchids, earning it the nickname "roof of Thailand" among locals. The Karen hill tribe, who have long called this region home, find their town of Ban Sop Had right on the park's edge.

The park is cross-sectioned by a few roads, but the best way to see it is on foot. Riding up into the park and then hiking down one of the trails. Since the pathways could be more well-defined, you'll need a local guide and physical stamina to make it over the bamboo bridges and up the steep inclines.

Some of the waterfalls along the routes are over 250 meters (820 feet) in height, and they cascade down bare granite cliff faces. As you go through the woods, you may sometimes hear the thunder of a waterfall.

Your Karen guide can also teach you a thing or two about plants. I learned from my guide how to use tree bark to make rope and how to heal various ailments (from toothache to jaundice and everywhere in between) with leaves.

Ban Sop Had is a great place to end your walk and reward yourself with coffee from beans produced in the village's plantations. I'm a coffee lover, so if you like yours strong, that's what I'd suggest.

Where to stay to visit Doi Inthanon National Park

From Chiang Mai, you can easily spend a day in the park. The Sunday market travels directly through Tamarind Village, located inside the ancient city walls of Chiang Mai. It has wide rooms and flower-filled courtyards with wood beams, whitewashed walls, and clay-tiled roofs (typical of northern Thailand buildings).