Care For Elephants (Elephant Nature Park)

Care for Elephants is a small Elephant Nature Park project that gives a home to four elephants retired from logging and, later, from riding work. You spend most of the day with these four in a small group, then finish with an afternoon at Elephant Nature Park itself. It suits adults and older children who are happy to walk for about two hours on forest trails and who want a quieter, more hands-on day than the standard park visit.

After pickup in Chiang Mai city the drive takes about an hour, with a safety briefing on the way. You start by washing and cutting fruit and vegetables and feeding the elephants, then roll rice and banana balls as treats. Late morning you walk with the elephants through the forest, feeding them bananas as they forage, and watch them cover themselves in mud and scratch against trees. Lunch is a vegetarian buffet on the hillside. Afterwards you watch the elephants at the river, then walk back with them to the project. Around mid afternoon you transfer to Elephant Nature Park and spend about an hour observing the big herd relaxing in the late afternoon light before the drive back to Chiang Mai.

The project says it never asks its elephants to perform tricks or anything unnatural; the day is built around their normal routine of eating, walking and bathing. Expect to get muddy or wet, so bring a change of clothes and shoes. Luggage is limited to one small daypack per person.