Start with a little Research:
When picking your elephant adventure in Thailand, it is best to do a bit of research beforehand to find an ethical elephant tour in Chiang Mai. The Elephant excursion is a very popular tourist attraction. But few of the companies are ethical providing their elephants with plenty of land to roam, food to eat, water to drink, and shade to relax away from the hot sun.
While others treat their elephants very poorly. One of the most obvious and easiest ways to see if the company is ethical is look for is a company that is “no ride” meaning they don’t allow tourists to ride the elephants. Elephants are not designed to carry things on its’ back including humans. Research has shown that the strenuous activity of carrying humans for hours each day has led to a shorter life span for the elephants. Asian Elephants are currently an endangered species and riding elephants is an activity contributing to the extinction. Poaching of baby elephants for tourism and elephant tusks for ivory are some other big contributors. So seeing that a company allows riding is the first sign that they are unethical and treating the elephant poorly.
Many of these companies are unethical in the way they treat and train the elephants. Behind the scenes and away from tourist’s prying eyes, they use bull hooks to poke, prod, and beat their elephants into submission. After hours, the elephants are confined to small places and restrained with chains. It is unnatural and cruel to separate the elephants. Just like humans, elephants want interaction with other elephants. Another thing to avoid is companies that advertise their elephants performing tricks or unnatural behaviors such as dancing, giving massages, playing soccer, etc. While it may be fun to watch, what you don’t witness is the hours of training by force and hurting the elephants that went into teaching them these acts.
Admission of guilt
During my first trip to Thailand, I rode an elephant. I was young, naive and hadn’t done my homework. I saw advertisements to ride elephants throughout my trip and didn’t think twice about how the elephants were treated. But now, I have read several articles on elephant cruelty and regret my decision. Yes it was a fun experience at the time. But having done both experiences, I can easily say that my time at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary was much more enjoyable then a 10 minute elephant ride.
Top Companies:
My suggestions for the best company to use would be the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary and the Elephant Nature Park. Those are the two companies that consistently came up with a good reputation as providing ethical elephant tours in Chiang Mai. Elephant Jungle Sanctuary was founded in 2014 as a “joint initiative between members of the Karen hill-tribes and Chiang Mai locals who were concerned about the welfare of elephants in Thailand.” It has 9 camps with a total of 30 rescued elephants that were previously mistreated. They keep family members together. In the camp that I visited, there was a pair of sisters and a mother and daughter. Proceeds from the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary are used for elephant rescue, food, veterinary care, and land. This helps their mission growth so they can rescue even more elephants!
Elephant Nature Park was founded in the 1990’s making it one of the first truly ethical elephant camps. It has won numerous awards over the years for it’s ethical treatment of animals and ethical elephant tours. The Elephant Nature Park also cares for cats, dogs, birds, and buffalo. It is a retirement home for rescued elephants that previously were forced to perform in shows and carry visitors. Their proceeds also go to maintaining and building their camps as well as rain forest restoration by plants trees in 25 acres of the mountainside.
Avoiding Elephant Travel Scam
Now a travel scam that you will see in Asia is that other companies will pick a very similar company name hoping to trick travelers into thinking that it is their company with the outstanding Trip Advisor reviews. I saw companies called Elephant Sanctuary Adventure, Chiang Mai Elephant Sanctuary, etc. Use my links above and buy your tickets online to make sure that you are choosing the right company. Also beware that you may ask your hotel to book with Elephant Jungle Sanctuary or Elephant Nature Park but they may try to pick you with another company that they get better commission from. Again, I suggest purchasing your tickets online.
Day Package Options:
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary and Elephant Nature Park both offer several different tour options to choose from that are very similar so I am going to focus on the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary since that is the company that I used. The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary offers a morning or afternoon half day tour, full day tour, and even an overnight option. Since I am on a budget with my long Sabbatical trip, I choose the half day option which cost 1,700 baht or $53.14 USD. I noticed that you really only got about 2 more hours with the elephants if you picked the half day versus the full day tour and it cost 2,400 baht or $75.26 USD. You get another two hours to learn how to make herbal medicine balls as well as some additional time feeding and bathing the elephants. Now if this is one of your bucket list items, then go for the full day! It is only an extra 700 baht or $21.95 USD more.
Overnight Option
For 4,900 baht or $154 USD you can stay overnight with the local Karen village and get additional time with the elephants. This two day package follows the same itinerary as the guests spending just one day. After the day tour guests leave, you have the option to play with the elephants for a little longer, swim in the river, or just relax. You will stay the night with a local family where they will provide you a traditional Thai dinner and you can learn more about their local customs. On the second day, you will get to trek to a waterfall and have an additional 3 hours to play with the elephants.
Be prepared that the accommodation will be very minimal if you choose the overnight option. It is basically camping with a roof over your head, a mattress to sleep on, and a mesquito net to protect you from bugs. Don’t expect a warm shower either, it will probably be the same cold water that we got at the camp. I would consider it closer to a camping experience. You will have lunch and dinner included on the first day and breakfast and lunch included on the second day.
I hope you enjoy your day with the elephants as much as I did mine! Read more about my adventure in my article, A Day at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Chiang Mai.
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