Chiang Mai Transportation - what to use to get around

Public transport in Chiang Mai is poorly developed. There are no city buses here, although they have been tried to launch them at least twice already. Therefore, you will have to travel by Songteo fixed-route taxis, by car taxi or tuk-tuks, or rent a transport.

On foot

The tourist center or the old town, bounded by the old fortress walls, has a size of only one and a half by one and a half kilometers. And it is on this territory that most of the city's attractions, hotels, night markets and other tourist infrastructure are located. It's easy to move on foot there, it's not difficult to navigate either. In some places there are no sidewalks and you have to go out on the road to get through, but the traffic in this part of the city is calm and not dense. So arm yourself with a map or download points from our map to the navigator on your smartphone, and you can go on a walking tour of the historical center of Chiang Mai.

Minibus

A myriad of fixed-route taxis, called Songthaew or Red Bus, constantly run around Chiang Mai. This is the main mode of transport in the city. They are small trucks converted for passenger transportation with a booth for passengers instead of a body. Exactly the same Songthaew ply Pattaya and the procedure for using them in Chiang Mai is the same. It is said that the minibus is controlled by the "taxi mafia" of Chiang Mai, but this should not bother you.

The cost of a trip around the city is fixed and amounts to 30 baht. You can go out of town for 60 baht. To get into a minibus, it is enough to raise your hand near the road to a Songthaew passing by. You can ask the driver if he is driving on the street you need and check the price before boarding. If you try to tell the driver a specific destination, such as a hotel or a shopping mall, for example, he will enthusiastically perceive it as that you are trying to hire him as a taxi and will gladly take you to the place at an inflated price. If you really want to hire it as a taxi, then agree on the price before the trip and bargain at the same time. What is good, the price for a trip on a Songthaew hired as a taxi will be lower than by taxi or tuk-tuk. A stop at the place you need is made by pressing the call button.

Songthaew routes are not numbered, but differ in the colors of the cars. Red cars ply the main streets of the city without established routes and pick up passengers like a taxi. Songthaew of other colors start and end their route at the main terminus of Waroros Market (the final Waroros Market on the map) and depart on routes to the suburbs of Chiang Mai:

• Yellow. Go north to Mae Rim and Doi Saket
• Green. Go northeast to Mae Jo and San Sai
• Blue. Go south to Sarapee and Lamphun
• White. Go east to Mae Taeng and San Kamphaeng
• Orange. Going northeast to Fang

Tuk-Tuk

Three-wheeled tuk-tuks like Bangkok ones travel around Chiang Mai. They work as taxis on arbitrary routes. The prices for a trip on them are higher than on a fixed-route taxi, but you do not pay for each person, but for the entire trip, so when traveling in a group, this is quite an economical way to travel. The cost of the trip must be agreed in advance and haggled. Tuk-tukers on duty at train stations and stations traditionally call a high price, which is very difficult to knock down, and sometimes it's easier to walk a hundred meters to the nearest road and catch a tuk-tuk there or it's cheaper to order a car taxi through applications.

The minimum cost of a short trip around the city is from 50 baht (per trip, not per person). And sometimes tuk-tukers refuse to drive even a couple of meters for a cost below 50 baht. A trip out of town will cost up to 150 baht. A trip to the airport, bus or railway station should cost no more than 100 baht, but they usually ask for more, you need to bargain. Prices are twice as high at night.

If you have a strong desire to ride a tuk-tuk, we advise you to do this: if the named price does not suit you, and the driver does not want to bargain, do not waste time, but just look for the next, more accommodating "driver".

Taxi

For a taxi ride in Chiang Mai, it is more convenient and more profitable to use the order through the Grab or taxi-Maxim applications, but Uber does not work here. A trip within the city limits will cost from 60 baht (approximately 1.84 USD), you can get to the airport or to the railway station for 120-150 baht. There is also a motorcycle taxi, it is almost twice as cheap. Which is convenient, in the application you will see the price of the trip immediately before the final confirmation of the order. You can pay for a trip with a card linked in the app (Russian cards don't work) or in cash at the end of the trip.

Catching a car on the street is more expensive than driving through apps, and in general, it's not so easy to find a car taxi in the narrow streets of the old town. So if you are not "friends" with applications or there is no mobile Internet, you will have to order a car through the hotel reception by phone or ask the staff to make you an order from your smartphone. For a trip from the airport, you can use a taxi order at the counter in the flight terminal, the price there is fixed – 150 baht (approximately 4.6 USD) to any hotel in the old town.

Rent a motorcycle or car

Traffic on the roads in Chiang Mai is calm, you can safely rent a car or motorbike. But if you decide to ride further from the city in the province of Chiang Mai and neighboring provinces, be prepared for difficult mountain roads with serpentines. Be especially careful when driving on two-wheeled vehicles. Believe me, there are a lot of tourists who took a little ride on a flat road in the city and felt like "schumachers", then they fall or even fly off the track on steep turns. So be very careful!

There are a lot of motorcycle rentals in Chiang Mai, at least several dozen. There are separate specialized ones, as well as many hotels and guest houses rent two-wheeled vehicles. Most of the rentals are in the old town. The rental price between rentals in the old town and beyond is no different, we checked everything. However, between different rentals, the price even a dozen meters from each other may differ by 50-100 baht, you will have to walk, ask prices and negotiate, bargaining is possible.

The real rental price as of 2025: from 250 baht per day a simple old Honda Click 125 automatic machine (approximately 7.66 USD); for motorbikes in a new condition and with a volume of 150 cubes, they ask for 300 baht (approximately 9.19 USD). The price includes a helmet or two helmets, be sure to wear them. They can give a discount for long-term rent, but not always and everywhere. We were once refused a lease for a few days when the owner found out that we were going to go to a neighboring province. The fact is that trips far from the city on local difficult mountain roads give a lot of wear to the engine, and the distributors know this and are not particularly happy to give a discount. As a pledge, they are asked to leave money 2000-3000 baht, sometimes they ask for a passport as a pledge. But it depends on the specific distributor and how you agree with him, there are no uniform rules on this. It is dangerous to leave a passport, but alternatively you can give an internal passport, we did so and the distributor accepted it without any problems.

Now you can book a motorcycle and get it on arrival without difficult searches on the spot through the service 🏍 BikesBooking.com:

The cost of renting a car in Thailand starts from 1000 baht when booking for a short time, and reaches 500 baht when booking for a long time. There are rentals at the airport and in the old town. It is most convenient to search and book a car for rent via the Internet using the search form and price comparison from different rental companies:

Bike rental

A bicycle can be an excellent option for exploring not only the city, but also its surrounding neighborhoods. You can rent them everywhere in Chiang Mai, usually they are available at the hotel and in motorcycle rentals. For a simple single-speed bike, you need to pay from 50 baht per day (approximately 1.53 USD), for a mountain bike with a gearshift, which is perfect for trips around the neighborhood, you will have to pay already from 250 baht (approximately 7.66 USD).

City buses

Until 2011, there was a poorly developed public transport system in Chiang Mai, represented in the form of city buses, but due to unprofitability, the operation of buses was discontinued. Recently, the launch of modern air-conditioned buses was announced again with great fanfare, stops and traffic patterns appeared around the city, QR codes for downloading the urban transport application were posted, the urban transport website https://rtc-citybus.com/. But we did not see any buses in the city, QR codes lead to an error. Perhaps buses sometimes run somewhere, but as of the beginning of 2025, no one knows about it. We hope that the situation will change in the future, but so far we should not count on them.