Why choose a sanctuary with no riding and no shows
Picture a morning in the hills outside Chiang Mai: the air is still cool, thin mist hangs over the treetops, and you are standing by a stream with a bunch of bananas in your hand. A large elephant ambles over and calmly reaches out its trunk to take one. There is no blaring music, no queue to climb on board — just you, a mahout who has cared for this elephant for years, and an animal that gets to live like an elephant. That is what an ethical elephant sanctuary sets out to offer.
Chiang Mai was long known for elephant riding, but travellers have come to understand that riding, training elephants to perform and using a bullhook all cause these animals real stress and pain. Many newer places in the Mae Taeng valley to the north and Mae Wang to the south-west have shifted to becoming refuges for elephants rescued from former trekking camps or the logging trade, and they let people observe and care for the elephants instead of riding them.
A day at a place like this usually starts with getting to know each elephant, preparing their food and feeding them, walking with them through a patch of forest, then finishing by helping them bathe and mud-bath in the stream. It is fun, you get genuinely close to the elephants, and crucially it does not harm them. The only homework is choosing a place that truly looks after its elephants rather than one that simply slapped the word "sanctuary" on the sign — which is exactly what the next section walks you through.
