Private Tour | 3-days wildlife tour in Khao Yai
Why?
A 3-day tour in Khao Yai national park is a great way to discover the wildlife of Thailand. Besides wildlife watching there is time to visit the most interesting scenic sites of the park. No guarantees can be made in nature except lots of trees, but with some luck you might see animals like gibbons, deer, hornbills and various other bird species, macaques, and maybe even elephants.
Honestly, 3 days should be the minimum spent in this beautiful forest. You won't regret it!
What?
On these 3-day trips we spend every day from morning till evening in the jungle. Hiking, game drives, a night drive, visiting scenic highlights like the views and waterfalls, are all activities included on this tour. And one late afternoon we will watch a couple million bats flying out at sunset. We focus mainly on wildlife watching, but do also take time to enjoy the scenery.
Itinerary
Our trips start and end daily at your hotel or other locations we agreed on.
This is an example itinerary. The program might be turned upside down. We adapt to mother nature.
Day 1 - From 8 - 8:30 am till about 8:30 pm
After meeting at the agreed pick-up location in the Pak Chong area, we enter the national park where the wildlife watching will start right away. After a stop at a viewpoint where you will learn more about the park, we continue our drive to search for animals in the tree tops along the road. And after this drive it is time for your first jungle hike.
At a slow pace we take in all the sounds and smells of the forest. Together with your guide you follow any signs that could lead you to an exciting animal sighting. The dense forests make wildlife watching difficult and one needs luck to see the elusive creatures that inhabit this forest.
After the jungle walk it's time for lunch at one of the park restaurants. At midday we head to one of the park's waterfalls to relax a bit before we head out on a late afternoon drive. We will explore the areas where wild elephants occasionally come to forage or visit mineral deposits. Despite them being the largest land mammal, the thick jungle can easily hide them from view, so there are certainly no guarantees of success, but who knows...
We'll have dinner and afterwards we will be joined by a ranger with a powerful spotlight on a truck and will drive a route through both forested and open areas to look for nocturnal creatures. Deer are often seen, but also other animals like porcupines, civets, elephants, and other nocturnal wildlife might show themselves. After this long day you'll be returned to your hotel.
Day 2 - From 8 - 8:30 am till about 6 pm
This second day is similar to day 1, but we will explore different areas.
We'll go trekking in another part of the park and try to look for animals we have not seen on the previous day. Today we'll visit another waterfall, and we'll do another driving safari to search for animals.
Afterwards we'll bring you back to your hotel.
Day 3 - From 8 - 8:30 am till about 5 - 6 pm
The final day, we start again with another beautiful trail, our last jungle hike of the trip.
After lunch we'll head to the highest viewpoint of the park. This area has different vegetation and with luck we might encounter some unusual animals on the way.
After this we leave the park to head to the bat caves. These are located outside the national park and are home to more than a million bats that will exit around sunset to feed on insects. Quite a special sight!
At the end of the tour, you'll be returned to your hotel or to Pak Chong for onward transport.
Where & When?
The tour starts from Pak Chong, which is easy to reach by bus, shuttle minivan, or train from Bangkok. Private transfers by taxi or minivan can be arranged on request.
We can arrange a taxi from Bangkok or back to Bangkok on the last day. It takes 2.5 hours, it costs 2,200 Baht one way.
Our tours are operated all year round.
Tour details in short:
- Duration: 3 day(s)
- Type: Private tour
- Price: 5,200 - 16,800 Baht per person
- Group size: 1 or more people
- Grade: Moderate
- Transport: Safari vehicle
- Start: 8 - 8:30 am (day 1)
- End: 5 - 6 pm (day 3)
What to bring:
- Long trousers
- Rain clothing
- Sweater or light jacket
- Hiking or sport shoes
- Towel
- Flashlight
- Insect repellent
- Sunblock lotion
How much?
You'll be accompanied by a private guide and no other people will join you; the best way to explore nature! Our tours are all-inclusive except for the accommodation.
| Pax | Rate per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | 16,800 THB |
| 2 | 9,400 THB |
| 3 | 7,800 THB |
| 4 | 6,800 THB |
| 5 | 6,100 THB |
| 6 | 5,600 THB |
| 7 | 5,400 THB |
| 8 and up | 5,200 THB |
Tour rates include:
- Entrance fees
- English speaking guide
- Transportation from/to hotel or other meeting point
- All meals
- Snacks & fruit
- Drinking water
- Leech protection socks
Reviews from our guests
By: Jackie and Ben | posted Mon 17 Jun, 2024
We booked a 3 day tour to Khao Yai and it was one of the highlights of our trip to Thailand. Our guide Alex was absolutely fantastic! We told him that we had a particular interest in birds and throughout the whole tour he ensured that we spent time in different areas of the park birdwatching; particular highlights were watching a wreathed hornbill feeding at the nest and following trogons on one of the forest trails. We also had excellent views of elephants and gibbons on several occasions. The park is a beautiful place to visit and it was lovely to have a guide so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the area; we felt we got to see a lot of the park and lots of wildlife. In addition, the evening spent watching bats emerge from their cave at dusk was absolutely ‘magical’. Thank you for sharing such a beautiful area of Thailand with us and we would definitely rebook another tour if we’re lucky enough to return to Khao Yai.
By: Serena | posted Sun 12 May, 2024
The 3 day tour we did was great! We saw loads of animals and the ones that really stood out were hornbills, bee eaters, vipers, cobras, and elephants! We did spot a jackal at night too but it was dark so we couldn't see it too clearly. Our guide Alex was wonderful - he went out of his way to show us certain animals like pythons or brought us to camping hunts to wait for the birds to return home with preys. We appreciated the free flow of water & some chilled coke, as well as the Lays chips when we got hungry in the day. The two areas that we thought could've been better were 1) to enter the national reserve a few hours after sundown instead of immediately after sundown to improve the odds of seeing more animals coming out to hunt but I'm not sure if this is within Tontan's Travel control, and 2) to get a heads up around the dried-up waterfalls during this period and to tweak the itinerary. I had no idea that waterfalls could dry up (my bad, my ignorance) so I was expecting waterfalls since that was part of the itinerary but Alex ended up bringing us to the waterfall spots to see dried up cliffs. I reckon we could've used the time to explore other parts of the national park but all in all would still highly recommend this tour! Perks of going during this season meant we didn't have to deal with leeches and ticks but it was blazing hot every day though slightly cooler in the mountains. Going in the later part of the year would mean cooler weather but also wetter trails in the jungle.
By: Ladonna Idell | posted Sun 31 Mar, 2024
A great tour and a knowledgeable guide. The company responded so nicely when my friend could not join me on this tour.
By: Mihkel Meinberg | posted Tue 19 Mar, 2024
Long story short, everything was top-notch from the first booking email until the very end of the tour itself. Highly recommended to everyone interested in magnificent Thai nature experience.
By: Julio Bermudez | posted Thu 28 Dec, 2023
everything was very well planned. We saw amazing animals like Gibbons apes, pheasants, deer, vats, and even an elephant !!! All in the wild AMAZING!
walking in the jungle was remarkable. Our guide, Alex was superb. He spend lots of time looking for animals and plants and other details to make our experience understandable and more enjoyable. He he had ready available information to show us from books. He drove carefully, and he was safe. He got us delicious thai food for lunch and dinner. The national park is a total treasure and we are so happy to have been able to experience it and support all the excellent work that the Thai people are doing to preserve it for all humanity. Thank you for the experience.
By: Sara Albers | posted Mon 6 Nov, 2023
Highly recommended! Our guide Chung was a jungle expert and could see several animals from a kilometer away while we didn't even see them when we were standing right under them. Chung used her telescope and binoculars to show us and captured better images with my iPhone camera than my husband captured with his expensive NIKON camera. We were very lucky on the first day. Macaques, monitor lizards, deer, gibbons, hornbills and elephants! The second and third days fell on the weekend, making the park busier with locals. This was not super disturbing, but it means you see fewer different animals. Our advice is to plan the weekdays. Nevertheless, on the second and third days we saw beautiful waterfalls, viewpoints, scorpions, gibbons, oriental hornbills and various insects and birds. We also saw the Chinese water dragon, dholes, strokes and the large squirrel. Insane! Highly recommended to book a private tour, Chung knew exactly what we liked (animals & photography) and did everything she could to make the tour as fun as possible for us
By: Michael Spörlein | posted Wed 4 Oct, 2023
We did a 3 day tour and had a very nice guide. Apple picked us up from the hotel, drove us to the park and did everything so that we had a good time there and could get most of our 3 days. He tried to spot animals from the car while we were driving, stopped whenever he peeked an interesting bird or another animal, and arranged his telescope so we could see the animal from afar. We were also doing hikes in the rainforest and could ask him anything about flora and fauna there and also about Thai culture. He is very knowledgeable in both and also humorous. It was really fun spending the days with him and we would recommend him as a tour guide for anyone planning to spend time in Khao Yai. The park itself is very beautiful too and there are many animals to see. It is definitely worth visiting it, even when it is rain season, as the heavy rain was a nice experience for us (we were there at the end of rain season, so it wasn't too extreme).
By: Lina Slimani | posted Mon 18 Sep, 2023
Nous avons réservé 3 jours de visite dans le parc. Nous avons passé une très bonne 1ere journée. Nous avons vu beaucoup d’animaux que nous n’aurions pas vu sans notre guide donc merci à lui. Nous avons pu voir des le premier jour les éléphants sauvages tant attendus, mais aussi des gibbons, macaques, scorpion, vipère, calaos, insectes… Les deux jours suivants nous nous sommes ennuyées. Vraiment…
Lors de notre réservation, vous avez mentionné des « trecks », mais nous n’avons fait que de la marche dans des sentiers balisés. Nous ne sommes pas du tout allés dans la jungle et c’est vraiment dommage vu la taille du parc! Le safari se passe sur une route bien goudronnée. Si jamais vous voulez vivre une aventure, passez votre chemin. A moins que vous ne soyez retraités.
Une des guides officielle du parc a pris un scorpion dans la forêt et l’a mis dans une bouteille juste pour que les touristes qui faisaient le treck et qui ne l’auraient pas vu puissent faire des photos. C’est une honte! C’est un parc national. Partout où nous sommes allés en Thaïlande et où nous avons vu des animaux il était interdit de les toucher. Nous avons respecté. Le guide est censé donner l’exemple.
Donc en définitif c’est beaucoup trop cher pour l’expérience proposée.
> Tour operator's response
Dear Lina,
I have to rely on a google-translated version of your review, because we don't speak French.
I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed.
I understand you wrote: "We had a very good first day. We saw a lot of animals that we would not have seen without our guide so thank you to him. We were able to see the long-awaited wild elephants on the first day, but also gibbons, macaques, scorpions, vipers, hornbills, insects... The next two days we were bored. Really... When we booked, you mentioned “trecks”, but we only did walking on marked trails. We didn’t go into the jungle at all and it’s a shame considering the size of the park! The safari takes place on a well-paved road. If you ever want an adventure, move on. Unless you are retired."
You have walked various trails with our guide over the course of the entire tour. All those tracks are through proper forest, so i don't really get your point. Yes, all trails are marked trails, because park regulations don't allow us to walk off-trail. We have never promised off-trail walking in any message nor in the tour package information. I am sorry that you had different expectations about that. perhaps it got lost in translation.
Not every day is the same in nature, so perhaps you have been unlucky to see not much new species on the following days. That can happen. That's not entirely in our hands. After seeing that much on the first day, it's becoming hard to beat.
Lastly you wrote:
"One of the park's official guides took a scorpion in the forest and put it in a bottle just so that tourists who were on the trek and who hadn't seen it could take photos. It's a shame! It is a national park. Everywhere we went in Thailand and saw animals it was forbidden to touch them. We respected. The guide is supposed to set an example.""
I don't quite understand what that has to do with the tour you have booked with us and our tour guide. We can't control what other people do. Your guide was not the one who caught the animal. Our guide understood that you liked scorpions, so when he heard someone had found a scorpion he decided to bring you over to have a look, even though you had already seen one earlier on the trip.
Anyway, we are sorry that despite doing the best we could, apparently we have failed to set the right expectations during our correspondence prior to your booking.
Thank you for your feedback.
By: Peter Stoll | posted Fri 18 Aug, 2023
Our Guide Apple showed us a lot of different species in the park, like green viper, white handed gibbons, king cobra baby,… and also 4 very different walks through the jungle. He introduced us in the culture of Thai food.
We are very thankful of spending these three days in the very impressive national park Khoa Yai.
By: R&G | posted Wed 12 Apr, 2023
Excellent and exciting tour with Lek, 'the Elephant whisperer'!! We were driven around in comfort to see a range of wonderful wildlife, from hornbills and gibbons, to bears and porcupines. The highlight was a number of views of wild elephants emerging from the jungle. Lek was knowledgeable and enthusiastic and we really enjoyed spending time with him, he clearly has great passion for his work! We also arranged transfers to and from Bangkok that were comfortable and punctual - thank you all!
