Old City

The Old City is the square of streets enclosed by Chiang Mai’s moat, with stretches of the old brick wall and its corner bastions still standing. Wat Phra Singh and Wat Chedi Luang are both inside it, along with a temple on what feels like every other corner.

It is also the strongest of our Chiang Mai areas on the numbers. Averaged across our six picks here, it leads on overall score and on location. The single highest location score we list in the city is here too: 9.9, shared by BaanBooLoo Village in the north-west and Koko Palm Inn just off Ratchadamnoen, with The Inside House on 9.8.

Of those with a January price: Koko Palm Inn is around ฿1,600 a night, The Peaberry Boutique Hotel around ฿2,405, Baannalin Hometel around ฿2,590, POR Arak around ฿3,000, BaanBooLoo Village around ฿16,298 (an Artisan Teak Suite), and The Inside House around ฿17,590 (The Bodhi Pool Suite).

The better value is not always at the top. Baannalin Hometel scores 9.8 for value, the best we list in the city, and The Peaberry holds a perfect wifi score, one of only two we list in Chiang Mai.

What the Old City does not have is depth of reviews. Its best-sampled property, The Inside House, has 3,988 reviews, and Baannalin Hometel’s 671 is the second thinnest sample we list in the city. The scores here are high, but several of them rest on a few hundred reviews rather than a few thousand.