Best Neighborhoods in Chiang Mai for Expat Families
Planning a move to Thailand? Come join us in Chiang Mai! Chiang Mai is popular with expat families for good reason. The city offers a unique…
Make your next move in Chiang Mai
Personal relocation advice and hands-on help finding a home, from a team who lives here.
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Plan Your Move
Work through your priorities with Lily in a 60-minute consultation. Leave with a written recap, next actions, and resources for your situation. See the $149 consultation →
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Find Your Home
Get local help researching rentals, checking neighborhoods, filming up to five viewings, and coordinating the lease and deposit process. See the $750 home-finding service →
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Find Your Neighborhood
Old City buzz or Hang Dong quiet? Walkable or leafy? Find the part of town that fits your life. Explore neighborhoods →
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Research Your Options
Read our local guides to visas, schools, budgets, and everyday life. Build your own understanding before making the decisions that matter. Explore the guides →
Start here
Family Relocation Guides
Start your research with these five guides to visas, neighborhoods, schools, and the everyday logistics of raising kids in Chiang Mai.
Personal relocation advice
Turn your questions into a practical plan
A move involves connected decisions: where to live, what you can spend, how school and work fit together, and what to arrange first. A consultation gives you time to work through those decisions with Lily, a Chiang Mai native.
Send your questions ahead of the call. We focus the hour on your circumstances, then send a written recap with priorities, next actions, and relevant resources. The Chiang Mai Map Pack is included.
Already have a rental brief? Our home-finding service takes the next step: local research, video walkthroughs, and help coordinating your lease.
$149 USD · 60 minutes · written follow-up · Map Pack included
Book a consultation What families tell us
Families Just Like Yours
We loved Chiang Mai as nomads but weren’t sure it’d work as a family of four. Lily covered everything: housing, transportation, kid-friendly cafes, weekly family meetups. We came in hopeful and left even more excited. If you’re considering the move, have a chat with Lily.
I was planning a three-month family stay and needed real guidance: short-term housing, local rental practices, childcare, the small stuff like SIM cards and budgeting. Lily’s advice was practical and tailored, right down to which neighborhoods suit families and when to book around the Lantern Festival. I went from stressed to genuinely excited.
We came to Lily to talk about moving to Chiang Mai and got way more than expected. Every question about neighborhoods, culture, and costs was answered clearly. It gave us a lot more confidence in our decision. Know the reality of a place from people with both a local and expat view. 10/10.
Your Local Guides
About CNXlocal
CNXlocal is run by Lily, a Chiang Mai native, and Kris, a Canadian developer who moved here in 2018. We combine local knowledge, experience raising a family here, and practical research to help people make informed decisions about living in Chiang Mai.
Our guides support your research. Our paid services give your own plans focused time and local attention.
Read more about us Around town
Neighborhoods & Directories
The guides up top are for reading: our opinionated deep-dives on visas, neighborhoods, and settling in. The directories are a different animal: living, browsable collections of real places, each pinned to where it actually sits on the map. Get to know the city by area, then dive into the cafes, kid-friendly spots, and more.
Where to live
Neighborhood Guides
Old City, Nimman, Hang Dong and beyond — who each area suits, what it costs, and what the brochures leave out.
Caffeine included
Cafe Directory
Dozens of work-friendly cafes, vetted in person — wifi, power, and whether your laptop is actually welcome.
Bring the kids
Kid-Friendly
Play cafes, parks and pools that genuinely welcome children — road-tested by our own toddlers.
Explore coworking, condos and moobans across Chiang Mai.
Want our maps on your phone?
The Map Pack saves you the sorting: 15 curated Google Maps for daily navigation, ready in your pocket.
Made for ourselves
Tools & Applets
Built to help plan a move — and to make daily life here a little easier. Run the numbers, pick a visa, see what’s on at the cinema.
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Cost of Living Calculator
Build a realistic monthly budget for life here.
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DTV Eligibility Checker
A few questions to check your DTV eligibility.
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When to Visit
Weather, festivals, and dodging burning season — month by month.
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Showtimes
What’s on at Chiang Mai’s cinemas.
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Area Converter
Make sense of local land units — rai, ngan and wah.
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Humidor Guide
Store cigars right in the tropical humidity.
Choose the support your next decision needs: a consultation to work through the plan, or home finding when you are ready to search for a rental. Both are available whether you are overseas or already in Thailand.