Elephant Hills

It was difficult parsing through all the different tour options in Khao Sok but I have no regrets booking Elephant hills. We did the 3d2n package and it was a great combination of activities and down time. Our guide Tam was incredibly friendly, hospitable, and knowledgeable. The convenient pickup and drop off made it easy to fit this into our trip (our tour finished on the last day at the Cheow Lan Lake port around 1330 and we were at Surat Thani airport before 1500, for reference). All meals were also surprisingly tasty. The tour did include a half day hike and half day canoe excursion where we saw a surprising amount of wildlife, but for the true outdoors enthusiasts a different tour would be recommended. Overall great experience and would highly recommend. Read less

We loved this experience OK it was very hot but well worth the sweat! The interaction with elephants was amazing they were so relaxing and gentle. We stroked and fed them. We stayed the first night at the elephant camp and second at the lake camp. The lake camp was our favourite so quiet and no one else there. We were only a small group of 18 so really lucky as usually busier. The food was great and our guide Tam was excellent very helpful and attentive. Had a lovely group of people and a trip we will never forget. Read less

Absolutely Amazing! It was definitely the highlight of our trip to Thailand, everything was really well organized and thoroughly enjoyable. Tor who was our guide for the 3 days was awesome, very knowledgeable, friendly and just a top guy! My favourite part was waking up at the lake hearing all of the wildlife in the morning and you could hear the monkeys calling for each other. I would 100% recommend going to Elephant Hills! Read less

We visited Elephant Hills as a family of 4, children aged 12 and 9. This was absolutely the highlight of our trip! The experiences were incredible but our favourite was the lake trip on day 2. The scenery was out of this world and we enjoyed canoeing and paddle-boarding in the lake when we got there. The food is fantastic at EH, we met lots of lovely people and played games and cards in the main food hall in the evenings. I can’t recommend this place enough. The organisation was perfect and seamless, the transfers comfortable and on time and everything about the experience was perfect! Read less

Elephant Hills is a brilliant place to stay and we loved our time here. An Elephant Hills driver collected us from our previous hotel and drove us directly to the camp - a journey of 3-hours, which is a pretty big thing to be included in the price (and a very smooth and comfortable journey it was). As soon as you arrive at Elephant Hills it feels like a special place. You're immediately greeted by friendly, enthusiastic guides who make the check-in process quick and easy. The feel of the camp, in the main reception area which has a huge under-cover space for dining, drinking and meeting for activities is very high quality and comfortable. There's a great atmosphere to the camp and it's an enjoyable place to be from the moment you arrive. I personally hate camping and was actually quite mad at my wife when she told me she'd booked for us to stay in "tents" but I had no reason to worry as the tents are more like permanently-constructed buildings than the sort of tent you might pitch up yourself. They have solid concrete foundations, wood floors, proper beds, fully-functional toilets and showers with hot running water inside each tent. Ours was a two-storey tent with the children sleeping downstairs and us upstairs - and both levels had their own toilet / shower / sink. There are canvas doors and sides and a canvas roof, but above that is a solid roof that completely covers the "tent" so you're 100% protected from the elements. It was intensely hot when we stayed here in April and it was certainly very warm in the tents (no air-con) but numerous large fans are provided which were adequate for keeping us cool and we slept well (we were glad we brought ear plugs with us, as you hear the noise of the jungle insects all night long, which is cool - but they are loud!) Our guide was Deen - and what a great guy he is. He was so enthusiastic and friendly, he really is a superb guide and Elephant Hills are very lucky to have him! You do a variety of jungle activities, which include an elephant encounter, a river canoeing trip, a visit to a separate lake camp (some have an overnight stay there), a jungle trek and also a mangrove exploration (which we didn't do as we only had 2-nights). The activities were enjoyable, especially the elephant encounter which was probably the highlight of our entire 16-night holiday in Thailand and I wished it was longer or that you had more chances to see them. But I do also realise they are trying to give the elephants as natural as possible an existence, unlike some places which make the elephants work for the benefit of entertaining tourists, which Elephant Hills definitely isn't doing - we were simply giving them food and then they're left to their own devices to live in the park naturally, which is good to know. It's exceptionally well organised and ran like clockwork for us. I don't know how many people were staying here but I think it was certainly multiple hundreds, but when you do your activities you're in very small groups and you never feel like you're part of a massive holiday camp with loads of people - it's very personal and intimate. An all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast and dinner are included each day - and the food was first-rate in my opinion. A great range of options whether you like Thai or English food and every meal we had was delicious and filling. What I would say is that Elephant Hills describe themselves as a "soft adventure" tour, so the reality of the jungle experience is that it's actually quite civilised and tame, which is ideal for families - but perhaps not ideal if you're expecting a real jungle adventure / wildlife encounter experience. For example the 'jungle trek' was about 45-mins walking through the undergrowth around the camp and, although there was mention of monkeys, snakes, spiders, etc, we didn't actually see any such animals - probably because we followed a well-trodden path that's walked by multiple groups of tourists every day. That might be a shame if you're hoping to get up close to jungle wildlife - but also if you were genuinely deep in a jungle, you wouldn't have a shower, toilet, double bed and full buffet meals served up twice a day! So it's perfect for families wanting a bit of a different experience and to be closer to Thailand's nature, but don't expect to see a lot of jungle wildlife (we did see a family of monkeys on our canoe trip though, which was absolutely brilliant). I think Elephant Hills has created a superb tourist experience in an unbelievably beautiful location. Such a well-organised, high quality, clean place with brilliant staff which all combine to make a holiday experience to remember - I loved it there and was sad to leave! Read less