Kui Buri National Park

Incredible experience. This park deserves support. Beautiful majestic elephants roaming the park freely. Once in a lifetime experience. Definitely rent the binoculars for 100 baht at the entrance. You can arrive by taxi and when you are there you pay 850 baht for a safari tour with a guide (+200 baht per person entry fee). Do NOT start at 2 pm (when the park opens) You won’t see elephants. Start your tour at 330pm, when elephants come out to start browsing. 🐘 🐘 🐘

Visited October 23, 2025: Wow. This was an INCREDIBLE National park! We booked a private tour through Viator with Ken Diamond Tour Hua Hin (about $140/person for park entry, private 4x4, dinner, English speaking guide, and transportation to and from Hua Hin). Our guide accompanied us on the drive through the park so we could ask questions in English. Because it was just us, we were able to take our time at every stop we made. I would have not enjoyed this experience as much in a shared group 4x4. Because we booked a tour with transport, I can’t speak for the process of getting your tickets at the park, getting assigned a 4x4, or the English proficiency of the drivers and park staff who accompany you as our guide took care of everything and made it seamless. (I would recommend a guide). But the experience was incredible. The park scenery is absolutely stunning. We saw so many gaur and their babies and 3 male elephants from afar! We were grateful to see any at all as we knew the possibility of seeing none. We stopped at 4 or 5 different spots. The drive was 7km into the park, and 7km back out the same way so you have the chance to check out viewpoints again to see if more elephants have come about. The staff are always talking to each other on radio to alert elephant sightings to make sure you see them (if there are any). Binoculars are 100baht in the visitor center where the tickets are purchased. Get the big ones, we used them a lot! This is a big park with a lot of thick trees and greenery for them to hide in. It was fun seeing the elephants little trails through the brush off the sides of the roads, and knocked over trees and branches. Signs they are around! The weather was perfect on the day we visited. Sunny and very windy so it was almost chilly by sunset! Not too hot at all, even when we started at around 3pm. But I recommend good sun protection since the 4x4’s are open to the elements. We had UV protection jackets and hats, plus a lot of sunscreen. The vehicle we were in had 3 umbrellas so if it were raining we would have had protection too. I can’t speak for that in all national park trucks though. There are toilets in decent condition by the visitor center. They have toilet paper! I also want to add - I’m surprised and saddened by a lot of negative people in the reviews here who can’t appreciate a place for what it is. The entire point of visiting a national park, to MAYBE see elephants, is that these beautiful animals are WILD and untouched by humans (as they should be) vs the unfortunate alternative of abuse and tourism cash grabs that is rampant in this part of the world (riding, bathing, unethical practices). If in the event you don’t see any, but you can’t find beauty in the other animals, birds, insects flying around, plants, and scenic beauty, that’s a YOU problem. If you do see some but at a very long distance and complain that there aren’t roads to get you selfishly closer to them or you can’t appreciate the fact that your own two eyes, even with binoculars, have seen these endangered animals live their lives safely from afar, that’s a YOU problem. Everyone should know the risk of price vs not seeing any elephants here, or seeing them from several hundred meters away. It’s luck! Enjoy the experience! ❤️

It was a nice experience overall, and everything was okay. We only managed to see two elephants a father and a baby and only from a distance, but it was still interesting. I would advise you to bring a mask because the road is very dusty. Also, bring cash, as they don’t accept QR scan payments. It’s better to go in a group because each group of up to eight people pays 850 baht for the car, plus 200 baht per person for entry. This applies even if you go alone you will still pay 850 baht for the car and 200 baht for entry. So the best option is to join other people if you’re lucky, or go with friends, which is cheaper. The tour guides are very nice, but they are usually quiet because most of them don’t speak English. However, if you’re lucky, you may get one who speaks a little. The toilets were not very clean and had an unpleasant smell. Some improvement is needed for both the men’s and women’s restrooms. I was with my girlfriend, so we used both. On a lucky day, you may see more than 3 to 5 elephants, but there is no guarantee you might see many or you might see none, so go with that expectation. That’s all I wanted to share. I hope this will be helpful for others who would like to visit.