As more of a budget backpacker, I do a large percentage of activities independently. But sometimes joining a tour or hiring a guide is necessary, and other times I simply choose to because the experience is worth paying for.
The tours that stick with me aren’t necessarily the most expensive or elaborate. They’re the ones that taught me something, introduced me to an experience I couldn’t easily recreate on my own, or simply left me thinking, That was amazing.
The five experiences on this list are completely different from one another: spending a day with elephants in a rural village of Chiang Mai, Thailand; exploring the Mekong Delta in Vietnam; making my own chocolate bar in Antigua, Guatemala; learning about Colombian coffee at Finca El Ocaso in Salento, Colombia; and eating my way through Bangkok on a night food tour.
Each one taught me something about the local culture, food, environment or way of life — and more importantly, each was genuinely fun.
Now, to the list!
Spending a Day With Elephants in Northern Thailand
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Northern Thailand, particularly the area around Chiang Mai, is famous for conscious elephant tourism. Before choosing an experience, I did a lot of research because I wanted to avoid any potential attractions built around performances or elephant riding.
I eventually visited a small Karen village in the countryside where several elephants were cared for. The intimate half-day experience consisted of meeting these giant creatures and accompanying them through part of their daily routine.
After feeding them fruit as our friendly introduction, we followed them along a jungle trail. I watched the elephants wrap their trunks around tree branches, yank them down and casually munch on the leaves. I was shocked by the sheer power of their trunks — and by how much they ate.
What I enjoyed most was the pace. The elephants weren’t being rushed from one activity to another. We moved slowly through the forest with them, eventually making our way toward a nearby river.
We then entered the water with the elephants and helped bathe them. Whatever your thoughts are about elephant tourism today, I can only describe how the experience felt to me at the time: standing in a river in northern Thailand beside these enormous animals was surreal and remains one of my most vivid travel memories.
Afterward, we sat down for lunch and shared a platter of refreshing fruit and other Thai food. It was a simple, relaxing way to finish the experience.
I left extremely satisfied and appreciative of the opportunity to observe the elephants at such close range. To this day, it remains one of the most memorable things I’ve done while traveling.
Exploring the Mekong Delta and Discovering Popped Rice
Vinh Long, Vietnam
This was my introduction to rice wine, jackfruit trees and popped rice.
The Mekong Delta is an enormous network of rivers and canals in southern Vietnam where life has historically been deeply connected to the water. Agriculture, river transportation, orchards and floating commerce all contribute to the region’s identity.
My tour started on a boat with about ten people, cruising through the broad river and low-lying landscape. Eventually, the vast waterways broke into narrow channels surrounded by thick vegetation. It was beautifully swampy and mysterious — the kind of place where I half expected a giant snake to appear.
As we floated along, we passed small-scale river commerce before eventually stopping at an orchard and nursery.
One thing you should know about me is that I love trees — especially FRUIT TREES.
I fell in love when I saw a jackfruit tree. I had eaten jackfruit before, but I had no idea how those enormous fruits actually grew from the tree. I was amazed.
We eventually reached a shop selling different varieties of homemade rice wine, each associated with some type of traditional or supposed medicinal quality. I specifically remember banana rice wine, one promoted as a sleep aid, and another infused with snake that was described as an aphrodisiac.
At the same stop, we watched a demonstration of popped rice being made. Rice was thrown into an enormous wok with extremely hot black sand and heated until it puffed, almost like popcorn. The grains were then separated from the sand and turned into a crunchy rice treat.
It was such a simple process, but watching it happen was fascinating.
The tour checked all the boxes for me: beautiful scenery, food, agriculture, unusual traditions and things I knew almost nothing about beforehand. The Mekong Delta felt completely unlike anywhere else I had visited.
Making My Own Chocolate Bar at ChocoMuseo
Antigua, Guatemala
At ChocoMuseo near Antigua’s central plaza, I joined a two-hour Bean-to-Bar workshop covering the process of turning cacao into chocolate.
The workshop begins with the history and cultural importance of cacao before moving into the chocolate-making process. We also prepared and tasted cacao drinks inspired by preparations associated with the Maya and the Spanish colonial period.
Then came the fun part.
Everyone in the class participated in the hands-on process, taking turns working with the cacao and learning about the steps involved in transforming it into chocolate. We ground ingredients, mixed our chocolate and eventually prepared our own bars.
I especially liked the atmosphere. Everyone introduced themselves, participated together and became involved in whatever stage of the process we were working on. It was educational without feeling like a lecture.
That’s important to me. I hate when an activity that should take two hours somehow turns into four.
For the finale, we were given a selection of ingredients to customize our chocolate. The finished bars were allowed to cool and harden before being wrapped and taken home.
You learn about cacao, make chocolate, eat chocolate and leave with chocolate.
Mission accomplished!
Learning About Colombian Coffee at Finca El Ocaso
Salento, Colombia
I learned so much about coffee here that I basically became a bougie coffee drinker afterward.
While visiting Salento, I toured Finca El Ocaso, a coffee farm surrounded by the lush green hills of Colombia’s coffee region.
Without taking too much of your time, I’ll just say this: the tour was extremely educational. Very little was left unexplained.
We started with the coffee plant itself, learning about different varieties, cultivation and the journey from plant to cup. We walked through the property, hand-picked coffee cherries and learned about harvesting, processing, drying, quality control, roasting and preparation.
One of the things I remember finding particularly interesting was learning about the development of disease-resistant coffee varieties and the role plant disease has played in shaping Colombian coffee production.
There were constantly little pieces of information like that.
By the end, I had a much clearer understanding of how much work goes into producing quality coffee and how important coffee is to the region economically and culturally.
The setting didn’t hurt either. Exploring a working coffee farm surrounded by the green hills around Salento made the experience even better.
I really appreciated the craftsmanship and attention to detail involved in producing a high-quality product. At the same time, learning more about industrial coffee production, environmental impacts and problems within the broader coffee industry gave me something else to think about.
Before leaving, I made sure to buy a bag of coffee beans.
The perfect souvenir.
Eating My Way Through Bangkok at Night
Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok is one of those cities where eating late at night feels completely normal. Restaurants, small local eateries and food stalls stay busy well into the evening, making food a big part of the city’s nightlife.
Years ago, I joined a small group night food tour that took us around Bangkok to several different places to eat. It wasn’t strictly a street food tour. We moved from one restaurant or food spot to another, trying different Thai dishes while our guide explained what we were eating and gave us some background on the city’s food culture.
One thing the guide told us that stuck with me was how common it is for people in Bangkok to simply go out for food. With so many inexpensive options and good food everywhere, eating out can be an ordinary part of daily life rather than a special occasion.
That was what made the tour so enjoyable. It wasn’t just about stuffing ourselves with Thai food. Moving around Bangkok at night, sitting down at different places and learning about each dish gave me a glimpse into a side of the city’s culture that I probably wouldn’t have understood by randomly choosing restaurants on my own.
And let’s be honest — spending an entire evening going from place to place eating Thai food is a pretty hard tour to complain about.
A Few More Tours Worth Mentioning
TIKAL SUNRISE TOUR — Tikal, Guatemala
Exploring Tikal National Park around sunrise added another dimension to touring one of the great archaeological sites of the Maya world. The combination of ancient temples, rainforest and the early-morning atmosphere made the guided experience particularly memorable.
SALT CATHEDRAL AUDIO TOUR — Zipaquirá, Colombia
The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá is an underground complex constructed within former salt-mine tunnels, and the audio tour provides context as you move through its chambers, crosses and enormous subterranean spaces. The attraction still offers an audio guide as part of its visitor experience.
CACAO FAR TOUR AT LA CALENDARIA — Minca, Colombia
La Candelaria near Minca gave me a look at small-scale cacao production and traditional chocolate-making techniques on a working farm. Seeing the cacao and some of the simple equipment used in processing it made this a nice complement to the more structured chocolate workshop I experienced in Guatemala.
