A Two-Day Khao Yai Itinerary from the Nakhon Nayok Side

Two days is enough for the park, a vineyard and one long lunch, provided you use the southern gate rather than driving around to Pak Chong. This plan assumes a private car, two drivers who alternate, and a start from the villa in the Ban Na area of Nakhon Nayok. Everything below is built from published opening hours and routed distances rather than optimism.

Before you go

• The park's fee checkpoints admit traffic 06:00–18:00, and one ticket covers a single day.
• Thai visitors pay 40 baht per adult; foreign visitors should budget 400 baht per adult, plus a vehicle fee — the park's own page prints conflicting figures, so check at the gate. The DNP app QueQ takes payment in advance.
• Book the vineyard tour first: PB Valley wants 72 hours' notice, GranMonte strongly recommends reserving.
• Trails 3 to 6 need a park ranger guide, arranged when you register at the visitor centre. Trails 1, 2 and 7 do not.

Day one — the park, through the southern gate

1. 06:30 leave the villa. The Noen Hom checkpoint on Highway 3077 is about 57 km away, roughly 55 minutes to 1 h 10 by car — early is cooler, quieter, and better for wildlife.
2. 08:00 Haew Narok. The park's tallest waterfall, 150 m in three tiers, sits at the km 22 marker on the same road: about 67 km from the villa in total. It is a 1 km walk from the car park, then a steep staircase down 50 m. Swimming is forbidden here, as at every waterfall in the park.
3. 10:00 drive on to the visitor centre and walk trail 1 — Kong Kaew Waterfall, 1.2 km, 45 minutes to an hour, no guide required, starting from the hanging bridge behind the centre.
4. 12:00 lunch at the visitor centre area, which has a restaurant, café and shop; the waterfalls at Haew Suwat and Haew Narok have cafés too.
5. 14:00 either walk trail 2 from Pha Kluai Mai campground to Haew Suwat — 3 km one way, about two hours, no guide needed — or drive to the km 35 marker and walk the kilometre across the grassland to the Nong Phak Chi observation tower for late-afternoon deer and, with luck, elephants.
6. 16:30 start back so you clear the checkpoint before 18:00. Home by dinner, or stay for the ranger-led night safari — 600 baht per vehicle for up to eight people, in slots at 19:00 and 20:00, booked at the visitor centre before 18:00. Driving yourself around after dark to look for animals is forbidden and fined.

If you would rather see Haew Suwat than Haew Narok, plan the whole day around it: through the park it is about 94 km from the villa (1 h 40 – 2 h), and around the park via Pak Chong about 117 km. The southern gate remains the shorter way in.

Day two — vineyards and a dairy

1. 08:00 leave for PB Valley Khao Yai Winery, about 74 km, roughly 1 h 10 – 1 h 15 by car, for the 09:15 or 11:15 tour — about 70 minutes, ending with three wines.
2. 12:00 lunch at the Great Hornbill Grill on the estate, open daily 11:00–20:00, with a wood-fired oven and the estate's orchards around it.
3. 14:00 GranMonte in the Asoke Valley is about 9 km further on. Its afternoon tours leave at 13:30, 15:00 and 16:00 on weekdays, with an extra 16:30 departure at weekends: 690 baht per adult, four wines and Khao Yai cheeses. Or skip the second tour and spend the time in the shop and café.
4. 16:00 Farm Chokchai is on the way home, about 70 km from the villa — the steakhouse runs to 20:00, the burger counter to 18:00, and the shop sells milk, ice cream and curry puffs to take back.
5. 18:00 home. Whoever drove gets first turn in the pool.

When it rains — and it will, from May to October

The waterfalls on the Nakhon Nayok side are at their fullest exactly when the park trails are least pleasant, and they are much closer to the villa:

• Sarika Waterfall — nine tiers, about 45 km from the villa (45 minutes to an hour by car), open daily 08:00–17:00. The national parks department says it flows almost all year, with a big volume in the rainy season. It is managed by Khao Yai National Park, so national-park entry rates apply — confirm the foreigner rate on arrival.
• Nang Rong Waterfall — about 48 km, a similar drive, open daily 08:00–16:00. It sits inside the park boundary but is run by the Nakhon Nayok provincial administration, which charges just 10 baht per person plus 50 baht for a car. The same authority warns that the current runs very fast in the rainy season, so take care if you swim.
• Wang Takrai Park — a private botanical park on Route 3049 about 6 km past the Sarika junction and 2 km before Nang Rong, open daily 08:00–18:00 at 150 baht per vehicle carrying up to eight people, plus 10 baht per extra passenger.
• Rafting on the Nakhon Nayok river — the flow is regulated by the Khun Dan Prakan Chon dam, so it runs year-round, with the strongest water from July to October. A local operator publishes 1,200 baht per raft for up to six adults, a 7 km run of about 1 to 1½ hours, graded class 2 to 3 in the rainy season. Book ahead.
• Khun Dan Prakan Chon dam itself is about 52 km from the villa. It publishes neither opening hours nor an admission fee, so treat it as a drive-by viewpoint rather than a planned stop.

Two things worth knowing about timing

• The Pha Diao Dai viewpoint — the cliff platform in most Khao Yai photographs — is closed from 1 June to 30 September under this year's park notice. Trail 6 closes annually from 1 July to 31 August. Check the park's alerts page before you commit to either.
• PB Valley says the region's best months are November to March, and its wine-grape harvest runs from late January to mid-March. That is also the busiest window, when reservations matter most.

Driving times are approximate, by car, outside peak traffic and with no stops; they come from OpenStreetMap-based routing, not from measured journeys. Add time for the queue at a national-park checkpoint.

Sources and last reviewed

Last reviewed 9 September 2026. Opening hours, fees and closures change, and the park's English pages lag its Thai announcements — re-check the park alerts and your vineyard booking before you set out. The Wang Takrai tariff is the park's own published figure; we could not obtain a routed distance for it, so the directions above are the venue's.

• Khao Yai National Park — plan your visit, entry fees, hiking, night safari, places to go and alerts: khaoyainationalpark.com/en/plan-your-visit and sub-pages (accessed 9 September 2026)
• PB Valley Khao Yai Winery — pbvalley.com/wine-tour/, pbvalley.com/restaurant/, pbvalley.com/about-us/ (accessed 9 September 2026)
• GranMonte — granmonte.com/tour.php (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Farm Chokchai — farmchokchai.com/home/ (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Sarika Waterfall — Department of National Parks record portal.dnp.go.th and Tourism Authority of Thailand tourismthailand.org/Attraction/namtok-sarika (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Nang Rong Waterfall — Nakhon Nayok Provincial Administrative Organisation khonyok.go.th and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Wang Takrai Park — wangtakrai.com (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Rafting details as published by the operator — nayok.com/rafting (accessed 9 September 2026)
• Distances routed from the Ban Na area with OSRM and Valhalla on OpenStreetMap data (9 September 2026)