Kui Buri National Park

One of Thailand's most dependable places for wild elephants, about 85 kilometers southwest of Hua Hin. The model is worth supporting: private cars stay out of the safari zone, and visitors ride in pickup trucks driven by local community members, with trained guides or park staff aboard, so the income goes to villages whose farmland these same elephants once raided. Viewing runs in the afternoon, roughly 2 to 6 p.m., and wildlife usually becomes active from about 3 p.m. around the grassland clearings, where open-topped trucks give a clear view all around. A truck takes up to six passengers, so a small group can hire one and set its own pace at each viewpoint.