Earth Home Thailand

Chiang Mai

Features At This Location

Accommodation Education / Training Farm / Food Production Food / Café Food forest Volunteering & Internships Workshop / Manufacturing

Adobe homestay and natural-building learning center with permaculture gardens in Maejo, Chiang Mai

Earth Home Thailand, known locally as Maejo Baandin (แม่โจ้บ้านดิน, "earth house"), is a guesthouse and learning center in the farming village of Baan Maejo, north of Chiang Mai. It is first and foremost a place to stay: guests sleep in hand-built adobe brick houses, with a dormitory for budget travelers, set among permaculture gardens and a food forest that surrounds the center. A cafe and restaurant serve local Thai food.

The center was founded by Thongbai Leknamnarong, who grew up in Maejo, spent years living in Bangkok, and returned to her home village to raise her children and build with earth. She learned natural building from Jon Jandai at the Pun Pun Centre for Self-Reliance, and Earth Home now sits within walking distance of Pun Pun in the same village cluster that has become known for sustainable living.

Alongside accommodation, Earth Home runs workshops through the year in natural building, permaculture, cooking, and self-reliance. The natural buildings here are made from wood, clay, sand, rice husks, straw, and water, and courses give participants hands-on practice from foundations and orientation through to walls and roofs. There are also opportunities to learn organic farming and handicrafts alongside the villagers.

The surrounding gardens are managed on permaculture principles, with a food forest grown around the buildings. Earth Home welcomes travelers, students, and volunteers who want to live simply for a while and learn practical skills for building and growing in harmony with the land.

How to Get There:

Earth Home is in Baan Maejo (Baanpao), Mae Taeng district, roughly 60 km north of Chiang Mai along the Chiang Mai-Fang road toward Mae Taeng. On Google Maps, search for "Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin) แม่โจ้บ้านดิน". For the final stretch into the village you can flag down a local motorcycle-with-sidecar taxi (around 150 baht per person). Contact the center ahead of arrival to confirm directions and availability.

Visiting Policy:

Earth Home is a working homestay and learning center. Contact the center in advance to arrange a stay, a workshop, or a volunteering placement rather than dropping in unannounced.

A small adobe earthen-brick guesthouse with a tiled hip roof and a Thai name plaque, nestled among trees and tropical plants beside a stone path, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.An adobe house with reddish earthen walls hand-painted with sunflowers and decorated with embedded bottles, glimpsed through hanging vines and greenery, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.View through an arched earthen doorway into a planted inner courtyard with a tiered water fountain, potted plants, and a wooden door, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.A small thatched-roof earthen cottage surrounded by a lush garden of trees, shrubs and a small pond, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.Garden beds of leafy vegetables and herbs edged with logs in front of a dense green food-forest planting, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.People sitting on a woven mat on a wooden deck around bowls, mortars and fresh ingredients during a Thai cooking session, including adults and children, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.A group of people in sun hats laying out freshly moulded mud bricks on the ground to dry during a natural-building workshop, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.Workshop participants building up an earthen wall course by hand from wet mud and bricks while others watch and photograph, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.A person in a straw hat smoothing wet earthen plaster onto a clay wall by hand, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.An open-sided earthen building used as a craft stall, with printed T-shirts and aprons hung under colourful parasols and people browsing, at Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin), Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai.