Chiang Mai International Airport — Chiang Mai, Thailand

Ringed by mountains that gave the old Lanna kingdom's capital its cooler climate and its enduring appeal, CNX sits close enough to downtown Chiang Mai that arriving passengers can reach temples like Wat Phra That Doi Suthep or the old city's moated core within minutes rather than hours. The airport ranks among Thailand's busiest outside the Bangkok metropolitan area, driven by decades of backpacker tourism, a thriving digital-nomad scene, and, more recently, huge volumes of Chinese group and independent travelers drawn by a hit Chinese comedy film partly set in the region and by its night markets, elephant sanctuaries, and mountain scenery. A single runway handles this traffic at an elevation noticeably higher than Bangkok's, with terrain on several sides constraining further expansion and prompting long-running discussions about building a second airport for the region in neighboring Lamphun province. Night bazaars, hill-tribe villages, and jungle trekking routes all lie within easy striking distance of the terminal, reinforcing Chiang Mai's status as northern Thailand's undisputed gateway city.