We are traveling to Chiang Mai next month, staying at the Four Seasons. They offer two elephant camp excursions - one to Chiang Dao (6 1/2 hrs incl rafting) and one to Mae Sa ( 3 hrs - closer to FS.)

Doe anyone know the difference between the two camps and which would be a better experience? Thanks.

lkbside,
we were in CM this October, stayed also in 4S. We went to Chiang Dao camp and liked it a lot. I am not sure about second one, you can see my trip report http://emcoinc.com/travel/html/Asia/index.htm
Which also has pictures of 4S, elephant camp.
Our excursion was 4 hours (without rafting - did not care about that. Water looked dirty.)
There is one thing to keep in mind when choose elephant camp - to give your business to the camp which does not abuse elephants. Our guide recommended Chiang Dao and the elephants looked happy. There is another camp in CM which is run by government and also is good.

enjoy your travel

We went to the maesa camp which is government run. We loved it. The elephants seem well taken care of; you can feed them and visit the babies. We saw them swim and bathe in the river and there was a wonderful demonstration of their skills in logging, etc. - not to mention they played a mean game of soccer! It's also well-known for the elephants who paint these really neat pictures with their trunks - which you can then purchase. Money goes to support the camp. You can buy the paintings for about 30usd in person and several hundreds on the internet.

We were told by the Four Seasons (when staying there last month) that the Mae Sa camp is more "circus like" and Americans don't like the way the elephants are treated. We chose to use a driver from the hotel and go to Chiang Dao for a fraction of the cost of the tour- not going on the rafting trip. It suited us perfectly and we were able to do the shorter elephant ride, as it was what we wanted. Using a private driver ran about 12.00US an hour and was what we did for all sightseeing and shopping, there by doing exactly as we wished, with the timing we wanted.

we plan to visit the Thai elephant conservation center in Lampang (south of CM) which treats the elephants well and has had great reviews on this site. Do a search on this site & on google for more information.