Overview
The best activity in my opinion in the Cameron Highlands is to go hiking. The scenery is beautiful, refreshing after many sweaty days in the hot lowland areas, and takes you away from the tourist hordes.
If hiking only for a day, your best option (and my favorite trek here) is the combination of trail 10 and 6. It combines all the best highlights: a great viewpoint, seeing the tea plantations close up, and being relatively undisturbed during the hike. The trail ends at a tea plantation, so after the trek you can sit and enjoy the view with one of their finest cup of teas and a snack.
Trail overview
Trail 10
Tanah Ratah to Gunung Jasar. Duration 2.5h (one-way). Difficulty: medium, no guide needed.
Starting in Tanah Rata, this trail ascends for about an hour to Gunung Jasar’s summit. At the top, you’re treated to a clear view of Tanah Rata and the Cameron Highlands. The path connects with Trail #6, leading you down towards Cameron Valley. Or if you head north from the peak towards Gunung Perdah (1,551m), the trail then joins with Trail #11 and Trail #12.
Trail 6
Cameron Valley to Gunung Jasar. Duration 2.5h (one-way). Difficulty: medium, no guide needed.
The hiking route starts at Cameron Valley Tea House 1 and goes up to Gunung Jasar (1,670m), joining Trail #10 at the top. The path is tricky to follow, especially climbing up Gunung Jasar because there are no signs. It might be easier to start from Trail #10 and go down using Trail #6 instead, which I’ll explain more about below.
The whole route
trail 10 & 6
Duration 4-5h (one-way). Difficulty: medium, guide needed: no.
Before you go, download maps.me and save all the markers for the road. Here is a file with the markers bookmarked, if you open this on your phone with maps.me you’ll have them for offline use.
Contrary to the numbering, you’ll be starting the hike with trail 10 and finishing with 6. It’s much easier to do the hike this way, because trail 6 is hard to find towards Gunug Jasar (it’s unmarked), and because it is very hard to navigate upwards because of the slippery parts.
Phase 1
Trail 10 begins in Tanah Rata. There are some guides that tell you to start from behind H2O apartment, but this is not the case anymore! The road behind H2O is closed due to a construction. The trailhead is located here (there are 3 different points in Google Maps, all work and lead to the sale trail after a few meters). Once you get near the place on Google Maps, there are a lot of little signs pointing you in the right direction. The trail begins with pretty steep steps, and after that about an hour of upward hike, to the top of Gunung Jasar, where you will be rewarded with a great view of Tanah Rata and Cameron Highlands.
There are some great sections here in the middle of the jungle where you can feel like you’re completely alone and can get lost in the sounds of the jungle.
The path goes through some agricultural land first – you can see avocados, chives, and other vegetables being grown. It will take around 1-2 hours to walk through this section before arriving at a paved road and an intersection. Stick to your right and continue along the road until you start seeing tea plantations.
Phase 3
The last section of the trail is my favorite – this is where you get to walk through an actual working tea plantation (and without the crowds!)
Once the road starts turning sharply to the right, instead of following the road, go left and follow the trail through the tea plantation. It will be pretty obvious when you need to turn. It should take another 40 minutes to walk through the plantation, more so if you stop often for photos, like I did:)
Finish
The very end of the trail leads you to the touristy part of the plantation. You can buy drinks and snacks here. To leave, you’ll need to walk up towards the road and unfortunately you’ll need to pay the entrance fee to the plantation (yes, they will stop you on the way out with eagle eyes!).
To get back to Tanah Rata, you will either have to hitchhike (which shouldn’t take long as there are lots of cars heading towards Tanah Rata), or you can flag down a taxi from the road. You can also try calling a Grab, but you’ll probably have to wait a long time as they are not so frequent here.
How to get there
This hike starts in Tanah Rata, so it makes sense to get here first. See my post about the Cameron Highlands on details how to get to Tanah Rata and where to stay. The easiest way is to rent a car from Kuala Lumpur or even from Ipoh, but there are also a ton of options to come here by bus (there are no trains or flights).
How much time you need
I recommend to spend 2 full days in Cameron Highlands, on the first day go for a hike, and on the second day join a tour to the tea plantation and mossy forest from Tanah Rata, and you’ve seen everything.