Phuket
Nowhere in Thailand puts more boat trips within an hour of one bed than Phuket, which also has the airport and every kind of room. Phang Nga Bay's hundred islands, and an Old Town most beach visitors never see.
Phuket in a nutshell
Phuket: what to expect
We read 160,000+ planned stops on the island on Stippl to see how Phuket really gets planned.
Phuket is an island you drive around rather than walk across, and the beach you pick decides what the trip feels like. Areas sit twenty minutes to an hour apart by road, so Patong's noise and Kata's quiet are genuinely different holidays. The island's own sights are the Sino-Portuguese Old Town along Thalang and Soi Romanee, the 45 m Big Buddha on Nakkerd Hill and the sunset crowd at Promthep Cape. Most travellers give Phuket 3 nights on Stippl.
Phuket is the Thai island people fly straight into, and the plans show it. 30.8% of the trips that include Phuket on Stippl open or close with it, more than three times the share on Koh Samui. An international airport and a road bridge to the mainland mean no ferry day at either end of the trip, and that is what the number is measuring.
Three nights is the floor and a week is where the island stops being only a beach. Give a day to Phang Nga Bay, where the limestone stacks and the stilt village at Koh Panyee are what most people actually came for, and keep the Similan or Surin snorkelling day for mid-October to mid-May, when the parks are open at all. Walk the Old Town on a morning and put Bangla Road on one night rather than three. Between May and October, swim where the flags are.
Plan Phuket in Stippl
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Download the appWho Phuket is for
First-timers in the south
The airport, the road network, the English, the full accommodation ladder and the day-trip infrastructure make it the lowest-friction entry point in the region.
Families
The Kata, Karon and Bang Tao resort belt with kids' clubs and multiple pools, water parks, Kamala as the calm base, and wet-weather alternatives a small island lacks.
Day-trippers from one base
Nowhere else in Thailand puts this many boat trips within an hour or two of one bed, which is why 3 nights is the norm.
Night owls, for a night or two
Bangla Road is the densest concentration of bars and clubs in southern Thailand, a rite of passage rather than a place to base a week.
Anyone who leaves the beach
The Old Town, the Peranakan heritage, the Chinese shrines and the Hokkien cooking are the island's genuine differentiator, and most beach visitors never see them.
Luxury and honeymooners
An international resort market, private-pool villas and offshore private-island resorts that no other Thai island matches.
Maybe not for you: anyone whose priority is reef at their own beach, since the inshore coral is degraded and the good snorkelling is hours away by boat; anyone looking for quiet or authenticity, who should pick Krabi or Koh Lanta; and beach holidays from May to October.
The best time to visit Phuket
Dry season
November to April
Calm sea, clear water, everything running. December to March is the settled core, and late December to February the price and crowd peak.
Southwest monsoon
May to October
Onshore wind and swell straight into the west-facing beaches: rain in bursts, rip currents, cancelled day boats and the marine parks shut offshore. The cheapest rooms of the year.
- The Similan and Surin islands close from 16 May to 14 October, and Maya Bay from 1 August to 30 September. Between them that is the best snorkelling and the most-sold day trip off the island, gone for the wet months.
- January is the month most travellers plan Phuket for on Stippl, about 80 days ahead. Only 10.8% of Phuket plans are made inside a fortnight, and January is inside the peak, so the west-coast resorts go first.
- The Vegetarian Festival takes nine days in late September or early October, on the Chinese lunar calendar. Phuket's biggest event and the one strong reason to be here in the wet months; the shrine committees publish the dates late, so watch for them.
- The hottest months are March and April, not the wet ones. The tail of the dry season is when the thermometer peaks, and the rip currents that drown swimmers start with the first monsoon swell in May.
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Things to do in Phuket
Photo by Tomi Adamchevski via Unsplash
Photo by Kirandeep Singh Walia via PexelsPhang Nga Bay by boat
Take the day among a hundred limestone islands forty kilometres off Phuket: James Bond Island, the stilt village at Koh Panyee and a canoe into the sea caves. About €45 by longtail or speedboat; the longtail is slower and quieter.
Phuket Old Town on foot
Walk the Sino-Portuguese shophouses on Thalang, Dibuk and Soi Romanee, the street-art murals and the Thai Hua Museum in a 1917 school. Free, best in the late afternoon, and the Sunday walking market runs from four.
The Big Buddha on Nakkerd Hill
Drive up to the forty-five-metre white marble Buddha facing Chalong Bay, funded by donations since 2004 and still unfinished at the base. Free, with covered shoulders and knees, and the whole island below on a clear day.
A Similan or Surin islands day
Take the van and speedboat two to three hours each way to the best snorkelling reachable from Phuket, about €90. Only possible from mid October to mid May; the parks close for the monsoon.
Koh Phi Phi as a day trip
Speedboat an hour from Rassada pier for the circuit of Maya Bay, Pileh Lagoon, Viking Cave, Monkey Beach and lunch on Bamboo Island, about €50. Maya Bay closes in August and September; a day trip is the better version of Phi Phi.
A Thai cooking class
Choose the produce at the market from half past nine, cook four or five dishes over your own fire and finish by half past one, about €35. The most-booked cultural half day on the island, and it works for teenagers.
The neighbourhoods of Phuket
Patong
Bangla Road, wall-to-wall bars
The loud one: Bangla Road is a pedestrianised strip of bars, clubs and go-go bars from six in the evening, the densest nightlife in southern Thailand, on the island's most crowded beach. For nightlife and nobody who wants sleep.
Every night out in the south, and the worst beach and the most touts.
Kata & Kata Noi
Middle ground, house reef, surf
Chilled beach days with enough evening life: surf schools, wellness places and a house reef you can snorkel from the sand, with the smaller cliff-backed Kata Noi next door. For couples and first visits that want both.
A beach you can use all day and evenings out, and prices to match.
Karon
Wide sand, low-key bars
The second-largest tourist beach: wide white sand, low-key bars and space enough that it rarely feels full, at the island's better prices. For budget stays and families; the rips make it the island's deadliest beach for drowning.
Space and value, and a sea to respect between May and October.
Kamala
Fishing village, calm north end
A former fishing village ten kilometres north of Patong that kept a residential, laid-back feel, with calm water at the north end and small guesthouses rather than towers. For families who want Phuket with the volume down.
Calm water and a village, and a ride to any nightlife.
Bang Tao & Surin
Resort estates, long beach, sunsets
The north-west resort belt: one of the island's longest beaches, quieter and a little fancier, integrated resort estates and good sunsets, with Surin next door as the exclusive end. For resort holidays and a pool with a view.
The best resorts and sunsets, and a resort's prices for everything.
Phuket Old Town
Shophouses, shrines, real food
A city base, not a beach base, inland in the south-east: Sino-Portuguese shophouses on Thalang and Dibuk, Chinese shrines, museums, street art and the island's real food. For first visits that want the town and for the Vegetarian Festival.
The island's food and history on foot, and no morning swim.
See every Phuket neighbourhood on one map
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Where to stay in Phuket
Split the stay: two or three nights on a beach, then two or three in the Old Town, over a weekend if you can for the Sunday Walking Street. Kata or Karon is the first-timer's beach; Patong only if the nightlife is the point. Most people give Phuket 3 nights on Stippl. Book the November to February peak ahead; the island has moved upmarket and the cheap beds go first.
Patong
The cheapest beds on the island, hostel dorms €13 to €22 in high season, and big tower hotels from €40.
Kata & Kata Noi
Family resorts with kids' clubs and wellness retreats, €60 to €150, with the boutique end from €200.
Karon
Mid-range pool hotels and guesthouses at the island's better prices, €35 to €90.
Kamala
Small guesthouses and homestays at the quiet north end, €25 to €70, and a few big resorts from €150.
Bang Tao & Surin
Integrated resort estates and villas, from €150, with the shortest run from the airport.
Phuket Old Town
Boutique hotels in restored shophouses, €30 to €45 for a mid-range double, and hostels from €10.
What to eat in Phuket
The Phuket dish: pork belly slow-braised in garlic, black pepper, soy and palm sugar until it collapses, dark, sweet-savoury, unmistakably Hokkien rather than Thai. Eaten with rice
Thick yellow wheat noodles stir-fried with seafood, pork, greens and soy: Phuket's signature noodle, and a different dish from Malaysian or Singaporean Hokkien mee. Mee sapam is the wetter local cousin, in a rad-na-style gravy
Phuket's own shaved-ice dessert, found essentially nowhere else: a jelly set from creeping-fig seeds (the plant behind Taiwanese aiyu), often bound with banana, served over ice with red beans, red syrup and lime. Hokkien name, Hokkien import
A paper-thin crisp coconut crepe of rice flour, egg, sugar and coconut milk, cooked in a small domed wok so it comes out bowl-shaped: lacy edges, soft centre, eaten with palm sugar or shredded coconut
Deep-fried pork offal with a sweet dark dipping sauce, a Peranakan street classic
Phuket's oyster-and-taro griddled omelette, another direct Hokkien inheritance
Fermented fish-innard curry, among the hottest dishes in southern Thailand and a genuine warning for the heat-averse
Griddled flatbread with curry, or with banana and condensed milk, the Malay-Muslim strand of the island's food
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Phuket customs and what not to do
The spine is Hokkien Chinese
Tin-mining migrants built the Old Town, founded its shrines and left the Peranakan food and the Vegetarian Festival behind; Thalang Road, Dibuk Road and Soi Romanee are the core.
There are Muslim villages here
A fishing village adjoins Kamala Beach and Koh Panyee's stilt village has a mosque; dress and behaviour there differ sharply from the beach strip a few hundred metres away.
Beachwear is for the beach
Carry a sarong or cover-up: the working temple below the Big Buddha needs knees and shoulders covered like any other, and Wat Chalong enforces it.
Ma song is devotion, not show
The skewered cheeks, fire-walking and bladed ladders at the Vegetarian Festival are religious acts by entranced mediums; photograph respectfully or not at all.
One shrine bans photography
No photography is allowed inside the Shrine of the Serene Light off Phang Nga Road; the other Old Town shrines allow it without flash.
Two attractions are out
Tiger Kingdom offers captive tiger handling and selfies, and the elephant camps lining the Big Buddha road offer riding; both fail the welfare test and neither is listed here.
Do
- Base in or near the Old Town for the Vegetarian Festival, and book roughly two months ahead
- Dress for a village or a shrine when you leave the beach strip, especially near the Muslim villages
- Go early to the Big Buddha, Wat Chalong and the markets, before the island-tour bus wave
- Agree the tuk-tuk fare before you get in, or use Grab and see the price first
Don't
- Ride an elephant or take a tiger selfie; the road up to the Big Buddha is lined with exactly these operations
- Rent a jet-ski, particularly in Patong; the damage-claim scam is the island's named rip-off
- Buy ping-pong-show or go-go tickets from Bangla Road touts
- Photograph or post other people's behaviour on the nightlife strip; fines have followed
- Feed the macaques at Monkey Hill; they snatch
What a Phuket trip costs
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Fun facts about Phuket
Phuket is roughly the size of Singapore. About 576 square kilometres, joined to the mainland by the Sarasin Bridge, which is why locals say it feels more like a peninsula than an island.
Mai Khao Beach sits at the end of the airport runway. People plane-spot from the sand, and the landing aircraft pass a few dozen metres over the beach.
The Big Buddha has been under construction since 2004 and is still unfinished. The base is incomplete, and visitors can sponsor a marble slab towards it at the site.
Wat Phra Nang Sang's three Buddhas were encased in concrete to stop thieves. That they were tin underneath was only rediscovered in the 1970s, on an island that was built on tin mining.
Khao Phra Thaeo is the island's last surviving rainforest. The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project rewilds gibbons rescued from the pet and photo-prop trades into it.
Thalang Road was the first street on the island to bury its power cables. The Old Town's Sino-Portuguese shophouses were built by Hokkien tin-mining families, and the street is their showpiece.
Firecrackers are lit inside Wat Chalong to drive off bad luck. The ritual is the temple's own, and the bangs from the brick kiln in the courtyard carry across the grounds all day.
Local tips for Phuket
There is no single ferry pier
Rassada near the Old Town serves Phi Phi and Lanta, Ao Chalong in the south the day trips and dive boats, Bang Rong the Koh Yao ferries. Check the pier on the ticket.
Budget an hour from the airport
It is in the far north and almost every beach is in the middle or the south. Grab has an official airport pickup now, and the Smart Bus does any west-coast beach for about €2.50.
Songthaews stop at sunset
The blue buses between Patong, Karon and Kata run for about €1 and stop at dark; after that it is a metered taxi or Grab. Tuk-tuks here carry a tourist premium they do not elsewhere.
How long to stay
Most people give Phuket 3 nights on Stippl, a base for the Old Town, one beach and one boat day. The west-coast beaches and the Old Town are two Phukets, twenty-five minutes apart.
Red flag means no swimming
The monsoon from May to October drowns thirty to forty people a year in rips at Karon and Patong, and a red flag stays a ban when the water looks fine. Flags only.
Ride on the right licence class
Phuket police fined or arrested over twenty thousand foreign riders in a year. Without the motorcycle class on your IDP the fine is the small part; the insurance will not pay for the crash.
Phuket questions, answered
By deciding whether you want a night out, a quiet swim or the Old Town, because the areas sit up to an hour apart and no base gives you all three on foot. Lay the nights out in Stippl and see how many days you would lose to the road. Then ask people who have stayed in each, in subreddits like r/ThailandTourism.
Phuket is on close to half of them: 44.9% of Thailand trips planned on Stippl carry a Phuket stop. The airport is most of the reason, since this is the only major Thai island you can fly into internationally and also reach by road, so it works as a way in rather than a detour.
A fifth of them do: 20.7% of Phuket stops planned on Stippl are a single night, which on an island this spread out means one beach and the drive to it. Two nights gets you a beach and Phang Nga Bay, and three gets you the Old Town as well.
On the west coast between May and October, only where the lifeguard flags are. Rip currents at Karon, Kata and Patong kill thirty to forty people a year, and Karon is the worst of the three. A red flag on those beaches is not advisory, and the calmer east side is the alternative on a bad day.
Yes, and give it a morning rather than an hour. Sino-Portuguese shophouses run along Thalang and Dibuk, Soi Romanee is the most photographed lane on the island, and the Thai Hua Museum sits in a restored mansion that was the first Chinese-language school here. This is the part of Phuket that is not a beach resort.
About eleven weeks out. Travellers leave 80 days between planning a Phuket stop on Stippl and arriving, which is short for a place where dry-season beachfront goes early. If your dates are fixed to December or January, settle the beds before the flights.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Plan Phuket in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the app