Top 10 Things to Do in Phuket | The Kayaks Beat the Beaches

The best thing here is not a beach

Phuket sells itself on beaches and the best thing on this island involves a kayak and a cave.

That is worth knowing before you plan, because it changes what you book: the limestone karst scenery around here is the genuine wonder of southern Thailand, and it is why Phuket beats a lot of comparable beach destinations. The sand is the least remarkable part. Ask us which beach fits.

The ten

1. Sea kayaking in Phang Nga Bay

The best half-day in southern Thailand.

You paddle to the base of the limestone karsts and then into them: a hong is a collapsed cave with a hidden lagoon inside the rock, and the entrance is frequently low enough that you lie flat on your back in the kayak while your guide pushes you through in the dark.

Then it opens out into a circle of jungle and cliff with the sky at the top and nobody else in it.

That is the thing you will still be describing in a year. Compare Phang Nga kayak trips on Viator.

2. Old Phuket Town, for two nights

The thing nobody books and where the island keeps its personality.

Sino-Portuguese shophouses painted in pastels, a Sunday walking street, good coffee, and a food scene that has nothing to do with the resorts.

Two nights at the end of the trip and you will have seen an island most visitors miss entirely. It is the single best structural suggestion we make about Phuket and our Phuket travel guide makes it too.

3. The seafood market at Rawai

The most direct food transaction available anywhere.

You buy your fish at the market, you carry it across the road, and the restaurant opposite cooks it for you. That is the whole system.

Rawai is not really a swimming beach and that is why it is interesting: it is where the boats go from and it feels like a place people live.

4. A gaeng som you will regret and reorder

Southern Thai food is fiercer than Bangkok's: more turmeric, more chilli, more coconut, a lot of seafood.

Gaeng som is a sour orange fish curry and it will hurt you and you will order it again the next day. Massaman is the southern one with the Persian ancestry, mild and rich. Neither tastes like the Thai food you know.

5. Sunset at a beach that is not Patong

Kata, Nai Harn or Kamala, with a beer, on the sand, at six.

That is not a listicle answer and it is the correct one. Phuket's sunsets on the Andaman side are the reason the island got famous before anyone built anything.

6. Phang Nga Bay's sea stack, honestly

The famous one, from the film. Go, look at it, and understand that you are looking at a rock that a great many other boats are also looking at.

Worth it on the way to the kayaking rather than as the destination.

7. Phi Phi, with your eyes open

Beautiful and extremely busy, and the standard day tour delivers you to the famous bay along with everyone else at the same hour. Numbers have been restricted at times to let the reef recover, which is a good thing and which changes what is available.

If you go: choose an operator that starts early or arrives late, and adjust the expectation from "paradise" to "beautiful place with people in it". Find island trips on Klook.

8. The Similan Islands, if you dive

Seasonal, and the real thing. If diving is why you came, this is the trip, and it is a different proposition from the snorkelling day tours.

9. Roti from a night stall

Fried, folded, sweet with condensed milk and banana, and it is the correct end to any evening here.

10. A genuine elephant sanctuary

Only at a place where nobody rides anything, and there is a real difference between those and the places that call themselves one.

If riding is offered, that answers the question and you should leave.

The red flags are not decoration

The serious part of this page and we would rather over-say it.

The west coast of Phuket develops genuinely dangerous rip currents in the monsoon months, and people drown here every year. Some of them are Australians, and some are strong swimmers, and the two facts are related: we grow up on patrolled beaches with flags and lifesavers and we quietly believe our beach competence transfers.

It does not. Most beaches here have no patrol.

The red flags mean do not enter the water, and they are placed by people who watched what happened last week. The sea being flat where you are standing means nothing about the current thirty metres out.

If the flag is red, the swim is not available. That is the whole rule.

The motorbike, and your insurance

The other thing that hurts Australians here.

Most travel insurance requires an appropriate licence to ride a scooter, and appropriate frequently means a motorcycle licence valid in Australia, not a rental agreement and a passport photocopy. Riding without it can void your cover for the accident and sometimes the whole trip.

Our travel insurance guide covers it properly. Every Australian who has been to Phuket has seen the scooter with the boardshorts and the flip-flops.

The monsoon takes most of this list

Worth being blunt, because most of the good things here float.

November to April is the dry season: calm water, boats running, everything above available.

May to October is the southwest monsoon: rough seas, the dangerous currents described above, and some island trips cancelled because the boats cannot safely run.

So a monsoon trip is a genuinely different holiday. The rain arrives in bursts and the sun comes back, the island is green and half empty and the prices fall a long way. What it takes is the sea and the island hopping, which is exactly what this list is made of.

If the boats are the holiday, come in the dry season. If a pool, a massage and Old Phuket Town are the holiday, the monsoon is excellent value and we will book it happily.

What to skip

The beachfront places with photographs on the menu and a man outside inviting you in. Universal rule, especially true here.

The assumption that Patong is Phuket. It is two kilometres of an island fifty kilometres long, and driving fifteen minutes in either direction escapes it entirely.

Booking notes

Prices shown by our partners are live and in your choice of currency, most activities confirm instantly, and free cancellation windows are stated on each listing. Very little here needs booking from Australia: the boat trips, the massages and the food can all be arranged on the day, and doing so is cheaper and lets you read the weather, which on this island genuinely matters.

Our flights to Thailand page covers the corridor, and be aware the airport is a long way from most beaches. Get a free Thailand quote.