Phuket Beaches

Patong Beach (15 km from town)
Phuket’s most developed beach offers numerous leisure, sporting, shopping and recreational options along its 3-km long cresent bay. Windsurfing, snorkelling, sailing, swimming and sunbathing number among the many popular daytime activities.
Patong is equally well known for its vibrant nightlife, among which seafood
restaurants feature prominently.

Karon Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
The second largest of Phuket’s tourist beaches. Large resort complexes line
the road behind of the shoreline, but the long, broad beach itself has no development. The sand is very white, and squeaks audibly when walked upon. The southern point has a fine coral reef stretching toward Kata and Bu Island.
Restaurants, bars, tour companies and other non-hotel businesses are at the
north end, near the traffic circle, and at the south end, on the little road connecting 52 - Smart Traveller the backroad with the beach road. The narrow road between Kata and Karon has a number of small businesses as well as the Dino Park Mini Golf facillity. Karon is the most up-scale of Phuket’s beaches. There is a regular daytime bus service to and from Phuket Town.

Kata Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
Beautiful Kata is a scenic gem, its clear water flanked by hills, and picturesque
Bu island sits offshore. Kata retains a village feel at its northern and southern ends and is perhaps more family-oriented, its beach is much more peaceful than Patong.

Kata Noi Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
South of Kata is Kata Noi, a smaller beach with only a few hotels and little other
development. The beach is superb. Many fish inhabit the rocks and corals along the
beachless shoreline stretching south. How to get there : Take the narrow beach road up over the hill from kata.

Naiharn Beach (18 km from town)
South of Kata Noi and north of Promthep Cape, Naiharn is not Phuket’s longest
beach, but it borders the most gorgeous lagoon on the island. The middle
of the beach is dominated by the Samnak Song Nai Han monastery, which has
obstructed excessive development and is the reason that the beach is generally
less crowded than other spots on the southern part of the island.
A wide variety of water sports can be enjoyed, but swimmers should be alert
for the red flag which warns of dangerous currents during the monsoon season
from May to October. One can walk to nearby Promthep Cape to observe sunsets,
which are often fiery and spectacular.

Kamala Beach
The beach is a favoured spot for witnessing sunsets. The northern end of
Kamala Beach is suitable for swimming. Whilst Kamala doesn’t attract tourists in
the same numbers as other places it has a certain niche, those who do come say
‘we like it just the way it is, don’t tell anyone as they’ll all come and spoil it’.

Singh Beach (About 1 km from Surin Beach)
The name means Lion’s Point. The beach is in a small, curving bay with rocky
headlands at the foot of forest-fringed cliffs and is among Phuket’s most beautiful
spots. Look for signs indicating the path down to the beach.

Kalim Beach
Just north of Patong Bay, starting from about the Novotel Resort Hotel Patong
to Thavorn Bay Resort, this area consists of rocky but quiet beaches, and an
interesting road leading up into hills with high viewpoints and a few good quality
restaurants perched on the edge and top. Some housing compounds are now being built on the hillsides and the whole area is steadily moving upmarket.

Chalong Bay (11 km from town)
Chalong’s muddy East Coast shoreline makes it rather unsuitable for swimming but
it’s an ideal and natural spot for yacht mooring. This beach has several restaurants selling some of Phuket’s best seafood.

Panwa Beach (10 km from town)
The southernmost tip of this cape is home to a Marine Biological Research
Centre and Phuket’s Aquarium where visitors may inspect several hundred exotic,
grotesque, and flamboyantly colourful marine species found in the teeming waters
of Phuket and elsewhere.

Surin Beach (24 km from town)
Evergreen trees line this small, curving bay, beneath the foothills north of
Kamala. Surin is home to Phuket’s first golf course, a nine-hole course laid out
more than sixty years ago during the reign of King Rama VII. It is now largely in
disuse except as a park.
The steep incline of the beach, turbulent water, and big waves make Surin
a dangerous place to swim.

Bangtao Beach
Bangtao is a large open bay with one of Phuket’s longest beaches. It was
once used for tin mining, but has since been developed into a luxury resort. Most
of it is occupied by the Laguna complex, a massive five-hotel development with
golf course. There are, however, accommodations available outside Laguna at the
bay’s south end.

Rawai Beach (17 km from town)
The palm-fringed beach is best known for ‘sea gypsies,’ a formerly nomadic
fishing minority believed to be of Melanesian descent. Rawai holds the distinction of
being the very first tourist beach on Phuket.

Promthep Cape
Promthep Cape is a headland forming the extreme south end of Phuket.
“Prom” is Thai for the Hindu term, “Brahma,” signifying purity, and “Thep” means
‘God.’ Local villagers used to refer to the cape as “Leam Jao”, or the God’s Cape,
and it was an easily recognisable landmark for the early seafarers traveling up the
Malay Peninsula from the sub-continent.