Koh Phangan Travel Guide

Koh Phangan has a reputation built on one beach, and the reputation is accurate about that beach and misleading about the rest of the island. Half an hour by boat from Koh Samui, twice its size and with a fraction of its development, most of Phangan is jungle with a road round the edge and bays at the end of steep tracks.

Haad Rin and the Full Moon Party

The party has run monthly on the sand at Haad Rin since the 1980s and now draws tens of thousands of people at its peak. It is loud, it goes all night, and it is the reason a great many people come to this island and the reason others avoid it.

Two practical points. Accommodation across the whole island multiplies in price for three nights around the full moon and books out months ahead, so the date matters even if the party does not interest you. And the injuries here are real and mostly mundane: cuts from broken glass on the sand, and scooter accidents on the hill road out of Haad Rin at four in the morning.

The rest of the island

Thong Nai Pan on the northeast corner is two bays with a handful of hotels, a rough road in and no relationship at all to Haad Rin. It is among the quietest good beaches in the Gulf.

Haad Yuan and Haad Tien, just round the headland from Haad Rin and reachable only by longtail, are where the island’s wellness and yoga scene sits.

Chaloklum on the north coast is a working fishing village with the island’s best seafood and almost no beach.

Srithanu on the west is the centre of the long-stay community: vegan cafes, ecstatic dance, and month-long rentals.

The weather

Phangan keeps the Gulf calendar, which is three months out of step with the Andaman coast. It is dry from January to September, and it is at its wettest in November, which is exactly when people assume the islands are at their best.

The practical version: come between February and September and the island is drier than Phuket. Come in November and it is the wettest place in the country.

Month by month, measured

Getting there

There is no airport. Almost everyone flies to Koh Samui and takes the half-hour boat, or flies to Surat Thani and takes a longer one. Ferries from Samui run frequently through the day and stop in the evening.

Getting around

A hired scooter, and this is the island where that decision matters most. The road across the middle to Thong Nai Pan is steep enough that rental shops used to refuse to let bikes go that way, and the hill out of Haad Rin has hurt a great many people. Taxis exist and are expensive; on the roads that matter here they are the sensible expense.

How long to give it

Five to seven nights, and pick your half of the island before you book. Phangan is not a place where you casually move between Haad Rin and Thong Nai Pan; they are an hour apart on a hard road.