Koh Tao Travel Guide

Koh Tao is twenty-one square kilometres of granite and jungle in the Gulf, the smallest and northernmost of the three islands people mean by the Gulf islands, and it exists commercially because of one thing: the water around it is warm, shallow, sheltered and full of instructors.

Diving, which is the point

An open-water certification here costs a fraction of what it costs almost anywhere else, takes three to four days, and is taught by dozens of schools within a few hundred metres of each other on Sairee beach. The sites are close, the boats are short, the water is between twenty-eight and thirty degrees, and visibility is good rather than spectacular.

The competition is what makes it cheap and it is also the thing to be careful about. Ask about group size before you book, not about price: a course with four students to an instructor is a different experience from one with eight, and the price difference between them is small.

For people who already dive, Chumphon Pinnacle and Southwest Pinnacle are the sites worth the trip, and whale sharks pass through, most often between March and May.

If you do not dive

Snorkelling is genuinely good and cheap, and a longtail round the island for the day is the standard alternative. Beyond that the island is short of things to do: a few viewpoints reached by unpleasantly steep tracks, Koh Nang Yuan next door with its sandbar joining three rocks, and a lot of beach bars.

Koh Tao is not the island to choose if the water is not the plan. Phangan next door is bigger, prettier and has more to do on land.

Sairee and the rest

Sairee is the long west-coast beach where most of the island lives: dive schools, bars and the sunset. Mae Haad is the port. Chalok Baan Kao in the south is quieter and has the shallow bay. The east coast is a set of small bays reached by bad roads or by boat, and is where you go to be away from it.

The weather, and the crossing

Koh Tao runs on the Gulf calendar: dry January to September, wettest in November and December. The specific thing to know here is the crossing rather than the island. Koh Tao is further out than Samui or Phangan and the boats are more exposed; in the November and December swell, sailings are cancelled and the two-hour crossing can be an unpleasant one. Build a spare day around a flight if you are coming in those months.

Getting there

No airport. Ferries from Koh Samui and Koh Phangan take one to two hours, and from Chumphon on the mainland about two. The overnight bus-and-boat combination from Bangkok is a rite of passage rather than a comfort.

How long to give it

Four nights if you are certifying, which is the course plus a day either side. Three otherwise, and honestly that is enough.