Krabi
Where to Stay in Krabi
Four bases that are not interchangeable: a road you can walk, a peninsula with no road at all, a quiet resort strip and a working Thai town. Which one suits the trip you are taking.
Krabi is a province rather than a town, and the four places people actually stay in are not variations on one another. One has a road you can walk end to end, one has no road at all, one is a strip of resorts on a quiet coast and one is a working Thai town with no beach. Getting that choice right decides more here than the hotel does.
The short version
- Ao Nang: first trips, and anything over four nights. Restaurants, transport, boats.
- Railay: the setting, reached only by boat. Short on choice, long on view.
- Klong Muang and Tubkaak: resorts on a calm coast, with nothing behind them.
- Krabi town: cheap, real, and twenty-five minutes from the sea.
The thing that makes all of them work
Krabi’s bays sit inside Phang Nga bay with Phuket island itself between them and the open Andaman Sea. Four years of marine reanalysis put the wave height at Ao Nang, Railay and Phra Nang at between 0.18 and 0.43 metres, and that is the full annual range: the roughest month here is calmer than Phuket’s calmest.
It means the sea is swimmable in months when the west coast of Phuket is under red flags, and it is the single strongest reason to choose Krabi over Phuket if the water is what you came for.
Ao Nang
The main beach and the practical answer for most people. A single road runs behind the sand with the restaurants, dive shops, bars and travel agents on it, and you can walk the whole thing in twenty minutes. Boats to Railay, the Hong islands and Phi Phi leave from the beach itself or from Nopparat Thara next door.
The beach is not Krabi’s best; it is a working beach with longtails moored along it. What Ao Nang has is everything else, and on a week-long trip that matters more than the sand outside your hotel.
Nopparat Thara, immediately north, is the quieter version of the same idea with a longer, emptier beach and a shorter walk to dinner.
Railay
A peninsula rather than an island, cut off from the mainland by limestone rather than water, and reachable only by longtail. That single fact produces everything else about it: no cars, no through traffic, a handful of places to eat, prices higher than Ao Nang because every crate arrives by boat.
Railay West is the sunset beach with the resorts. Railay East is a mangrove shore rather than a swimming beach and is where the cheaper rooms are. Phra Nang, a few minutes’ walk through a cliff path, is the beach everyone has seen photographs of, with a cave shrine at one end.
Three or four nights here is wonderful. Ten is a long time to eat at the same four restaurants, and the boats stop in the evening and in bad weather.
Klong Muang and Tubkaak
Twenty-five minutes north of Ao Nang, on a calm shallow stretch of coast looking out at the islands. This is the upmarket end of Krabi: individual resorts spread along the shore with very little between them. Sunsets are the selling point and the water is the calmest in the province.
The catch is the one that comes with every resort strip. There is no village behind it, so you will eat where you are staying most nights and every trip out is a taxi. Right for a honeymoon or a rest, wrong for a first trip.
Krabi town
The province’s actual town, on a river twenty-five minutes inland, with a night market, a bus station and the airport nearby. No beach.
It is a good place to spend the night before an early flight or after a late ferry, it costs a fraction of the beaches, and it is the one part of Krabi where you are among people going about their week rather than among visitors. As a base for a beach holiday it does not work: everything you came for is a taxi ride away.
Koh Lanta, which is a different decision
An hour and a half to two hours south by ferry, or two to four by road. Lanta is a long thin island with a road down its spine, a string of west-facing beaches that get quieter the further south you go, and a much slower pace than anywhere on the mainland.
It is not a base for seeing Krabi; it is an alternative to seeing Krabi. If a fortnight is the plan, a week here and a week on Lanta is a better shape than two weeks in one place.
Ferry times and the road route
Choosing, in one paragraph
First trip, or a week or more: Ao Nang. Three or four nights and you want the view: Railay. A resort you will not leave: Klong Muang. A night either side of a flight: Krabi town. And if the sea is the reason you chose Krabi at all, any of them beats Phuket between May and October, because the bays are behind the island and the monsoon is not.
Frequently asked questions
Should I stay in Ao Nang or Railay?+
Ao Nang for a first trip and for anything longer than four nights: it has the restaurants, the transport and the boats to everywhere else. Railay for the setting, which is genuinely extraordinary, and only if you understand that there is no road, prices are higher because everything arrives by boat, and the choice of somewhere to eat is short.
Is Krabi town worth staying in?+
For a night either side of a flight or a bus, yes, and it is much cheaper than the beaches. As a base for a beach holiday, no: it is a working provincial town on a river, twenty-five minutes from the sea, with no beach of its own.
Which part of Krabi is quietest?+
Klong Muang and Tubkaak, north of Ao Nang. Resort strips on a calm stretch of coast with almost nothing behind them, which is the appeal and the catch. You will eat where you are staying most nights.
How do you get to Railay?+
By longtail boat, from Ao Nang or from Krabi town's Klong Jilad pier, and only by boat. It takes about fifteen minutes from Ao Nang. Boats stop running in the evening and in rough weather, which is worth knowing before you plan a late dinner elsewhere.
Is Krabi better than Phuket?+
Different rather than better. Krabi has the limestone landscape and, measured, the calmest water in Thailand: its bays never average more than about 0.43 metres of wave height in any month, against 1.34 on Phuket's west coast in July. Phuket has the range, the nightlife and far more flights.