Phuket
Nine west-coast beaches on one island, measured rather than described. Which is calmest, which is loudest, which is walkable and which needs a car, with four years of wave height behind every card and a page of its own for each.
Phuket has nine beaches worth the name along its west coast, and the guides that rank them tend to rank the strips behind them. This page ranks the water, because that is the part that changes with the month and the part nobody else measures.
Four years of marine reanalysis, read at each beach’s own coordinates, produce a single ordering that holds in every month of the year. It runs south to north, and it is the most useful thing on this page.
The west coast gets steadily calmer as you go north. Kata and Nai Harn at the southern tip are the roughest water on the island; Nai Yang and Mai Khao at the northern end are the calmest, by about forty per cent in the dry season and about fifteen in the monsoon. The order never changes.
The reason is geometry rather than luck. The southwest monsoon arrives from the southwest, the coastline curves east as it runs north towards Phang Nga bay, and a beach at the top of the island takes that swell at an angle where a beach at the bottom takes it head on.
One limit, stated plainly. The marine grid is about five kilometres across, so nine beaches resolve to five cells. Nai Yang and Mai Khao share one; Kamala and Surin share one; Patong and Karon share one; Kata, Nai Harn and Rawai share one; Bang Tao has its own. Beaches that share a cell carry identical figures by construction, not because we measured them separately, and each card below says so.
In the order the gradient runs. The bar on each card shows where that beach sits between the calmest and the roughest February on this coast.
0 Not a swimming beach and never has been: it is Phuket's working waterfront, the pier for the offshore islands, and the best seafood on the island.
0.61m in February, 1.34m in July
Same grid cell as Kata and Nai Harn, so the figures are identical.
1 The best-looking bay on the island, and the one that feels sheltered while sitting in the roughest cell on the coast.
0.61m in February, 1.34m in July
Same grid cell as Kata and Rawai, so the figures are identical.
2 The beach most people mean when they say a Phuket beach, and the right first choice for most trips.
0.61m in February, 1.34m in July
Same grid cell as Nai Harn and Rawai, so the figures are identical.
3 Kata's longer, wider and quieter neighbour, and better value for the same standard of room.
0.53m in February, 1.30m in July
Same grid cell as Patong, so the figures are identical.
4 Three kilometres of sand in front of the loudest resort in Thailand. You already know whether you want it.
0.53m in February, 1.30m in July
Same grid cell as Karon, so the figures are identical.
5 A village with a beach in front of it rather than a resort with a village attached, ten minutes from Patong.
0.45m in February, 1.26m in July
Same grid cell as Surin, so the figures are identical.
6 A short bay with an upmarket address and, since the beachfront was cleared, very little on the sand itself.
0.45m in February, 1.26m in July
Same grid cell as Kamala, so the figures are identical.
7 Six kilometres of the widest sand on Phuket, most of it in front of resorts that intend you to stay in them.
0.40m in February, 1.21m in July
8 A shallow curve inside a national park, five minutes from the airport, and the calmest swimming on this coast.
0.37m in February, 1.13m in July
Same grid cell as Mai Khao, so the figures are identical.
9 Eleven kilometres of almost nothing, under the approach path, and the calmest cell on the coast with the worst undertow on it.
0.37m in February, 1.13m in July
Same grid cell as Nai Yang, so the figures are identical.
For a first trip, Kata: broad, swimmable, and enough behind it to fill a fortnight on foot. For the same thing quieter, Kamala. For a resort you intend to stay in, Bang Tao. For the calmest water and an early flight, Nai Yang. For nightlife you can walk home from, Patong, and you already know whether that is you. For a bay rather than a strip, Nai Harn, on the understanding that it sits in the roughest cell on the coast and looks calmer than it measures.
Rawai and Chalong on the south and east coasts are sheltered, shallow, and largely unswimmable: they are working waterfronts with piers, boats and seagrass rather than sand you would spend a day on. They matter because they are where the boats leave from for the offshore islands, and because in the monsoon they are the calm side of the island when the west coast is under red flags.
Every figure on this page has a season attached. December to March is the dry, calm half of the year on this coast; May to October is the southwest monsoon, when wave heights roughly double, red flags go up on the west-coast beaches and drownings are a genuine and recurring problem. The Phuket weather page has the month-by-month rainfall and sea state behind all of it, and the national beach comparison puts this coast against the Gulf.
Kata for most people: broad, swimmable, enough restaurants to fill an evening without arranging transport, and quieter than Patong. Kamala if you want the same thing smaller, Bang Tao if you want a resort and intend to stay in it, and Nai Harn if you would rather have a bay than a strip.
Mai Khao and Nai Yang at the northern end, which share the calmest of the five marine grid cells on this coast. They average 0.37 metres of wave height in February against 0.61 off Kata and Nai Harn in the south, and the same ordering holds in every month of the year.
Kata or Karon for the balance of shallow water and things within walking distance. Kamala for somewhere quieter with the same idea. Avoid Patong if the children are small, and treat the red flags in the monsoon as absolute wherever you are.
If you want nightlife, yes, and it does that better than anywhere else on the island. If you do not, it is the one beach where the strip behind the sand will decide your holiday whether you engage with it or not.
Yes, and more than the reputation suggests. Mai Khao is the island's longest and emptiest, inside a national park under the airport approach. Nai Harn is a proper bay at the southern tip with a lagoon behind it rather than a strip. Both are a drive from anywhere else.