Kamala Beach

Kamala is the answer to a specific question: what if Patong were a fifth of the size and you could still walk to dinner. It is a village first and a resort second, with a Muslim fishing community behind the northern half of the beach and a row of restaurants along the southern one.

You can see all of it in twenty minutes. That is either the appeal or the objection, depending on the trip.

Where it sits on the coast

Kamala shares its grid cell with Surin immediately north, and the pair measure 0.45m in February against 1.26m in July. That is calmer than Patong and Karon and calmer again than Kata and Nai Harn at the southern end: Kamala is where the west coast starts to shelter as it curves north towards Phang Nga bay.

The northern end, in front of the village, is the gentler half. The southern end has more shore break and is where the beach clubs and the sunset crowd are.

What is behind the sand

A road, a school, a mosque and a working village, which is unusual on this coast and is the reason Kamala feels different from the resort beaches either side of it. There is a modest strip of restaurants and a small number of bars, and that is the extent of the nightlife. Patong is ten minutes over the hill when it is not.

Getting here

About thirty-five minutes from the airport and ten from Patong. The road between the two climbs over a headland with a viewpoint on it, which is where most of the photographs of Kamala bay are taken from.

Gallery

Kamala Beach in pictures

The rest of the coast

Every beach on this page is measured the same way, on the same scale, in Phuket’s beaches, ranked by what they are for. The month behind those figures is on the Phuket weather page, and where to base yourself is area by area.