The Islands of Thailand, Beyond Phuket

Phuket did Thailand a disservice, in a way. It became so completely synonymous with the country’s islands that everything else got filed under “the other ones” — an afterthought for travellers who had already ticked the box. That is a mistake. Some of the best resorts, the clearest water and the quietest beaches in Thailand sit a short flight or a long boat ride beyond Phuket’s shadow, largely untouched by the crowds that now define it.

Koh Samui, Reconsidered

Samui suffers from a similar reputation problem to Phuket, but its northern and eastern coasts have quietly built some of the country’s most accomplished resorts over the past decade, many of them low-rise and set into hillside jungle rather than lined up along a beach strip. The island rewards travellers who skip the built-up west coast entirely and base themselves instead near the quieter northern headlands, where the snorkelling improves considerably and the evenings are properly dark.

The Southern Andaman Islands

Further south, a scattering of smaller Andaman islands offer something closer to the Thailand of thirty years ago — limestone karsts rising straight out of the water, beaches reachable only by longtail boat, and a handful of resorts that have deliberately kept their footprint small. These are not islands for travellers who want nightlife or choice of restaurant; they are for travellers who want silence, genuinely excellent diving, and a horizon with nothing on it. Our guide to diving destinations for the curious beginner covers several of these sites in more depth.

Koh Kood and the Eastern Gulf

On the other side of the country, close to the Cambodian border, the eastern Gulf islands remain one of Thailand’s better-kept secrets, partly because they are harder to reach and partly because they have never marketed themselves particularly hard. Koh Kood in particular has drawn a small run of considered, low-key resorts that lean into the island’s thick jungle interior rather than fighting it. The beaches here are some of the finest in the country, and busy is a relative term that rarely applies. Travellers who would rather spend their days on a fairway than a beach might consult our guide to the best golf resorts in Asia.

What distinguishes the eastern Gulf islands most is the water clarity, which owes less to remoteness than to the absence of the large-scale development that has muddied the seabed around some of Thailand’s more established resort areas. Snorkelling straight off the beach here can rival boat excursions elsewhere in the country, and several of the newer resorts have built their entire proposition around this — private jetties, house reef access, dive schools that never need to travel far to find something worth seeing.

Trang and the Deep South

Fewer travellers still make it to the province of Trang, well south of the more familiar Andaman resort belt, where a scattering of near-uninhabited islands sit inside a marine park with genuinely limited development permitted. Accommodation here tends towards simple beach bungalows rather than five-star resorts, which is precisely the trade-off: what the region lacks in polish it makes up for with a rawness that has largely disappeared from the rest of the Thai coast. It suits travellers who want the idea of a deserted island to be more than a marketing phrase.

What the Resorts Do Differently

The best resorts on these quieter islands share a design instinct that has largely disappeared from the busier stretches of Thai coastline: building low, using local timber and stone rather than imported marble, and leaving as much of the original tree cover in place as possible. It is a deliberate rejection of the glass-and-concrete tower model that defines parts of Phuket’s beach strip, and it tends to produce a stay that feels rooted in its setting rather than simply placed on top of it. Guests notice the difference within a day — fewer hard surfaces, more shade, a slower pace to the service that matches the setting rather than fighting it.

Getting There Without Losing a Day

• Fly into Bangkok and connect via a short domestic leg rather than routing through Phuket.
• Build in one buffer night near the airport for island transfers that depend on tides or weather.
• Ask resorts directly about speedboat versus ferry transfer times — the difference can be several hours.

The logistics of reaching these islands are, admittedly, part of what keeps them quiet. A trip that takes real planning tends to filter out the travellers who simply want the easiest beach holiday available, which is precisely why the islands beyond Phuket have kept their character. For those weighing a longer regional route that takes in several of these coastlines, our piece on how to plan a multi-country Asia trip is a useful companion.

“Phuket taught people what a Thai beach could look like,” a Bangkok-based travel planner told us. “The quieter islands are where you actually get to enjoy one.”

What a Yacht Adds

For travellers who can stretch the budget, chartering a boat to move between several of these islands over a week solves the transfer problem entirely and opens up anchorages that no resort, however remote, can match. Our companion piece on luxury yacht charters covers the practicalities in detail, and the two make a natural pairing for anyone planning a longer Thai coastal trip.

None of this is to dismiss Phuket entirely — it remains a genuinely useful gateway, with an airport and infrastructure the quieter islands lack. But treating it as the destination rather than the departure point is where most travellers go wrong. The better trip, more often than not, begins where Phuket’s runway ends, and for a broader sense of what else the region offers, our full Travel & Stays section is worth browsing before you book.

When to Go

Thailand’s islands run on two broadly opposite monsoon patterns — the Andaman coast is calmest from November to April, while the eastern Gulf islands favour the middle of the year, from roughly May to October. Getting this the wrong way round is the single most common mistake among first-time visitors, arriving to find flat grey seas and cancelled boat transfers on an island that was supposed to be at its dry-season best. A quick check against the specific coast, rather than Thailand as a single climate zone, saves considerable disappointment.

What all of these islands share, beyond Phuket’s reach, is a slower rhythm that is becoming harder to find anywhere in Southeast Asia. There is still time to see them before that changes, and the extra effort of getting there remains, for now, the very thing keeping them worth the trip.