Andaman day trips, priced
Phuket is the harbour. The island is what you sail to.
Which Phi Phi boat reaches Maya Bay before the fleet, what the Phang Nga caves cost by longtail against a big boat, and where the elephants are genuinely retired.
Five bookings a first week on Phuket is built around.
A karst bay, a Phi Phi lagoon, a morning with elephants, the shophouse streets and a jungle track. What each costs, and what the people who went say about it.
- 01The karst dayPhang Nga Bay Sea Cave Canoeing & James Bond Island by Big BoatSea caves and hidden lagoons in Phang Nga Bay, paddled from a big boat. The most-booked day out on the island, by a distance.
02The Phi Phi runPhi Phi Islands and Maya Bay Day Trip with LunchMaya Bay, Pileh Lagoon and Monkey Beach in one long boat day with lunch. Take the early departure and you get there first.
03The elephant morningElephant Jungle Sanctuary Ethical Feeding ExperienceFeeding retired elephants in the hills above Chalong. No riding, no show, mostly bananas and mud.
04The island townFull Day City Tour with Night MarketWat Chalong, the Big Buddha, a viewpoint and the night market, with somebody else driving the hills.
05The jungle trackParadise Trip ATV Jungle AdventureA quad through rubber plantation and red mud above Kathu, finishing at a waterfall. Wear what you would throw away.
Phi Phi, Phang Nga or a sandbar: pick the boat that suits your week.
Four kinds of day leave the same piers, and they are not interchangeable. What each one is really like on the water, and what it costs to get aboard.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Phi Phi Islands Adventure Day Trip w/ Seaview Lunch by V. Marine
Phi Phi and Maya BayA long day east. Lagoons, snorkel stops, lunch on Phi Phi Don.
Phang Nga BayLimestone hongs paddled by canoe, with a guide doing the steering.
Khai sandbarsTwenty minutes out. Shallow water, easy snorkelling, back by four.
Racha and CoralClear water close in, for the days the swell is up further out.
All 51 boat days from Phuket →
Six islands you can leave Phuket for before breakfast.
Phuket is the pier. Phi Phi and Maya Bay lie east across open water, the karst maze of Phang Nga sits north behind the headland, the Khai sandbars are twenty minutes out, and Racha and Coral hold the clearest water within reach of a morning.
Half of Phuket happens with your face in the sea.
Reef stops off Racha where you can see the bottom from the deck, sea canoes threading into hongs that only open at low tide, and catamarans that cut the engine when the sun drops behind Phi Phi. The Andaman is why people come back.
Twenty minutes behind the beach the island turns to rubber and red mud.
Every day inland →
The hills behind Patong and Chalong hold rubber plantation, limestone ridges and waterfalls that only run in the wet half of the year. Sanctuaries that gave up riding, quad tracks that get properly filthy, and a zipline strung through the canopy above Kathu.
Feeding, not riding
The camps that dropped riding run feeding and mud baths instead, in small groups on a fixed timetable. Mornings are cooler for the animals and for you, and they are the sessions that fill.
Quad tracks above Kathu
Rubber plantation, a tapping demonstration nobody expects to enjoy, then a red-mud climb to a viewpoint over Patong. The photographs are better than the driving.
Ziplines through the canopy
Platform to platform above the jungle behind Kathu, with a sky bridge and an abseil in the middle of most circuits. Several courses bolt a quad ride onto the same half day.
The days out more people book than anything else on Phuket.
Every Phuket tour we have reviewed →The trips that carry the island. What each one is, what it costs, and why it keeps selling out.
1
Phang Nga Bay Sea Cave Canoeing & James Bond Island by Big Boat
Cruise Phang Nga Bay from Phuket on a large boat with guides such as Omar, Tommy, Ohma, Tony, and Dino. Paddle through caves and mangroves at Panak and Hong islands, visit James Bond Island, swim at Nakae Island, and enjoy a Thai buffet lunch.
From · $99
Read our review →2
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary Ethical Feeding Experience
from $28
3
Phang Nga Bay and Canoeing Tour by Big Boat
from $53
4
Phi Phi Islands Adventure Day Trip w/ Seaview Lunch by V. Marine
from $91
5
Paradise Trip ATV Jungle Adventure
from $32
6
Phi Phi Islands and Maya Bay Day Trip with Lunch
from $34
7
Full Day City Tour with Night Market
from $31
8
Phuket Thai Cooking Class with Market Tour Option
from $65
The Old Town is the part of Phuket that has nothing to do with the beach.
Sino-Portuguese shophouses in sherbet colours along Thalang and Dibuk Roads, a Chinese shrine at either end, and food stalls that outlast every bar on the beach road. Most drivers will fold Wat Chalong and the Big Buddha into the same afternoon.
Every day in Phuket Town →
What a day out on Phuket actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best Andaman days come in under the price of a beachfront dinner.
Old Town walks, temple runs, the Khai sandbar boats and a night at the stadium.
The full days out: Phi Phi by speedboat, the Phang Nga sea caves, elephant mornings with pickup.
Private longtail charters, the long Similan runs and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that only happen on this coast.
Beaches and boat trips exist all round the Andaman. Paddling into a collapsed cave to find a lagoon inside the rock, a shophouse street built on tin money, and a ram muay danced before every bout do not.
The hongs of Phang Nga
A hong is a collapsed cave with an open lagoon inside it, reachable only through a tunnel at the waterline and only around low tide. Guides paddle you in lying flat in the canoe while the roof passes a hand above your face. Inside there is mangrove, birdsong and no engine noise at all, and the tide decides how long you get.
- 1Phang Nga Bay Sea Cave Canoeing & James Bond Island by Big Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,666 reviews
- 2Phang Nga Bay and Canoeing Tour by Big Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,528 reviews
- 3James Bond Island Longtail Boat and Sea Canoe Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,364 reviews
The Sino-Portuguese shophouses
Phuket was rich from tin long before anyone came for the beaches, and the money went into shophouses along Thalang and Dibuk Roads: narrow fronts, deep interiors, arcaded walkways that let you cross the town out of the sun. Most are cafes and guesthouses now, and the paintwork has turned into a competition.
- 1Wat Chalong, Viewpoint, and Old Town Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,875 reviews
- 2Phuket City Tour – Old Town, Local Food, Temple & Viewpoint★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 525 reviews
- 3Old Town Half-Day Sightseeing with Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 225 reviews
A night at the stadium
Cards run in ascending order of experience, so the youngest fighters are on first and the main event is late. The ram muay danced before each bout is not a warm-up, it is the fighter paying respect to his gym and his teacher. Ringside is loud and very hot; the rows behind it see more of the fight.
- 1Patong Boxing Stadium Muay Thai Match Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,203 reviews
- 2Bangla Boxing Stadium Muay Thai Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 393 reviews
- 3Muay Thai Boxing Class at Rachai Muay Thai Gym★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 197 reviews
Phuket at night is a cabaret, a stadium and a boat with a sound system.
Cabaret theatre in Patong that seats a thousand, Muay Thai under the lights on Bangla Road, dinner shows out at Kathu, and beach clubs that moor a DJ on a pontoon. Stadium seats are sold by ring position rather than by row, so buy on where you want to sit.
- 1Simon Cabaret Show Admission Ticketfrom $25
- 2Simon Cabaret Show Entry Ticket
- 3Simon Cabaret Show Tickets Optional First 3 Rowsfrom $25
Four Phuket bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on park seasons, daily visitor caps and fight nights that take no interest in when your flight gets in.
- 01Phi Phi Islands and Maya Bay Day Trip with LunchMaya Bay runs on a daily visitor cap and a closed season each year, and boats moor at a jetty behind the headland rather than in the bay. The early departures are the ones that get there ahead of the fleet.
- 02Similan Islands Snorkeling Day Tour from PhuketThe Similans sit inside a national park that opens only for the dry half of the year, roughly mid-October to mid-May. Outside that window there is no trip to book at any price.
- 03Elephant Jungle Sanctuary Ethical Feeding ExperienceSanctuaries cap each session and run two or three a day. The morning slot, the cool one, is the first to go.
- 04Patong Boxing Stadium Muay Thai Match TicketStadium cards run on set nights rather than every night, and ringside is sold by position. Leave it to the day and you take whatever is left at the back.
When the west-coast flags go red and the speedboats stay in.
From about May to October the southwest monsoon pushes surf onto Patong, Karon and Kata, and a red flag there means the rip is real rather than advisory. Boat days get called off at short notice. The answer is to go east, go inland or go indoors: a kitchen, a spa, the shophouse arcades, a stadium.
Curry pastes pounded by hand, and a night market that never gets shorter.
Southern Thai cooking is hotter and more sour than the Bangkok version, and the island layers Hokkien noodles and Peranakan baking on top of it. Do the market walk before the heat arrives, then the class that finishes as lunch.
By island — where the boats land
By kind of day — boat, jungle, kitchen or ring
Phi Phi, Phang Nga, the elephants and the Old Town: the week most people end up doing.
The sanctuary
Old Town
Big Buddha
PatongThe newest Phuket tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Private Surf Lesson: 1-Hour Wave-Riding on Kata Beach
Read our review →
Racha Island Game Fishing & Trolling From Phuket
Read our review →
Khao Sok Adventure: Jungle Safari in Thailand’s Oldest Rainforest
Read our review →
