Phuket: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Phuket was not a beach destination until the 1970s. For four hundred years before that it was a tin island — one of the richest tin fields in the world — worked by Hokkien Chinese labourers who came over from Penang, and by the 1900s the men who owned the mines were building themselves mansions in a style that is half southern Chinese and half colonial European. That is what the old town is: tin money, two kilometres of it, and almost nobody walking around the beaches ever sees it. Two and a half hours, flat, and the Sunday evening market closes the main street.
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A short history of Phuket
For centuries the island of Phuket attracted traders because of the tin found there. In 1785 two sisters, Thao Thep Kasattri and Thao Si Sunthon, defended it against a Burmese army for about a month, and a statue of them now stands at the entrance to the island. In the 19th century thousands of miners came here from China, and thanks to them the Sino-Portuguese houses that still stand in the centre of Phuket Town were built. From the 1970s tourism replaced tin mining. On 26 December 2004 the tsunami struck the island's beaches and killed hundreds of its residents and visitors.
The ten best sights in Phuket
1Phuket Old TownFree, Sino-Portuguese shophouses built on tin money, and walkable in two hours
2Thalang RoadFree, the main old-town street, and it is closed to cars on Sunday evening
3Soi RomaneeFree, the most photographed lane on the island, and it was the brothel street
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4Chinpracha House
150 baht, a lived-in 1903 mansion, and the family still owns it
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5Thai Hua Museum
200 baht, a former Chinese school, and it explains the tin and the migration
6Shrine of the Serene LightFree, hidden down an alley off Thalang Road, and it is still a working shrine
7Jui Tui ShrineFree, the centre of the Vegetarian Festival in October, and busy all year
8Put Jaw ShrineFree, next door to Jui Tui, and it is the oldest Chinese temple on the island
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9Bang Neow Shrine
Free, and the piercing processions of the October festival start from it
10Big BuddhaFree, 45 metres of white marble on a hill, and shoulders and knees covered
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Phuket →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Phuket:
Free walking tours in Phuket
The town that tin built
Phuket was not a beach destination until the 1970s. For four hundred years before that it was a tin island — one of the richest tin fields in the world — worked by Hokkien Chinese labourers who came over from Penang, and by the 1900s the men who owned the mines were building themselves mansions in a style that is half southern Chinese and half colonial European. That is what the old town is: tin money, two kilometres of it, and almost nobody walking around the beaches ever sees it. Two and a half hours, flat, and the Sunday evening market closes the main street.
- Thalang Road · The shophouse here is a specific building type: narrow frontage, long and deep, with an open air well in the middle for light and ventilation and the shop at the front and the family behind. The style is called Sino-Portuguese locally, though the Portuguese had nothing to do with it — the pattern came from Penang and Malacca with the Chinese merchants, and the European detailing was copied from British colonial buildings there.
- Soi Romanee · The most photographed lane on the island, and what it was is worth knowing: this was the brothel and gambling street of the mining town, where the Chinese labourers spent their wages — and it was known by exactly that reputation into the 1950s. The houses were restored in the 2010s and painted in the colours they had, and the plaques on them say what each one was.
- Chinpracha House · Built in 1903 by a tin magnate, and the family still owns it and still lives in part of it — so what you walk through is a furnished house rather than a museum: the original tiles from Italy, the furniture from China, a kitchen with a wood range, and family photographs on the walls. Two Bond films and several Thai dramas were shot in it, which is how it pays for its upkeep.
- Thai Hua Museum · This was the first Chinese-language school in Phuket, opened in 1934, and the museum in it is about the migration: how Hokkien men came for the mines, how the ones who stayed married Thai women, and how the children of those marriages — the Baba or Peranakan community — created a separate culture with its own dress, food and funeral rites. The wedding costume room is the thing to find.
- Jui Tui Shrine · The centre of the Vegetarian Festival, which runs for nine days in the ninth lunar month and is not what the name suggests: devotees enter a trance state and pierce their cheeks with skewers, swords and in some cases bicycle frames, then walk through the town. The festival is said to have begun in 1825, when a visiting Chinese opera troupe fell ill and recovered after performing the rites.
- Khao Rang Hill · The hill above the old town, and the view from it explains the geography: the town is not on the coast. It sits inland at the head of a bay, because a mining town needed a river and a sheltered anchorage rather than a beach — and the beaches that everyone now flies in for were, until the 1970s, the empty far side of the island.
The west coast, beach by beach
The whole west side of the island is one beach after another, and they are genuinely different from each other rather than interchangeable: Patong is a city, Kata is a surf break, Nai Harn has no high-rise because the land belongs to a temple, and Mai Khao is eleven kilometres of almost nothing with aircraft landing overhead. The monsoon matters: from May to October the west coast gets swell and rip currents and the red flags are not decorative. A full day with a car or a scooter.
- Patong Beach · Three kilometres of sand with a city behind it, and it was a coconut plantation and a few fishing huts until a road was cut over the hills in 1976. Everything you see was built in the fifty years since. The 2004 tsunami went about four hundred metres inland here and the rebuilding took two years, which is part of why so little of it looks older than that.
- Karon Beach · The longest beach on the island, and the sand squeaks when you walk on it — that is not a local legend: the grains here are unusually round and uniform quartz, and rubbing them together produces the noise. The beach is also noticeably steeper than Patong, which means the water drops away quickly a few metres out.
- Kata Beach · The surf break on this island, and the season is the reverse of the swimming season: the waves come with the south-west monsoon from May to October, which is exactly when the water is dangerous for swimmers. Boards are hired on the sand for a few hundred baht and the local competition is held in September.
- Nai Harn Beach · The only major beach on Phuket with no hotel strip behind it, and the reason is ownership: most of the land belongs to the monastery next to it, which has never sold. So there is a lagoon, a lawn, a temple and almost nothing else, and it is the beach that local families use at the weekend.
- Cape Promthep · The southern tip of the island, and the name means Brahma’s god — it was a navigation mark for Arab and Indian traders long before it was a sunset spot, because this headland is where you turn to enter the Andaman coast. The elephant shrine on it is modern. The crowd arrives an hour before sunset and the car park fills.
- Mai Khao Beach · Eleven kilometres of sand at the north end with almost nothing on it, because it is inside a national park and because the airport runway ends at it — aircraft pass about twenty metres overhead on final approach, which has become an attraction and is also why a fence and warning signs went up. Sea turtles nest on this beach between November and February.
Temples, bays and islands
The limestone towers of Phang Nga Bay are karst: a hundred and fifty million years ago this was a coral reef, it was lifted, and rain has been dissolving it into pillars ever since — and the same rock, further out, makes Phi Phi and the Similans. The practical thing to know is the seasons: the Similans close from May to October, Maya Bay was shut entirely for four years to let the coral recover and reopened with a visitor cap, and a boat day from Phuket is eight hours. A full day for each.
- Wat Chalong · The most important temple on the island, and it is dedicated to two monks who set broken bones and treated wounds during a Chinese miners’ rebellion in 1876 — they are still the figures people come to. The brick oven in the courtyard is for firecrackers: you let off a string of them when a wish has been granted, and the noise goes on all day.
- Big Buddha · Forty-five metres of reinforced concrete faced in white Burmese marble, started in 2004 and funded entirely by donations — which is why it took more than a decade and is still technically unfinished. You can buy a marble tile, write on it and have it set into the base. From the terrace you can see Chalong Bay, Kata and Karon at once.
- Wat Phra Thong · The golden Buddha here is buried to the shoulders and only the head and upper chest show, and nobody has dug it out. The story is that a boy tethered a buffalo to what turned out to be the spire, both died, and every subsequent attempt to excavate it has ended in illness or death — including, according to the temple, an attempt by Burmese soldiers in 1785.
- Phang Nga Bay · The towers standing in the water are what is left of a coral reef that formed about a hundred and fifty million years ago and was pushed up when India collided with Asia. Rain dissolves limestone along its cracks, so the soft rock has gone and the hard cores remain as islands. Several are hollow, with collapsed centres you can paddle into through a sea cave at low tide.
- Koh Panyee · A Muslim fishing village of about fifteen hundred people built on stilts against a limestone cliff, because there is no flat land — the founders were Malay fishermen who settled here in the eighteenth century and were not permitted to own land as non-Thais. The children built a floating football pitch out of scrap in the 1980s after watching the World Cup, and the team went on to win regional championships.
- Maya Bay · Closed completely in June 2018 because the coral in it was more than three-quarters dead from boat anchors, sunscreen and up to five thousand visitors a day. It reopened in 2022 with a cap on numbers, no boats allowed in the bay itself, no swimming, and a one-hour limit — and the coral has measurably recovered, which makes it one of the few places where the closure worked.
Getting to Phuket and getting around
- Phuket International Airport · At the north end of the island, and the old town is 32 kilometres away
- Bus Terminal 2 · Buses to Bangkok take 12 hours, and the minivans to Krabi leave when full
- Sarasin Bridge · The only road onto the island, and it was built in 1967
Cheap eats in Phuket
Phuket was named a Unesco City of Gastronomy in 2015, and the reason is not the resort restaurants: it is the Baba food of the old town, which is what happened when Hokkien Chinese cooking met Thai and Malay ingredients over four generations. Three dishes are local and nowhere else: moo hong, pork belly braised black in soy and pepper; Hokkien mee, yellow noodles fried with seafood; and oh aew, a shaved ice with red beans and a jelly made from banana and a local fruit. Fifty to a hundred and twenty baht.
- Lock Tien · 50 to 80 baht a dish, cash, and closed after four
- Kopitiam by Wilai · About 120 baht, closed Sunday, and the room is tiny
- One Chun · About 200 baht, Baba cooking in a 1917 house, and moo hong is the order
- Tu Kab Khao · About 400 baht, southern Thai and loud, and book for the evening
- Mee Ton Poe · About 70 baht, cash, and lunch is the sitting
- Lard Yai Sunday market · Sunday from four, almost all food, and this is where locals eat on Sunday
- Rawai seafood row · About 600 baht for two with cooking, and go at five
- Naka Weekend Market · Saturday and Sunday from four, enormous, and the food is at the back
Museums in Phuket
There is no major museum on Phuket, and what there is answers one question: where did the money and the people come from? The answer is tin and Hokkien China. Four hundred years of mining brought Chinese labour from Penang, the men who got rich built the old town, and the Baba community their marriages produced is still here. The restored houses are the real museums, and three of them are open.
- Thai Hua Museum · 200 baht, closed Sunday, and an hour is enough
- Chinpracha House · 150 baht, a 1903 mansion the family still lives in, and two Bond films were shot in it
- Shrine of the Serene Light · Free, down the alley beside number 73, and easy to walk past
- Jui Tui Shrine · Free, and the October festival fills the whole quarter
- Put Jaw Shrine · Free, next door to Jui Tui, and it is about 200 years older
- Bang Neow Shrine · Free, and the piercing processions leave from here at dawn in October
- Phuket Aquarium · 180 baht, run by the marine biology institute, and it is research-led
- Thalang Heroines Monument · Free, a roundabout, and the traffic round it is the hazard
Nature and day trips near Phuket
Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, forty-eight kilometres long, and almost all of it is a limestone and granite ridge with a mangrove coast on the east and a sand coast on the west. The two things to plan around are the monsoon — May to October brings swell, rip currents and closed islands — and the 2004 tsunami, which killed about two hundred and fifty people here and is why every beach now has evacuation signs and a siren tower.
- Phang Nga Bay · From 1,200 baht for a day boat, and the hollow islands need low tide
- Similan Islands · Closed May to October, four hours each way, and booked ahead
- Koh Yao Noi · An hour by ferry from Bang Rong, and bicycles are the transport
- Khao Sok · 130 kilometres out, an overnight is the point, and booked ahead
- Mai Khao Beach · Free, 11 kilometres, turtles nest November to February, and the planes land overhead
- Phuket Elephant Sanctuary · From 3,000 baht, no riding and no bathing, and booked weeks ahead
- Soi Dog Foundation · Free, booked online, and twice a day only
- Khao Lak · 88 kilometres north on the mainland, and the 2004 wave reached ten metres there
Things to do in Phuket with kids
- Phuket Aquarium · 180 baht, on Cape Panwa, and an hour and a half is enough
- Kata Beach · Free, lifeguards in season, and surf lessons from about eight years old
- Nai Harn Beach · Free, a lagoon behind for paddling, and lawns with shade
- Big Buddha · Free, you can write on a marble tile and have it set into the statue
- Coral Island · From 1,000 baht, 20 minutes by speedboat, and the snorkelling is shallow
- Mai Khao plane spotting · Free, the aircraft pass about 20 metres up, and stay behind the fence
- Jungceylon · In Patong, air conditioned, and this is the plan for a wet afternoon
- Central Phuket · An aquarium inside and an indoor water park, and open till ten
Holy places in Phuket
Phuket has three religious communities living on top of each other and the proportions surprise people: about two-thirds Buddhist, about a third Muslim — the fishing villages on the west and north coasts are Muslim and have been for centuries — and a Taoist Chinese layer on top of the Buddhism in the old town, which is where the shrines and the October festival come from. All three are visible in a day.
- Wat Chalong · Free, shoulders and knees covered, and the firecrackers are loud
- Big Buddha · Free, 45 metres, funded entirely by donations, and sarongs lent at the gate
- Wat Phra Thong · Free, the Buddha is buried to the shoulders, and nobody will dig it out
- Wat Srisoonthorn · Free, a 29-metre reclining Buddha, and it is on the Thalang road
- Jui Tui Shrine · Free, Taoist, and the nine-day festival in October is the thing
- Put Jaw Shrine · Free, next door to Jui Tui, and the sticks are free to use
- Kamala Beach · Free, dress a little more modestly than on Patong
- Koh Panyee · In the bay tour, a Muslim village on stilts, and the mosque is on piles too
Nightlife in Phuket
There are two separate nights on this island and they do not mix. Patong is Bangla Road: four hundred metres of bars, clubs and cabarets, pedestrian from six, loud until four, and entirely built for visitors. The old town is the other: shophouse bars on Thalang and Dibuk Road that close at midnight, mostly Thai customers, and a quarter of the price. Alcohol is not sold between two and five in the afternoon by national law, and not at all on Buddhist holidays.
- Bangla Road · Free, pedestrian from six, loud till four, and agree any price in advance
- Simon Cabaret · From 800 baht, three shows a night, and it has run since 1991
- Thalang Road at night · A beer is about 90 baht, and everything shuts at midnight
- Kata Beach · The beach bars run till one, quieter than Patong, and the surf crowd is here
- Rawai · The seafood row and a handful of bars, and this is where residents eat
- Surin Beach · Free, almost nothing built on it now, and that is the point
- Central Phuket · The restaurants on the top floor, open till ten, and licensed
- Lard Yai · Sunday only from four to ten, and the whole old town is on the street
Frequently asked questions about Phuket
What is there to see in Phuket?
The top sights in Phuket are Phuket Old Town, Thalang Road and Soi Romanee. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Phuket?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Phuket without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Phuket?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Phuket, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The town that tin built.
How do you get to Phuket and get around?
The main ways are Phuket International Airport, Bus Terminal 2 and Sarasin Bridge. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Phuket, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Phuket that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Phuket for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.