Patong Beach (15 km from town)
Phuket's most developed beach offers numerous leisure, sporting, shopping and recreational options along its 3-km long cresent bay. Windsurfing, snorkelling, sailing, swimming and sunbathing number among the many popular daytime activities. Patong is equally well known for its vibrant nightlife, among which seafood restaurants feature prominently.

Kata Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
Beautiful Kata is a scenic gem, its clear water flanked by hills, and picturesque Bu island sits offshore. Kata retains a village feel at its northern and southern ends and is perhaps more family-oriented, its beach more peaceful than Patong.

Kamala Beach
The beach is a favoured spot for witnessing sunsets. The northern end of Kamala Beach is suitable for swimming.

Kalim Beach
Just north of Patong Bay, starting from about the Novotel Resort Hotel Patong to Thavorn Bay Resort, this area consists of rocky but quiet beaches, and an interesting road leading up into hills with high viewpoints and a few good quality restaurants perched on the edge and top.

Panwa Beach (10 km from town)
The southernmost tip of this cape is home to a Marine Biological Research Centre and Phuket's Aquarium where visitors may inspect several hundred exotic, grotesque, and flamboyantly colourful marine species found in the teeming waters of Phuket and elsewhere.

Bangtao Beach
Bangtao is a large open bay with one of Phuket's longest beaches. It was once used for tin mining, but has since been developed into a luxury resort. Most of it is occupied by the Laguna complex, a massive five-hotel development with golf course. There are, however, accommodations available outside Laguna at the bay's south end.

Nai Yang Beach (30 km from town)
This is where the National Park office is located. The beach itself is on a long curving bay lined with evergreens that provide shade to picnickers. The large coral reef is home to many different species of fish, and Nai Yang is well known as a site where sea turtles come to lay their eggs during the period from November to February; the population of these has however, dropped off greatly. First class accommodations are available and small food vendors cater to the many day trippers.

Promthep Cape (40 km from town)
Promthep Cape is a headland forming the extreme south end of Phuket. "Prom" is Thai for the Hindu term, "Brahma," signifying purity, and "Thep" means 'God.' Local villagers used to refer to the cape as "Leam Jao", or the God's Cape, and it was an easily recognisable landmark for the early seafarers traveling up the Malay Peninsula from the sub-continent

Karon Beach (20 & 17 km from town)
The second largest of Phuket's tourist beaches. Large resort complexes line the road behind of the shoreline, but the long, broad beach itself has no development. The sand is very white, and squeaks audibly when walked upon. The southern point has a fine coral reef stretching toward Kata and Bu Island.

Naiharn Beach (18 km from town)
South of Kata Noi and north of Promthep Cape, Naiharn is not Phuket's longest beach, but it borders the most gorgeous lagoon on the island. The middle of the beach is dominated by the Samnak Song Nai Han monastery, which has obstructed excessive development and is the reason that the beach is generally less crowded than other spots on the southern part of the island.

Singh Beach (About 1 km from Surin Beach)
The name means Lion's Point. The beach is in a small, curving bay with rocky headlands at the foot of forest-fringed cliffs and is among Phuket's most beautiful spots.

Chalong Bay (11 km from town)
This beach has several restaurants selling some of Phuket's best seafood.


Surin Beach (24 km from town)
Evergreen trees line this small, curving bay, beneath the foothills north of Kamala. Surin is home to Phuket's first golf course, a nine-hole course laid out more than sixty years ago during the reign of King Rama VII. It is now largely in disuse except as a park.

Pansea Beach (24 km from town)
Pansea is a mouth-wateringly scenic enclave dominated by two deluxe resorts: Amanpuri and the Chedi. Film stars or VIPs like to stay there, as they can get away from the crowds. There are just a few restaurants and shops nearby.

Rawai Beach (17 km from town)
The palm-fringed beach is best known for 'sea gypsies,' a formerly nomadic fishing minority believed to be of Melanesian descent.

Mittrapap Beach
Friendship Beach Resort, on Mittrapap is the usual meeting point for Americans on the island, and holds regular Sunday jam sessions for any rockers, jazzers or bluesmen who happen to be passing.

Maikhao Beach (40 km from town)
Many kilometers of deserted beach characterize Mai Khao where there is little tourist business. The water is fine for swimming during the dry season; the rainy season brings big waves and strong currents that are dangerous.