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The Phi Phi Islands (pronounced “pee-pee”) is an epic archipelago made up of six islands in the Koh Phi Phi National Park, the largest of which are the two idyllic paradises of Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Phi Phi Leh.
The tropical 12km² wonderland of the Phi Phi Islands is a must-see destination while travelling in Southern Thailand and is known worldwide for its pristine beaches, towering limestone cliffs and one very popular bay.
Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Leh is a particular destination that makes it onto many people’s bucket lists after it was gained worldwide recognition in Danny Boyle’s film “The Beach” in 2000, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. In fact, it probably makes it onto too many bucket lists because the bay only recently reopened in 2022 following a 4-year closure due to over-tourism and pollution. That means now is the perfect time to visit Phi Phi!
This is my ultimate guide to seeing the Phi Phi National Park in one day from Phuket and everything you can expect to experience on a typical day tour, including essential travel information and handy tips along the way!
- Country: Thailand
- Language: Thai
- Currency: Thai baht: £1/$1 = 42/37 THB
- Visa info: As of October 1st 2022, many countries can enter Thailand for free with a 45 day visa on arrival. If your country isn’t included you can apply for a 30 or 60 day tourist visa before arriving. After that you can extend for an additional 30 days at immigration in Chiang Mai or Bangkok for around $40. You can only do this once before having to physically leave the country.
- SIM cards: There are a few SIM card options that are good in northern Thailand, but the best is DTAC. They have solid reception even in remote areas and offer a great package of unlimited internet at a fast speed of 15mbps for only 200THB (£4.70) per month. It can be topped up at any 7/11 store. Alternatively, buy an eSIM for Thailand here.
Where is it
The Phi Phi archipelago is situated in the Krabi Province of southern Thailand in the Andaman Sea.
Check it out on the interactive map below.
How to get to the Phi Phi Islands
The Phi Phi Islands can be reached from either Krabi or Phuket, with both offering an abundance of tour options and boats.
Some people opt to stay overnight on the larger island of Koh Phi Phi Don and visit other islands from there via a traditional long-tail boat, but a day trip gives you enough time to see the highlights too.
- Group tours can be booked online with Klook and GetYourGuide or at one of the many tour agencies around Phuket. On a group tour from Phuket (Asia Marina or Chalong Pier) a speedboat will take around 45-60 minutes to Maya Bay, depending on the weather. From Krabi a speedboat will take around 40-50 minutes.
- Traditional Thai long-tail boats are available to hire for the day as well, but they obviously take a lot longer to get from A to B. If you fancy going privately, get yourself to Chalong Pier early and negotiate a fair price with the driver for the day.
When to go
This entirely depends on what sort of experience you want. I visited in the heart of wet season and, apart from being slightly cloudy all day, it was hot and didn’t rain at all!
The peak season is from November to February and it’ll be cool and dry but extremely busy in these months. This is one of Thailand’s most popular travel destinations, so travelling in the off-season is a good way to avoid the brunt of the crowds.
- Wet season: May – Oct
- Cool season: Nov – Feb (Peak season)
- Hot season: March – May
How to get around
There are no motorbikes, tuktuks or taxis on any of the islands, so if you’re staying overnight on Koh Phi Phi Don you’ll be walking from A to B.
To get between islands, if you aren’t on a speedboat tour, you can easily find traditional long-tail boats and arrange transport directly with the driver.
Where to stay
To visit The Phi Phi Islands you’ll need to be staying in either Phuket or Krabi.
If you want to stay overnight on one of the islands, Koh Phi Phi Don is the one. There are plenty of accommodation choices, albeit at much higher prices than the mainland.
- Check out options on Booking.com here.
- Alternatively, use Hostelworld to find somewhere more suitable!
Expected costs
On a day trip, everything apart from a mandatory 200THB National Park entrance fee is included in the price of the tour, which in my case was $35. Most group trips should cost something similar to that so are pretty affordable if you consider what you’re getting.
If you’re staying overnight, expect massively inflated prices on the islands. Koh Phi Phi is one of Thailand’s most expensive destinations to stay the night, with a hostel dorm costing around 300-400 THB per night and a private budget double room around 700-1000 THB.
Cheap Thai street food can be found at the Phi Phi Don food market in the centre of town (50-70 THB), otherwise dinner could be quite pricey at one of the many Western restaurants.
How long to stay
Again, this is subjective. Taking it slow and staying overnight on Koh Phi Phi Don or booking a 10 hour day trip both seem like good options to me.
Thinking of visiting Southeast Asia soon? Don’t miss these essential guides to help planning your trip:
Phi Phi Islands day trip itinerary
This type of tour is always great value for money. Mine included an awesome guide and crew, buffet lunch, stops at three different islands, snorkeling, hotel pick-up and drop-off from anywhere in Phuket and some fresh fruit and soft drinks throughout the day!
After being picked up from your hotel in Phuket you’ll drive by minibus to the pier in Phuket Town to meet your guide. It is at this point you will need to pay the National Park entrance fee whether you’re on a tour or not, which is 200 THB ($6 USD).
On my tour, my group of 20 received a quick run-down of the plan for the day from “Bobby” (the crazy legend tour guide), before the boat departed at 9:30am.
1. Maya Bay (Koh Phi Phi Leh)
Ah, the power of Hollywood!
Koh Phi Phi Leh is a tiny island that is home to the iconic Maya Bay, which is arguably the most famous beach in Thailand.
A bucket list destination for many including me, the secluded bay is surrounded on 3 sides by towering limestone cliffs up to 100m high. It was made famous as the mysterious hidden beach/lagoon that young backpacker Leonardo DiCaprio searched for in Danny Boyle’s film “The Beach”.
Due to the films success and the general natural beauty of the beach, it has only recently reopened after being closed for 4 years to let the ecosystem regenerate after years of over-tourism. Now, the beach is still in pristine condition and although it can get real busy real quick you’ll still be able to find a space to yourself to admire this landscape in relative serenity.
These days, boats are banned in the bay and now park around the backside of the island with a well-made 200m forest trail linking to Maya Bay. This means you can admire “The Beach” without the constant convoy of speedboats killing the vibe (and the reefs!) in previous years. You will, however, have a constant convoy of other tourists around you because if it’s after 9-10am already, it’s gonna be busy – fact.
When I arrived it wasn’t too bad, but by the time I left at 10:30am the place was packed.
There are a few other pretty strict rules to note here, such as no swimming in the bay, no walking off the path in the jungle, and no drones. You’ve got to hand it to the Thai’s for learning from the past and taking no shit when maintaining a beautiful landscape!
2. Ao Pileh Lagoon
Not far around the corner from Maya Bay is a small lagoon called Ao Pileh.
The entrance to the bay is quite special and reminded me a lot of the Big Lagoon in Coron, Philippines, with it’s super shallow, transparent turquoise water.
The main reason tours come to this bay is the option for people to take a traditional long-tail boat ride and get those Insta-bangers from the front of it. Alternatively, as most of my group did, take a dip and cool off in the water.
The price for a long-tail boat was a whopping 1500 THB for a 20 minute ride. One boat could easily fit 10 people, though, so best to find some friends for this to bring the price tag down a bit!
3. Viking Cave snorkelling
Just by the mouth of Ao Pileh lagoon is Viking Cave. The cave gained it’s name when ancient drawings were found inside resembling viking ships.
Nowadays the cave is closed to tourists but is home to a particular type of bird called “swifts”, which are one of the fastest flying birds in the world.
A fun fact about swifts is they make their nests with saliva! Now for the really fun part… those nests are harvested by the Chinese and made into “edible bird’s nest soup”, making it one of the most expensive animal products in the entire world. Yum!
Although you can’t enter the cave anymore the area in front is a great place for snorkeling, with many species of inquisitive fish around. Also, anyone with a drone – you can finally fly it here! I flew mine from the boat to view this magical area from above and actually lost signal while it was nearly 3km away, searching for a glimpse of Maya Bay. Sketchy, but worth it!
4. Phi Phi Don lunch stop
Koh Phi Phi Don is the largest island in the Phi Phi archipelago and the place where it’s all happenin’.
Some people stay here to see the smaller islands in more depth and live the island life for a few days. The island is pretty heavily centered around foreigners, and with a short walk through town you’ll quickly discover it consists mainly of western delights such as bars, dive centers, tattoo shops, and travel agencies.
There are a few other things to do here as well, like hiking up to some great viewpoints over town. I wish I had enough time to send it up there, but that’s the downfall of an organised tour I guess.
My tour included a large buffet style lunch on the island near the main point of arrival on Phi Phi Don, Ton Sai pier.
The buffet lunch was really good, with things like never-ending rice, chicken broth, seafood broth, chicken drumsticks, curries and more. Not very Thai, I know… but it was perfect after a long morning at sea.
5. Monkey Beach or cliffs
A long strip of white powdery sand, most tours will go to Monkey Beach on Koh Phi Phi Don next. Because half of my group had terrible time management skills and were late after lunch, we didn’t make it there… but I’m actually kind of glad we didn’t go!
I’m sure it’s a beautiful beach, but I have no doubt that I’d be put off by the amount of snatchy, raging monkeys that have been fed by tourists for the last 10 years there. I dunno, there’s just something I don’t like about monkeys. Especially monkeys that have a beach named after them!
Instead of going to Monkey Beach we stopped alongside a limestone cliff where there were some monkeys chilling on the rocks waiting for food.
6. Koh Khai Don
Koh Khai Don is a tiny island just 15 minutes from Phuket by speedboat that is a popular final destination for most tours to the Phi Phi Islands.
The tiny beach on Khai Don island is lined with jet-skis and peppered with deckchairs, with a few little bars and coconut-stand places too. It’s the perfect place to get one last snorkel mission in, kick back on a lounger and soak up the sun before heading home.
If you’re lucky like me, you’ll have the whole island all to yourself… at least for a brief moment. When we arrived, because my driver loved that throttle pedal, we were way ahead of the crowd and it felt like our own private island. 15 minutes later and there were 7 other boats, lots of screaming children and the pushy jet-ski and drinks sellers appeared.
I would summarise Koh Khai Don as a cool little place, but slightly crowded and overpriced. I guess that’s what you get when you visit a really small, stunning island near Phi Phi at 2pm, though.
It’s worth noting that the 25km stretch of ocean between Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Khai Don is notoriously rough and choppy, so fasten your… eh… seatbelts? You’ll definitely get chucked around a bit on this leg of the journey!
From Koh Khai Don back to the pier in Phuket will take around 15 minutes and you’ll be dropped off at your hotel around 5pm!
My experiences at Phi Phi
I had dangerously high expectations about visiting Maya Bay and Phi Phi in general, but I can safely say they were smashed out the park!
After reading information online from previous years, I can’t lie, I was originally worried I would be triggered by the amount of people everywhere and still being allowed into Maya Bay each day. Thankfully, maybe because it was wet season and just after Covid restrictions had been lifted, it really wasn’t that busy.
Overall, my day at the Phi Phi Islands was great. This is the type of remote adventure that, with destinations miles apart, I would almost always take a tour for because it’s hassle free and usually well priced, like this one. Sure, it’s always going to be more expensive than going solo, and you might have to make some sacrifices on specific stops, but the crew onboard were legends and happy to help with anything that people needed. It’s people like them that make the experience great.
There were more people on the boat than I expected beforehand, maybe 20 in total, but it never felt cramped throughout and there was a good mix of personalities on board.
Even though it was the rainy season, I got pretty lucky with the weather too. It was cloudy all day which was a shame, but it could of been a lot worse. The tours the previous day had been cancelled due to storms and rough seas!
Now that I’ve been on a tour to the highlights of these awesome islands, I’d love to go back one day and take it at a much slower pace, maybe staying on Phi Phi Don for a couple of days and exploring from there. We shall see!
5 Phi Phi packing essentials
- Dry bag: Dry bags are great for water-based activities like beach days or boat trips. Keep everything safe and, you guessed it, dry with one of these.
- GoPro: Capture the surroundings in stabilised high quality with a trusty waterproof GoPro, perfect for wet adventures. Get the new GoPro HERO 11 here.
- Travel towel: Having a compact travel towel is essential here, for obvious reasons!
- Waterproof phone case: The risk of getting your phone soaked is high! Get a waterproof phone case to be prepared.
- Portable charger: Charge you tech on the move with one of these long lasting, high speed portable chargers.
Best tours of the Phi Phi Islands
Thank you for reading this travel guide – I hope you found it helpful! Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible 
Happy travelling!
HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR PLANNING YOUR TRIP
Accommodation: Booking.com, Hostelworld
Tours: GetYourGuide, Viator, Klook, TripAdvisor
Transport: 12Go, Omio, Trip.com, Rome2Rio
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