Koh Samui Area Guide, Thailand

Koh Samui used to have a reputation as a backpacker destination but although backpackers do still go, Samui has long developed into a wider spectrum, including mass tourism destination with hard core backpackers and individual travelers preferring nearby Koh Phangan and Tao, which also have far from basic accommodations now themselves. We order the resort areas according to approximate tourist numbers.

The main tourism area on Samui is Chaweng Beach which has a superb long white sandy beach with a wide selection of both beachfront and not accommodations, plus a lively bar and restaurant scene in the center section, although walking through hotel grounds or footpaths at that point will bring you to the much less sweaty, lantern lit beach restaurants which put their seafood out for display on ice in cabinets. Chaweng Beach hotels include everything from budget accommodations to luxury and boutique accommodations. Chaweng reportedly now also has bars where Thai girls can be rented for the night; if you are planning to go to Thailand with this illegal activity in mind, please do not use our site.

Between Chaweng and Lamai Beaches, there are a number of hotels on the beach and headland overlooking the sea known as Viewpoint.

Lamai Beach is popular with many tourists including the younger generation for its bar scene. Unfortunately Lamai has a very bad reputation for crime and is the resort area made internationally infamous by Katherine Horton, a young British woman who was raped and then murdered by local fisherman on the beach as she called her mother by mobile phone on New Year’s Eve 2005-2006. The fisherman were drunk and fueled by pornography magazines which well reflect the overall culture of this resort area generally and travelers should take care.

Bophut Beach has good views of Koh Phangan but a steep beach which is not so aesthetic once the tide is half to all the way out. Much quieter and safer than Chaweng or Lamai, yet within relatively easy and quick access to Chaweng, it is a very logical and popular resort area for families. There are a range of hotels from budget to highly priced luxury boutique villa resorts. Bophut has nothing like the restaurant and bar scene of Chaweng, so eating out will almost certainly entail using transport.

Mae Nam and Bang Po Beaches are basically more of the same of Bophut and generally increasingly up-market and with it, much more expensive.

Other beaches around the island, such as Lipa Noi Beach often offer more secluded (quiet) accommodations for the independent traveller, with Laem Set also providing tour group hotels for brochure lovers who want a little more seclusion.

We donate all of our direct reservation earnings from the hotels and villas in Samui on our site to a charity in one of the most deprived areas of Thailand, which helps keep poor even homeless children off the streets and out of child labour and the sex industry. When you book with and then stay and pay a hotel or villa directly via our site you are basically making a donation to a very worthy cause at the same time, thank you (see our charity page).

If you would like to correct anything you believe is wrong or out-of-date here or provide extra text that could help others get the best out of Koh Samui, please feel free to contact us. If you would like more tourism information on any aspect of travel to / holidays in Samui, please visit our associated Thailand Travel Forum.

If you have a favorite hotel or villa in Koh Samui which does not have a direct reservations facility with us, please feel free to either contact us with a name and email address for that hotel / villa or ask them to visit our site and register. The more hotels and villas in Samui that join Travel Ethos, the more we can help needy children in Thailand.