Is Phuket Worth Visiting?

Is Phukert worth visiting? There are undoubtedly better and more interesting parts of Thailand, but Phuket has its own airport and huge resort hotels, so is therefore popular in the mass-tourism market. For many it is a dream exotic holiday destination. In this Phuket blog we talk about what we enjoyed about Phuket, and what we didn’t. We list places to see, and places to avoid, the best day trips and hotels in and around Phuket.

Phuket lies to the south-west of mainland Thailand on the Andaman shore. It’s near other holiday hotspots such as Krabi and Ko Phi Phi, it’s famous for beaches and boat trips to see some beautiful island locations.

Sadly, Phuket is an island with a bad reputation and we found Patong to be best avoided at all costs because of high levels of nastiness. We enjoyed Phuket once we found its good parts and highlights. The markets, museums, and the Old Town of Phuket are well worth your time.

Chillva Market and the Old Town Night Market were particular favourites of ours in Phuket. We also found some of the best food in Phuket in and around the Old Town.

We can share our guide to Phuket for travellers like us, right here

Best Parts of Phuket

1. Phuket Old Town and Night Market

Phuket Old Town is certainly worth visiting. It’s is a lovely part of the island with hisoric buildings, a good museum and night market. 

Stroll the quaint restored streets of Chinese shop houses, each painted in vivid pastels.  If you’ve seen this architecture before (it’s common in Malaysia and Singapore) it won’t be new to you, but this is interesting to see in Thailand.

You’ll find these older buildings centred around Krabi Rd., Thalang Rd. and Romnani Soi in Phuket Old Town. Take the chance to eat great food at good prices and maybe visit Phuket’s boutique coffee shops and ice-cream emporiums.

The night market in the Old Town is fairly sophisticated and makes a nice evening out. There is a cat café here too if that is your thing. A full post on Phuket Old Town is on its way.

Phuket Old Town Budget Accommodation

On this trip we used budget accommodation and a series of luxury resort hotels, to be able to fully test accommodation options on the island. Standards were pretty high accross the board and costs were moderate.

One of the most popular and most highly rated hostels in Phuket Old Town is The Neighbours Hostel. It’s in a charmingly decorated shophouse building and well located. It has private doubles and dorms for under $20 and under $10.

The  Rommanee Boutique Guest House has nice doubles and will let 2 younger kids stay free and is under $35, again, good reviews and popular.

Cassa Blanca Boutique Hotel Phuket has possibly the best rating among the 4 and 5 stars nearby. Around $50 – $70 for doubles and 2 very small kids stay free.

2. Phuket History and Museums

Phuket’s history is quite fascinating and its Chinese heritage and unique cultural mix is evident in many ways. On the whole, we thought that Phuket felt more like Malaysia than the north of Thailand because of its cultural blend.

Check out the Thai Hua Museum on Krabi Road, Phuket Old Town. This old schoolhouse is a magnificent and well-preserved Sino-Portuguese building and a good place to learn bout the arrival of Chinese workers in Phuket and their retained culture.

We’ve seen Chinese shophouses in many places around the world but this is the place to learn more about them.

Try also, the  Kathu Phuket Mining Museum to learn how tin changed the face of this island.

3. Good Food in Phuket

If you know where to look there is great food on Phuket, but there are also some culinary disasters. Look for street stalls and small pavement cafés that are busy with locals, that’s always a good sign.

Tourist restaurants, even if they claim to be Trip Advisor recommended, can be really bad and terribly over-priced. The hotel food we tried on Phuket was universally good, or you could try eating in the locals’ markets. Two restaurants we can personally recommend are:

• Kopitiam by Wilai on Krabi Rd. Phuket Old Town.
• The Pad Thai Shop. Karon Beach.
• The restaurant with no name, under the red turtle street art on Thalang Rd.

4. Phuket Markets

Chillva Market and the Old Town Walking Street market were our favourites. Chillva is impressively modern with a stunning array of hygienically produced, delicious food.

It also has bars and live music to while the evening away.  The Old Town weekend market on Talang Rd is also a great place to hang out. You’ll find musicians performing here but the main focus is tourist souvenirs and some street food.

Market Opening Times

Please double check this for yourself, I can’t keep up to date with every change, guide only.

• Chillva Market Opening Times, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Saturday, 5pm to 11pm.
• Phuket Weekend Market, Saturday and Sunday 4pm to 9pm
• Phuket Old Town Sunday Walking Street, Sunday 4pm to 10 pm
• Phuket Indy Market, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 4pm to 10pm

5. Best Day Trips in Phuket

There are several big-budget, big-draw, day trips to be taken by boat from Phuket. Don’t miss Ko Phi Phi, Monkey Island, and some amazing snorkelling opportunities.

Also to the north, towards Krabi you can visit James Bond Island and Phang Nga Bay. These tours carry hefty price tags, search locally for the best deal.

We chartered our own boat for Phang Nga Bay and saved hundreds of dollars, but for this, you really need your own hire car.

6. Phuket’s Best Scenery, Natural Reserves and Clean Beaches.

We were universally impressed by clean water and sand around Phuket. Water quality seemed far better than Ko Samui. Jet skis, powerboats and parascending can make swimming hazardous.

Unfortunately, the beach cafés, restaurants and bars around the island had recently been demolished or were being demolished. There are now few places to sit and enjoy the beaches, other than on the actual beach. It’s a shame.

There are many beaches around Phuket’s coast, mostly concentrated on the west side. You should find one to suit you. Our family enjoyed swimming at quiet Laguna beach, this is where the Ironman was held, but it was not free from jet skis and speed boats, often ploughing straight through the designated swimming area.

Our feeling is that Phuket and the busy Thai islands are possibly better enjoyed from a hotel pool although I’m sure there must be quiet beach spots that we didn’t discover.

There are some lovely view points around the island that you can discover by car or by scooter, for the very brave.

7. Phuket’s Best Hotels

We were very impressed by hotels on Phuket. We stayed at two resort hotels, both owned by Novotel, as guests of the company

Destination Resort Phuket Karon Beach was the flagship resort of the company and an absolutely superb Phuket hotel for families. The above link takes you to Agoda, where you can check rooms and prices. We always recommend Agoda for booking in Asia, we use them, and they’re good, or you can go to Booking.com here

The resort hotels we tried offered accommodation, entertainment, and dining of an excellent standard. We would recommend them highly, particularly for family vacations or maybe to take a “break” from long-term backpacking or travel.

Both experiences were rather like being on a good cruise ship, the customer never needs to leave the resort. You can see our full review posts on these hotels below:

• Phuket Novotel Surin Beach
• Phuket Karon Beach

8. The Big Buddha, Phuket

Phuket’s giant white Buddha, known as “The Big Buddha” sits majestically on top of a hill overlooking the sea and shore. The views are spectacular and it’s an interesting place to visit.

The site is still being built through public donation and is a mammoth undertaking. In all my years in Thailand, I’ve never seen monks praying and chanting in a building site before.

There are monkeys to be seen up there and a nice little grove of trees housing sacred Buddha footprints.

9. Phuket Hosts Ironman Events

This was what brought us to the island, The Phuket Ironman 70.3 event is a tough competition, well worth entering. You can read more about this half Ironman event and my husband’s experience of the race, here.

Hiring a Car in Phuket

This is what we did and we found it super useful, Phuket taxi drivers love to charge the Earth so having your own rental vehicle is very handy for getting around Phuket’s beaches and sightseeing. See this post on hiring a car in Thailand or get a fast quote here.

Parking and heavy traffic may cause you issues in some parts of Phuket, but on the whole, we thought renting a car was a good idea and helped us to see more.

That’s our round-up on Phuket, things to do, things we loved and a few highlights. There are plenty of things to avoid on Phuket, certainly, like the endless animal attractions, we saw baby elephants wherever we went and it was hard to avoid. But don’t rule Phuket out because of the bad things you’ve heard. It’s an interesting place to explore and Phuket Old Town will certainly capture the heart of most travellers. Prices don’t have to be high, we paid the same for our first guest house on Phuket as we did in Chiang Mai (around $25/night) and food costs can be kept just above normal Thailand rates if you go to the right places. Detailed posts on most of the above are coming soon. We hired a car on Phuket, it’s cheap and to really explore the island, it’s essential. (read more on car hire in Thailand here). Back to our main Thailand Travel Page.

If you'd like to hire a car during your stay, use this car rental comparison tool to find the best deal!

We also suggest you take a look at this company to get a quote for all kinds of the more tricky adventure or extended travel insurance.

Try Stayz / VRBO for an alternative way to find rentals on homes/apartments/condos in any country!