Unusual Things to Do in Phuket
Surprisingly, there are still amazing places people miss entirely when visiting Phuket. And like most people, you want to visit Phuket, but you wish to see it from a lesser-known angle and discover places most people haven’t heard of.
Many would say there are no such places in Phuket anymore, but there are! After 30 years spent on Phuket Island, I found many more than you would think! So here are some of the little places I rediscovered and where I spend time when I feel like getting away from it all, and these are just a few among many!
Sai Kaew Beach
Haad Sai Kaew, meaning Glass Sand Beach in Thai, is a beautiful, endless beach located at the very north of Phuket Island. During the high season, the sea over there has a beautiful blue tone and walking alone for miles, you would never guess you are still in Phuket. Only one restaurant remains on the beach after the illegal building cleanup removed the others. It serves real Thai food under thatched bamboo huts right on the sand.
Laem Singh Beach
Laem Singh Beach might come as a surprise in an ‘off the beaten track’ list because it was so popular and crowded for so long. Then the landowner blocked the path, and overnight it became inaccessible. You can’t cross the land, but the law allows you to reach it by sea (read this). A couple of longtail boats now run from Surin Beach for about 100 baht per person. The beach is quiet again, the water is as clear as ever, and it feels like going back ten years.
Green Heart Garden
Green Heart Garden is a superb hidden restaurant perched high on the hills above Kata Beach and blessed with incredible panoramic views of the Andaman Sea. The restaurant is built with several vast wood terraces with bamboo furniture and is entirely surrounded by trees. The atmosphere is incredibly relaxing, and the team is friendly.
Bon Island
Bon Island (or Koh Bon) is located just south of Rawai Beach in Phuket and is just a short longtail boat ride away (about 15 minutes, around 1,300 baht per boat round trip). Despite being so close to Phuket, it hasn’t been invaded. There is a restaurant with a castaway atmosphere on one beach, and a hidden second beach on the other side of the island that most visitors never find.
Piang Prai Restaurant
Piang Prai is an excellent local restaurant in a delightful green setting next to the well-known Bang Pae waterfall. The place is breezy and spacious, a unique way to relax before or after visiting the waterfalls. Piang Pari serves great Thai food at local prices, including some local specialities.
Nai Yang Beach
Stay away from crowded beaches and discover Nai Yang, a bay of Phuket that hasn’t changed much in years. Locals love to come on weekends for a picnic and a barbecue under large casuarina trees while kids splash about in the sea. It is part of the Sirinat National Park, so there might be a small fee to enter. The beach has no jet skis, no parasailing and no vendors. Walk to the southern end during high season, and you can watch planes landing just metres above the sand.
Bang Pae Seafood
Bang Pae Seafood is one of my weekend favourites in Phuket. Bang Pae Seafood serves a wide choice of delicious local dishes. Sit in front of the natural landscape of mangrove trees growing into the sea, a setting totally off the beaten track.
Discover Old Mansions of Phuket Town
Thalang Road is where everyone goes on a Phuket exploration; it’s a nice walk and a must-do. But if you, too, have a passion for old houses, you might want to explore a bit deeper to uncover some fantastic mansions still standing in plain sight, but everyone drives too fast to notice them. It is so easy to imagine Phuket standing in front of one of these beautiful mansions a hundred years ago.
Black Rock Viewpoint
Black Rock is a relatively new viewpoint located a little further than the well-known Karon Viewpoint on the way to Nai Harn Beach. The thing is that it is a little challenging to reach and find via a dirt road. There is also a bit of climbing in the forest, but the view from the top is worth the effort. As a bonus, if you reach Black Rock, you will also find the elusive Nui Beach, which is even harder to find and worth visiting.
Nui Beach
For a long time, Nui Beach was a bit of a mystery beach in Phuket. Few people know about it, mostly because getting there is challenging. It sits at the end of a steep dirt road, and the private beach used to charge a 200 baht entry fee. The cove itself is small, sheltered and genuinely beautiful. If you combine it with Black Rock Viewpoint above, you get two hidden spots in one trip.
Tunk Ka Cafe
Tunk Ka Cafe is one of my favourite restaurants in Phuket Town, a long-established hillside place beautifully built on top of Khao Rang Hill, with striking panoramic views of Phuket city. Tunk Ka Cafe is a romantic place, with three separate terraces framed with large trees, and a nice breeze always flows through, keeping the place cool.
The Cove in Ao Yon
The Cove is a tiny but delightful seafront bar and restaurant at the end of the hidden Ao Yon Beach. A few tables with large umbrellas are set just by the beach, and the place is very peaceful for a break at any time of the day. The Cove serves Italian, Spanish, seafood and Thai cuisine, so it should please everyone. It’s just a little far unless you stay in the Panwa area.
Rimpan Seafood
Rimpan Seafood is a tiny restaurant hidden at the foot of the Sarasin Bridge in the north of Phuket. The small beach where it sits might not have great sand, but it is peaceful and pleasant for a short dip, even during the low season. The food is Thai with some delicious local dishes, and very well priced.
Wat Phra Nang Sang
Almost everyone drives past this unusual and colourful temple, but virtually no one stops. Wat Phra Nang Sang has a bit of a strange history. Interestingly, it is the oldest temple of Phuket and supposedly shelters a relic of Lord Buddha, but I’m not entirely sure about this fact. On the unusual side, Wat Phra Nang Sand displays bizarre statues.
One was an immense black statue of a revered monk called Luang Por Chaem, but the body proportions were so strange that people asked to demolish the figure. It didn’t take long, and they took it down, together with other statues of mythical giants having their breasts out and holding machine guns. The temple is still beautiful, with many paintings to admire, including a reclining Buddha. It is not off the beaten track, but strangely, no one seems to take the time to stop.
Thavorn Museum
Built in 1960, the Thavorn Hotel has a long story in Old Phuket Town. The museum originally opened decades ago as a small, quirky hotel attraction that was more an anecdotal storage of all the old stuff and equipment used in the many years of the hotel’s operation, including phone dispatches, old, rusted movie projectors, and laundry machines. This new museum is a hidden trove of vintage artefacts with true human history attached to each object!
Kathu Village
Kathu is a small village and district, halfway between Phuket town and Patong Beach. Kathu’s name is unknown, but very few people add it to their list of Things to Do in Phuket. The village of Kathu itself is not impressive, except maybe for a couple of temples, a few mural paintings and an annual festival. The street is lined with small shops and administrative buildings. The location just away from the main road kept it relatively tranquil, but chances are, you will go to Kathu without knowing it.
Mor Mu Dong
One of the most local and talked about but hard-to-find seafood restaurants in the eastern mangrove of Phuket island. You eat on platforms built over the water, surrounded by mangrove trees, with fishing boats passing by. Andrew Zimmern from ‘Bizarre Food’ tried it, and so should you. Book ahead, especially on weekends.
Wat Kao Rang
Here is another sitting Buddha of Phuket, not the Big Buddha but the original and first sitting golden Buddha on the island, built long ago on the hillside of the famous Khao Rang Hill in Phuket Town. Many people don’t even know about this beautiful temple.
Samet Nangshe Viewpoint
Samet Nangshe is a fantastic viewpoint in Phang Nga Bay that has gained popularity in recent years. It has become busy and can get crowded, but it is still worth the trip. The best time to go is around 5.30 am for sunrise, when the bay is covered in mist and the limestone karsts emerge from the water. Located about 75 kilometres from Patong Beach, 25 kilometres past the Sarasin bridge connecting Phuket to the mainland (1.30 hours drive). You can also stay overnight at a small boutique hotel at the viewpoint.
Koh Yao Noi
Koh Yao Noi is an underrated island just 20 km east of Phuket. It is modest but beautiful and, in many ways, looks like what Phuket island used to be before tourism took over. Rice paddies, rubber plantations and a Muslim fishing community give it a completely different feel from anywhere in Phuket. Accommodation ranges from Six Senses (one of Thailand’s finest) to affordable bungalows by the sea.
Banana Beach
Banana Beach used to be one of the best-kept secrets in Phuket. For years, it was just a quiet strip of sand with clear water, towering palms and a single restaurant. Getting there meant finding a tiny entrance from the road that most people drove past without noticing. A bar has since opened, and a large paid car park now sits at the entrance. It is still a beautiful beach and still requires wheels and some effort to reach, but it is no longer the secret it once was.
Insider Tips
Most of the places on this list require a scooter or a car. Public transport in Phuket does not reach hidden spots. Renting a scooter is the cheapest and easiest way to explore, but only if you know how to ride one and have a valid licence.
Go early. Places like Samet Nangshe or Black Rock Viewpoint are best at sunrise or in the first hour of daylight. By mid-morning, the light flattens and the heat makes hiking less enjoyable.
Bring cash. Most hidden restaurants and small beaches do not accept cards. ATMs are only in the main tourist areas.
If a beach charges an entry fee, ask what is included. Some fees cover a drink or a sunbed. Others are just access charges. It varies from place to place and sometimes from season to season.
The east coast of Phuket is where most of the truly hidden restaurants are. Mor Mu Dong, Bang Pae Seafood and Rimpan Seafood are all on the quieter side of the island where tourists rarely go. The food is better, cheaper and more local than anything you will find in Patong or Kata.
Hidden Phuket Through the Years
When I arrived in Phuket in 1994, the whole island felt like a hidden place. There were no shopping malls, no rooftop bars, and most of the beaches north of Kamala were empty. You could drive for 20 minutes without seeing another car.
Over the years, I watched places go from secret to popular to overcrowded. Laem Singh Beach is the perfect example. For years it was one of the most loved beaches on the island. Then the landowner blocked the path, and overnight it became inaccessible. Now you can only reach it by longtail boat from Surin. Banana Beach followed a similar path. It was a real hidden spot for a long time, but word got out, a bar appeared, a car park was built, and the quiet disappeared.
The places that stay hidden are usually the ones that are hard to reach or have nothing to sell. Sai Kaew Beach in the far north, the old mansions on side streets in Phuket Town, the mangrove restaurants on the east coast. These places do not appear in tour brochures because there is no commission to earn from sending people there. That is exactly why they remain worth visiting.
I keep finding new spots even after 30 years. Phuket is bigger and more layered than most visitors realise. The trick is to get off the main roads, especially on the east side of the island, and to arrive early before the heat and the crowds.
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