Phi Phi Islands

The Phi Phi Islands lie in the Andaman Sea between Phuket and Krabi. Koh Phi Phi Don is the inhabited island, with the village of Tonsai, its hotels and its nightlife; Koh Phi Phi Le, next door, is uninhabited, protected and home to Maya Bay. Both belong to a national park, and both are an hour or less by speedboat from Phuket or Krabi.

Phi Phi is in Krabi province and forms part of Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park. Its fame comes from the limestone cliffs, the turquoise bays and the 2000 film "The Beach", which was filmed at Maya Bay. Its problems come from the same fame: a small island with no roads for cars receives very large numbers of visitors, runs short of fresh water in the dry season and has had to close its most famous beach to let it recover.

Whether you come for a day trip or a week, it helps to know that Phi Phi has two very different sides: the busy, noisy village on the isthmus of Phi Phi Don, and the cliffs, lagoons and reefs around it that you reach by boat.

Phi Phi Don: the village, the viewpoint and the quiet beaches

Almost everyone arrives at Tonsai pier on Phi Phi Don. The village spreads across the narrow sandy neck between Tonsai Bay and Loh Dalum Bay, a maze of lanes with guesthouses, dive shops, restaurants and bars. There are no cars: you walk, and porters with carts move luggage. Away from the village, resorts sit on beaches such as Long Beach and on the bays of the north, many of them reached only by boat.

Our older article on whether Phi Phi Don is a good place to stay for a couple of days describes the viewpoints, Pileh Lagoon, Monkey Beach and what a longtail day trip around the islands costs. Our guide to where to stay on Phi Phi compares Tonsai, Long Beach and the boat-only resorts in the north, which matters because noise and hills shape every stay here. If you want to keep training on holiday, see our article on finding a gym on Phi Phi.

Phi Phi Le and Maya Bay

Phi Phi Le is a ring of cliffs with no village, and you can only visit it by boat, on a tour or a hired longtail. Its best-known stop, Maya Bay, was closed completely from 2018 to 2022 after years of overcrowding. It now opens with a cap on visitor numbers, boats must land at a pier on the far side of the island, swimming in the bay is forbidden, and the whole bay closes every year from 1 August to 30 September. It reopened for the 2026–27 season on Thursday 1 October 2026.

The recovery is real. In September 2026, during the closure, the national park counted up to 278 adult blacktip reef sharks close to the beach, its highest count of the year. Our guide to visiting Maya Bay explains the rules, the boardwalk, the time slots and when to go to avoid the crowds.

Park fees and park rules

Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi Le and Bamboo Island (Koh Mai Phai) are a special zone within the national park, where the entry fee for foreign visitors is 400 baht for adults and 200 baht for children aged 3 to 14 (as of October 2026). Tours normally include it in their price; check before you pay. The park uses electronic tickets and enforces a zero-waste rule that bans single-use plastics and foam containers inside the park, so bring a refillable bottle.

Getting to Phi Phi and moving on

Boats leave several times a day, all year, from Rassada pier in Phuket, from Krabi and from Ao Nang, with speedboats taking around an hour and the larger ferries roughly twice as long. Phi Phi is also a natural stop between Phuket and the islands further south: Koh Lanta is less than an hour away by speedboat, and in the dry season boats continue to the Trang islands and Koh Lipe. Our guide to ferries from Phuket and Krabi to Phi Phi covers piers, travel times and the small fees collected on arrival.

For the bigger picture, see our guides to Phuket, Krabi and Koh Lanta, and the Andaman island-hopping route from Phuket to Koh Lipe. The Andaman coast is at its best from about November to April, with rougher seas and more cancelled boats in the southwest monsoon from May to October.