Two years ago, we went on an island hopping trip around the Andaman Sea in Thailand. This photo series summarizes our journey and the experiences we had on some of the beautiful islands to be discovered there.

Phuket

Our trip started at the airport in Phuket and a hotel in the city center.

We only spent one night there an had a brief look at the slightly chaotic city before heading towards Ko Lanta, the only destination we booked in advanced. Going to Ko Lanta was our first trip with one of those crazy speed boats, which are advertised by the number of engines.

Ko Lanta

In contrast to many of the more popular islands in the Andaman Sea, Ko Lanta is one of the slightly lesser known ones. It is a quite large island without the distinctive karst formations the surrounding islands are known for. This results in a low density of tourists and a very relaxed feel to the island. We spent our time on Ko Lanta in Klong Khong and immediately extended the planned time there just because the atmosphere was so much relaxing.

You can spend some nice time at Klong Khong’s beach bars while watching the sunset.

One of the interesting things we did on Ko Lanta was renting a boat with a guide for a day to visit some of the smaller islands surrounding Ko Lanta.

While Klong Khong beach is nice for relaxing at one of the bars, swimming is not easy due to many rocks. Of course, we also visited other beaches better suited for swimming. At the occasion below, a thunderstorm moved in.

After bringing a lot of rain, the thunderstorm also brought a wonderful sunset for our last evening at the island.

Ko Phi Phi

After the relaxing Ko Lanta, we decided to head over towards Ko Phi Phi for two nights. Despite knowing that this place is extremely touristy and overrun, the distinctive karst formations of this island group are what makes it that interesting and we somehow accepted the amount of tourists to get an impression of the nature there.

In the end, we probably wouldn’t visit Ko Phi Phi again. The village is just a huge number of shops, bars, and drunk tourists and the nature really struggles with the amount of tourism.

Ko Lipe

After the extremely crowded Ko Phi Phi we headed towards Ko Lipe. Despite being well established as a tourist destination, Ko Lipe has more space and you can still find quiet spots on this island. The speed boat ride there takes some hours.

We spent the time on Ko Lipe in the relaxing Pitiusas Beach Resort with just a handful of bungalows at the sunset beach side of the island. The hotel as has a nice little beach, which gives direct access to the huge coral reef of the island.

Like on the other islands, many of the beach bars try to attract visitors with fire spinning shows.

Slowly heading back to Germany

Before heading back to Germany, we spent two more nights on the very calm island Ko Yao Yai, mainly for relaxing. This was well deserved after the long, shaky, cold, and wet speed boat ride back from Ko Lipe. No fancy photos to show from this island apart from the hotel pool 😉.

Before entering the airplane back to Germany, a wonderful sunset at a beach close to Phuket airport finalized our Thailand trip.