For the most dramatic scenery on the Thai coast: towering limestone karsts, hidden lagoons, and clear water, spread across a mainland of beaches and cliffs and a scatter of islands including the famous Phi Phi group. It is less developed than Phuket across the bay, and built for island-hopping, climbing and boat trips to some genuinely spectacular places

When is the best time to visit Krabi?

November to April, the Andaman dry season, for calm seas, clear water and reliable boats, the opposite calendar to the Gulf islands like Samui. May to October brings the monsoon, with heavier rain and rough seas that can cut the islands and Railay off for days; it is cheaper and quieter, but poor for the island-hopping that is the point of the province.

Is Koh Phi Phi worth visiting despite the crowds?

Yes, if you pick your spot. The main strip at Tonsai is busy and backpacker-heavy, and the day-trip boats are relentless, but Phi Phi Don is larger and quieter than its reputation, and its northern beaches are calm and beautiful. Stay away from the party end, and you get the island's famous scenery with far fewer people.

How do you get to Krabi and the islands?

Krabi has its own international airport on the mainland, near Ao Nang. From there, and from Phuket, ferries and speedboats run to Koh Phi Phi (around one to two hours) and the smaller islands, while Railay is reached only by longtail boat from Ao Nang. Island resorts arrange boat transfers, which run to a schedule and to the weather.

They share the same Andaman scenery, but Krabi is quieter, greener and more low-key, stronger on dramatic landscape and island-hopping, while Phuket is larger and busier, with more hotels, dining and nightlife and an easier airport. Many visitors combine the two, since they are a short ferry apart and at their best in the same winter months.

Boutique Hotels in Krabi, Thailand

Where to go in Krabi

Krabi divides into its mainland coast, around Ao Nang and Railay, and its islands offshore, the Phi Phi group foremost among them. The two make very different holidays.

Koh Phi Phi

The Phi Phi islands are the province's star turn: a small archipelago of limestone whose scenery, the sheer cliffs, the impossibly clear water, was made globally famous by the film shot at Maya Bay. That fame has a cost. The main island, Phi Phi Don, has a busy, backpacker-heavy strip at Tonsai, and the day-trip boats descend in numbers. But the island is bigger and quieter than its reputation, and its northern tip is another world. Outrigger Resort sits up there, a beachfront villa resort on a coral-fringed national-park beach reachable only by boat, deliberately removed from the party end, the place to enjoy Phi Phi's scenery without its crowds

The mainland: Ao Nang and Railay

On the mainland, Ao Nang is the main resort town and transport hub, an ordinary but useful base with a beach, restaurants and boats to everywhere. The prize nearby is Railay, a peninsula cut off from the mainland by cliffs and reachable only by longtail boat, with four beaches, world-class rock climbing and a genuine end-of-the-road feel despite its popularity. Behind the coast lies a green interior of rainforest, hot springs and the Emerald Pool, worth a day inland from the beach.

Island-hopping

The point of Krabi, for many, is the boats. From Ao Nang and Phi Phi, longtails and speedboats fan out to the day-trip classics: the four islands of the Ao Nang group, the snorkelling around Bamboo and Mosquito islands, the Hong Islands' hidden lagoon, and Maya Bay itself, now reopened under limits after years of closure to let its reef recover. The scenery is the reason to come, and it is best seen early, before the fleets arrive.

When to go

Krabi follows the Andaman calendar, which is the opposite of the Gulf's. The dry, calm season runs from around November to April, the time to come for clear water, reliable boats and the best of the scenery. May to October is the south-west monsoon, wetter, with rougher seas that can cut off the islands and Railay for days at a time, though prices fall and the crowds thin. For island-hopping and boat transfers, the winter months are strongly preferable.