Early Phi Phi, Maya Bay & Khai Nai Island Speedboat Tour Phuket

Khai Nai Island at Sunrise

Khai Nai is the smallest and most beautiful of the Khai Islands, a strip of powder-white sand and shallow turquoise water about 30 minutes by speedboat from Phuket's east coast. By mid-morning it fills with boats, but on this tour you arrive just after first light, when the beach is empty and the sky turns pink and gold over the Andaman Sea.

You spend about an hour here with coffee, tea and a light breakfast, taking photos, wading in the clear shallows and watching the shoals of striped sergeant major fish that swim around your feet. Sunrise cannot be guaranteed, since clouds sometimes cover the horizon, but even on a grey morning the calm and the colour of the water make this one of the best moments of the day.

Maya Bay Before the Crowds

Maya Bay, on the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh, is a perfect cove of white sand enclosed by limestone cliffs more than 100 metres high. After years of overcrowding, the national park closed it from 2018 to 2022 to let the coral recover. Today boats stay outside the bay, visitors land at a jetty behind it and walk a short boardwalk to the beach, and swimming is not allowed.

Reaching Maya Bay early is the main reason to choose this tour: you walk on the sand and photograph the cliffs with far fewer people than at midday, about 40 minutes in all. Blacktip reef sharks often patrol the shallows near the shore. The park usually closes Maya Bay for a few weeks in the rainy season, often around August and September; the tour then continues to the other islands.

Pileh Lagoon and Phi Phi Don Snorkelling

Pileh Lagoon is a narrow, sheltered inlet on the east side of Phi Phi Leh, framed by jungle-covered cliffs and filled with calm, emerald-green water. The speedboat glides in and you jump off to swim and snorkel for about 30 minutes; the colour of the water under the morning sun is extraordinary.

Next, the boat crosses to Phi Phi Don, the larger inhabited island, for about 45 minutes of snorkelling over coral where parrotfish, butterflyfish and angelfish are common. Masks, fins, life jackets and brand-new mouthpieces are provided, and the guide helps beginners. A Phi Phi day trip from Phuket that starts this early leaves you more time in the water and less time queuing with other boats.

Monkey Beach and Lunch on Phi Phi Don

Monkey Beach is a small, sandy cove on the north-west coast of Phi Phi Don where long-tailed macaques come down from the jungle to the shore. You watch them from the boat while the guide explains how they live; they are wild and can bite or snatch belongings, so feeding and touching are not allowed.

Lunch follows at an island resort on Phi Phi Don, a seaview buffet of Thai dishes and international favourites with time to relax for about 80 minutes. Vegetarian, vegan and other dietary needs can be arranged on request when you book. Is Phi Phi worth visiting? With its cliffs, clear water and white beaches, it is the island day most visitors to Phuket call unforgettable, and the early start makes it far more pleasant.

Bamboo Island

Bamboo Island, or Ko Mai Phai, lies just north of Phi Phi Don inside the same national park. It is a low, flat island ringed by a wide beach of soft white sand, with a fringe of casuarina trees for shade and clear water over a sandy bottom that slopes gently, ideal for swimming and for children.

You spend about an hour here to swim, sunbathe and snorkel along the reef edge, the last stop before the speedboat ride of about an hour back to the marina in Phuket. The best time to visit Phi Phi and Bamboo Island is November to April, when the sea is calm and visibility at its best; outside this season, tours run when safe and stops may change with the weather.