Travel

Getting to Phuket

Phuket has an international airport (HKT), which is located on the northwest part of the island. Many major airlines fly directly to Phuket from wherever their main hub is. So in many cases,, you will be able to get to Phuket with only one stopover rather than two. For example, from Europe or the East Coast - directly from Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, from Doha on Qatar Airways, or from Tel Aviv on El Al. For the West Coast, you can get directly from Phuket to Seoul on Korean Airlines or from Singapore on Singapore Airlines.

If you are coming to Phuket from Bangkok, there are many inexpensive non-stop flights between the two cities every day. If you have a connection in Bangkok, make sure that you are booking both the inbound and outbound flight from the same airport, as there are two different airports in the city (BKK and DMK). BKK is the larger and more popular of the two, and it’s often less expensive to book your round-trip ticket in and out of Thailand through BKK, and then buying short haul tickets within Thailand separately. Other major Thai cities, such as Chiang Mai, will also have a few different options every day. Vietjet Air and Thai Air Asia are fairly reliable local airlines for these short flights, but we would recommend that you stay away from NOK Air.

You do not need to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter Thailand (or at least you didn’t when we wrote this!) You also no longer need to apply for a ThaiPass - so do not pay for any sort of online services that say you do! Most of our guests (US or UK citizens) will be able to enter Thailand without any sort of visa, but make sure you have at least 6 months of validity left on your passport.

Once you’ve arrived

When you arrive in Thailand, we would suggest getting a SIM card at the airport. There are several different brands that have stalls in the luggage claim area, which offer inexpensive tourist SIM card packages of varying lengths. The most common brands that we would recommend are dtac and TrueMove. In many cases, you are only able to buy these using cash, so make sure that you stop at an ATM beforehand. If you would like to wait and buy one elsewhere, you can also visit 7-Eleven shops or local dtac or TrueMove shops to buy SIMs - just remember that you need to bring your passport with you!

Once you’ve left the airport, you should be able to get a taxi pretty much immediately. These taxis generally do have metres, they will usually have fixed pricing based on the area of the island that you’re going to. If you get a fixed price from the person running the taxi stand, confirm with your driver when you get to the car that that is all you’ll be paying, so that they do not try to charge you more later on. If you’d like to book an airport transfer ahead of time, especially if you’d like a large van rather than just a car, there are plenty of companies available to do so. Most hotels also offer airport transfers that can be organised through them, which will be a bit easier but also a bit more expensive. Car rentals are also available at HKT if you pre-book.