Bang Tao is two places sharing one long beach. On the southern half, the Laguna complex — five hotels linked by shuttle boats across interconnected lagoons — was built in 1987 on land that spent the previous century being stripped for tin. On the northern half, the old village of Cherngtalay carries on: a Buddhist temple that has stood for over a hundred years, a small Taoist shrine older than the twentieth century, and a Monday night market that wraps up before nine.
The beach itself runs six kilometres, wide and gently sloped, with the kind of entry into the sea that makes swimming easy rather than athletic. Most of the resort infrastructure sits behind it, which means the sand feels less crowded than the distance from Patong might lead you to expect.
People who come back tend to stay inside the Laguna complex one trip, then rent something in the village the next. The Friday market at Boat Avenue is the social anchor — go early, the food stalls fill up. And the Laguna Phuket Triathlon in November, running since 1994, draws a crowd worth watching even if you're not racing.
Before the hotels, Bang Tao was a working tin-mining site drawing labour from China and beyond — extraction that shaped the land and left it scarred by the time the industry collapsed in the 1980s. In 1984, Singapore-based investors formed Laguna Resorts & Hotels, acquired roughly a thousand acres of that depleted ground, and set about rebuilding it into something else entirely. By 1987 the Laguna Phuket complex had opened; the golf club followed in 1992, designed by Max Wexler and David Abell and later the first course in Thailand certified by Audubon International for environmental conservation.
The village predates all of this by centuries. Around 1901, a local hairdresser named Mr Ju Pai Tuk brought three wooden Taoist deity images from China to establish what became the Cherngtalay Shrine. Wat Cherngtalay, the Buddhist temple at the heart of the community, has been a spiritual centre for over a hundred years, relocated to its current site in the 1970s.
November through April is the dry season on this western-facing coast — temperatures hold steady around 29–30°C and the sea lies flat. From May onward the southwest monsoon arrives, and Bang Tao, sitting on Phuket's western slopes, catches the bulk of the island's annual 2,200-plus millimetres of rain; October is the wettest month by some distance.
Beautiful beach with soft sand, clear water, and a peaceful atmosphere. It’s one of the best places in Phuket to watch the sunset. The view is absolutely stunning, especially in the evening when the sky turns beautiful shades of orange and pink. If you’re visiting Phuket, Bang Tao Beach is definitely worth a stop. Don’t miss the sunset!
Bang Tao area. The beach is really long and beautiful, and it kind of feels like a small private beach town. It’s easy to get around, with plenty of food and places to stay nearby.
If you walk far enough north it gets much quieter and more private. You can have a patch of sand with shady trees all to yourself. The further north you go the more trees there are until you reach the end of the beach. There is even a nice beach volleyball net up the beach. The first two photos are mid morning facing north. The third is the shady trees all along the beach. There is even access roads if you are adventurous. Sandy so be careful on the motorbikes, but only a hundred meters off the main road. We set up a hammock and brought a backup with everything for a day at the beach. We parked our motorcycle under a shady tree.
Go to the far left of the beach near carpe diem and GOAT to avoid the big waves that make much of the beach difficult to use in the low season. Surin beach is pretty well unusable with high waves at this season. This end of the beach is protected by the headland , the main drawback is many businesses have encroached onto the beach and this makes low tide visits favourable. Check tide times online.
Good long beach, you can get a sunbed for only 100 bath and massage at the beach for only 400 bath. There is food places. Would not recommend the big places like Nora, they charge you 2000 bath for a sunbed. Ibiza prices at its finest!
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.
We started Yeppa because finding real travel inspiration felt harder than it should be. The site is young and we're a small team, so we genuinely need the help of early visitors like you: if anything looks broken, odd or just plain wrong, we'd love to hear about it.
Tell us what you ran into: a broken link, a wrong photo, anything odd. We read every message.
Your note is on its way to us. It makes Yeppa better for everyone.
