This island in Thailand had everything I wanted in a tropical beach break.
Ko Lipe is a Thai island in the Andaman Sea in Satun Province. It’s the most southerly island you can stay at before crossing the maritime border of Malaysia.
Ko Lipe is about 3 km in length and 1.8 km at the widest part. There is no port here, let alone an airport. It takes 90 minutes by speed boat from the mainland, and the nearest train or airport is at Hat Yai, which is 2 hours away from the port by minivan.
It’s an effort to get here, relative to other islands in Thailand. I thought this amount of travel friction would be a deterrent, unlike Phi Phi, which is easy to get to from Phuket.
I arrived at the mainland pier and there were people everywhere. When I arrived at Koh Lipe I saw that the effort to get here was worth it.
[First sight of Koh Lipe.]
The boat arrived at a sweet spot in the day when the tide and the sun is at the right spot to give this perfect combination of tropical blue and white. My plan was to stay three nights, but I was already calculating if I could extend my stay (I couldn’t).
This post are notes from my visit in March 2023.
Arriving at Koh Lipe
There isn’t a proper pier here, so speedboats arrive at a floating dock.
Bags are offloaded on the dock and you have to walk across the sand with your bag. The ferries from Langkawi can’t dock here, so passengers and bags are offloaded onto longtail boats. Some hotels on the beach have a porter service.
Koh Lipe is part of Tarutao National Park, so a park ticket is required. This acts as an entrance fee to the island.
Normally on small islands I would walk to where I was staying. There was a sign at the port saying that a tuk-tuk was a flat rate of 50 THB. I liked this policy of clear pricing without having to worry about haggling, so I took the tuk-tuk.
Pattaya Beach
Pattaya Beach is nothing like the Pattaya Beach of Pattaya, which is a reconstructed beach using course imported sand. The Pattaya Beach of Lipe is what a Thai beach looks like on the postcards.
Pattaya Beach is the entry point for speed boats and ferries to Langkawi. It’s an amazing beach for a port beach, and if you went nowhere else on the island, this would be impressive enough.
Search for hotels on Pattaya Beach Koh Lipe.
Walking Street
Adding to the Pattaya naming confusion is “Walking Street”, which is nothing like the walking street of Pattaya. The Koh Lipe walking street is the thoroughfare that connects the two main beaches on either side of the island.
Walking Street starts at Pattaya Beach and is 500 metres in length, then there is another 350 metres to get to Sunrise Beach.
Walking Street is where most of the commercial activity is on the island. There are many restaurants and bars, and the cheapest hotels and guesthouses are here if you don’t need a beach view.
I was surprised to find that 7 Eleven is here as well.
There is also an international clinic.
Search for hotels around Koh Lipe Walking Street.
Sunrise Beach
The main beach of the island is Sunrise Beach. This east-facing beach has a long stretch of sandy beach lined with a variety of accommodation types, from bungalows to 5-star resorts.
The beach has piles of soft, white sand that is a pleasure to walk along.
I will never tire of these light blue seas and white sandy beaches.
There are plenty of casual beach bars to take refuge from the sun.
There are also shambolic beach bars made of driftwood with bean bags on the beach.
This is my ideal tropical beach. While an uninhabited tropical beach sounds nice in theory, I want to be able to buy a banana smoothie.
Search for hotels on Sunrise Beach Koh Lipe.
North Point Beach
Further north along Sunrise Beach is North Point Beach.
There is a sand bar with shallow waters, and nearby are bars in the sand.
Sunset Beach
Sunset Beach is – as the name suggests – a good beach for watching the sunset. It’s a smaller beach and a bit harder to access, thus there aren’t as many people here.
Search for hotels on Sunset Beach Koh Lipe.
Local life
When I visit these paradise islands I wonder about locals who live here full time. On other islands in the Andaman Sea, Koh Kradan is so small that there is very little in the way of a permanent settlement. Koh Mook felt more lived in. with a bonafide fishing village among the tourism businesses.
[Petrol station and store in the small inland area.]
Koh Lipe is somewhere in between these two on the local livability scale. One thing that makes it liveable is a school. The school is on Sunrise Beach. I imagine in 20 years time there will be a kid from this school who has a boring office job in Bangkok. They will be daydreaming in their cubicle about how they used to walk home from school on Sunrise Beach.
[Ban Ko Adang School Koh Lipe.]
There is also a football field in the middle of the island.
One thing that Lipe has that every other town in Thailand has is old dogs outside of 7 Eleven.
Infrastructure
It wasn’t all beach walks and banana smoothies for me on this trip. Being a Southeast Asia infrastructurist I was curious about how the island works Where does the water come from? Where is the electricity supply? How does construction material arrive here? These sort of questions are usually found inland.
[A construction depot inland.]
When I was on Koh Phi Phi Don I marvelled at a construction crew that was hand-pouring a concrete slab for a new building. Here on Lipe the island is big enough for a concrete truck.
There are very few private vehicles on the island, so big construction vehicles stand out when they are going down a little street.
Small islands usually have diesel generators for power, and some islands still have periods where there is no power during the day. The power is on all day in Koh Lipe
The closest resemblance to a port is at Sunset Beach. There is no pier though, so supply boats dock next to land to be unloaded.
Supplies for restaurants are delivered by boats from the mainland. Smaller boats go out to collect the supplies from the larger boats.
Island prices
Islands of Thailand are usually more expensive than the mainland due to the extra amount of handling, as shown above.
7 Eleven is a good place to get an idea of the price premium of island living. For example, my go-to drink in Thailand is the sugar-free Singha Lemon drink (not sponsored but I am willing to shill this delicious drink if someone at Singha is reading this). This drink is the same price across the country, from Chiang Mai to Trang, of 16 THB. On Koh Lipe the price is 30 THB. I found many of the prices were almost double the mainland prices. I was shocked at the price difference, so I had to remind myself that this would still be a bargain in Australia.
Food prices are almost double as well. A Pad Thai at 90 THB is almost double what you pay on the mainland.
I had a Panang Curry here for 120 THB, which is more than the mainland, but I would never find a curry this good for $3 from where I come from.
I saw beer advertised for 69 THB, which is a nice price, but is it a good price? I don’t drink so I never take notice of these things. $1.90 USD for a beer on a beach sounds like a great deal to me.
The best deal on the island were these banana cakes that someone was selling on Walking Street for 30 THB ($0.83 USD).
Transport
From Koh Lipe there are boats that can take you to the other islands of Tarutao National Park.
There are boats that island hop from Phuket to Koh Lipe. It’s a long way in a speed boat to do that in one sitting, so you are better off stopping along the way.
If you are coming from Bangkok, Hat Yai is the closest big city to arrange transport. I stayed in Hat Yai to break up the trip. I booked a van and boat combo ticket online.
If you are coming from Malaysia, there are ferries between Koh Lipe and Langkawi. There is an immigration point on Pattaya Beach (actually on the beach), which inspired me to write about the best and worst border crossings in Southeast Asia
[Koh Lipe beach immigration.]
End notes
I have heard people rave about Koh Lipe over the years, but I had never got round to visiting. This was my first time, and in part it was the travel time that was the main obstacle in getting there. I was on my way to Malaysia on this trip so it fitted in well.
This travel friction is probably what has saved Koh Lipe from becoming like Ko Phi Phi. For some people Koh Lipe is already too much like Ko Phi Phi. It’s one of those places where old-timers like to tell you that “you should have been here 20 years ago”.
All I know is that I had a great time here. It felt like the most beachy holiday* I have had in a while.
From Koh Lipe I got a ferry to Langkawi in Malaysia.
* I still work every day because I can’t turn my brain off, but this felt like a holiday.
