The brown-throated sunbird arrives first, usually around six in the morning, just as the light over Bangsak Beach shifts from grey to gold. It is small and iridescent and entirely indifferent to the fact that its home is a resort of considerable scale.

By the time you’ve ordered your first coffee, the red-whiskered bulbul has joined it – a bird whose haircut suggests Elvis spent a formative holiday in Thailand and returned to Memphis inspired, and whose call, a cheerful repeating whistle that ornithologists have mnemonically rendered as “pleased to meet you,” drifts across the gardens whether you’re listening for it or not.

Seventy-two species visit the grounds of Le Méridien Khao Lak Resort & Spa. The figure appears in the hotel’s literature with a pride that is, it turns out, entirely justified. Khao Lak-Lam Ru National Park, which records over 170 bird species in total, presses directly against the resort’s back boundary, and its lowland birds move freely between the forest edge and the hotel gardens as if the distinction between the two is a matter of little consequence. And they have a point; it isn’t.

Like those birds passing through the grounds, you will find yourself calculating a return flight before you’ve even checked out.

The Location

Ask anyone who knew Phuket in the nineties what they miss about it and they’ll tell you the same things: the empty beaches, the unhurried mornings, the sense that it lay there undiscovered, though of course it had. They’ll tell you it was a different Thailand, one that’s confined to the past. They’re not quite right; it simply moved north.

The drive north from Phuket airport to Khao Lak takes about 90 minutes, but it feels like a different kind of longer because of what falls away. The construction sites thin out and the condo billboards get smaller and smaller until they’re A4-size and significantly less desperate.

By the time you reach Phang Nga province, the roadside is rubber plantations and coconut palms, and the towns line the single highway in sporadic scatterings. Khao Lak sits at the end of that transition, with Le Méridien at the quieter, more northerly end, on a long, laid-back stretch of Bangsak Beach.

Bangsak beach is the real deal. Here the sand is wide and the morning crowds scant, just a few early wanderers soaking up the first sights of sun. The first thing you notice if you’re one of them is the shells. Not fragments – actual shells. The kind that you stopped finding on Phuket’s beaches long ago, when the last of the quiet stretches succumbed to sun lounger concessions and jet-ski rental. Here, they are simply lying in the sand, as if nobody has thought to collect them. It is a small thing, but it’s revealing about the wider picture in Khao Lak.

Khao Lak-Lam Ru National Park borders the resort area on all sides but the sea, bringing the jungle right up to the back of the hotel strip. Building height restrictions mean nothing rises above the treeline and the horizon remains uncluttered. Protected land, geography, and regulation work in concert here, and the result is that Khao Lak couldn’t become another Patong even if it wanted to. Though spend even a day here, and it’s obvious no one wants that anyway.

The park itself is more than a buffer. Coastal trails wind through it, mangroves line sections of the shore, and Ton Chong Fa waterfall, the most accessible of several in the area, is an easy half-day from the resort. The wildlife hasn’t learned to be afraid of people. Not in ‘Tiger Who Came To Tea’ vibes – you won’t be sharing your morning eggs with a big old Panthera tigris corbetti – but the geckos hold their position when you approach and the squirrels watch you sunbathing from the branches without even so much as offering to apply a fresh layer of lotion.

Le Méridien’s position also puts you close to the Similan Islands departure pier at Thap Lamu. The Similans are consistently rated among the best dive sites in Southeast Asia, and access is tightly controlled, with limited daily visitor numbers, no overnight stays on most islands, and a seasonal closure running roughly May to October to allow the reef to recover. That exclusivity is part of what keeps them worth the trip. From Bangsak Beach, the logistics are straightforward: most operators run transfers from the hotel, and you’re back by mid-afternoon with enough time left to claim a lounger for sunset.

The Vibe

This is, on paper, a mega resort: 283 rooms, three lagoon pools, multiple dining options, a kids’ club, a 24-hour gym, and enough lawn to get genuinely lost in. In practice, the only time you register the scale is at breakfast. The grounds are generous and lush enough that guests find their own corners. There is an anonymity to the place, and it works in its favour – people are here doing the same thing you are, but there is enough space to see off the illusory superiority complex that we all bloody suffer from on this lawn. On this beach. In this country…

Elsewhere, colourful murals appear at intervals throughout the resort, making even a corridor feel like somewhere worth pausing. The vibe is cheerful rather than frantic, with children everywhere during the day and somehow never too much.

Part of that is the layout: Le Méridien is sprawling enough that different groups drift to different ends of the resort without overlap (some weirdos are still dwelling in a random corridor, admiring a mural), and there is a self-sorting quality to it. Beach chairs and sun loungers are in generous supply; unlike at many places of this scale, the morning towel-dash is not something you need to think about.

Part of what sustains that ease is the hotel’s all-inclusive option, which Le Méridien sells as an add-on (around £75 per night for two in low season, closer to £140 in high) – meaning you can commit at booking or decide when you arrive. Once you have it, the taxing mental arithmetic of a resort holiday largely dissolves. You can wander in off the beach with nothing more than your branded wristband on (hey you, put some clothes on!) and lunch and drinks just happen. Nobody is calculating whether a second pina colada is worth it. That low-level financial anxiety, which hums beneath the surface of some resort stays, simply isn’t here, and the atmosphere is noticeably more relaxed for it.

Families should note that the all-inclusive rate covers two adults; additional guests are handled separately at the desk, and the terms are worth checking before you arrive if you’re travelling with children.

Bird art is everywhere, rendered in that vivid, wing-splayed style that owes something to paintings of Siamese fighting fish. Bird identification signs are dotted about the grounds, wildlife-reserve style, naming the species that pass through. It gives the place an unexpected earnestness, a resort that’s proud of its adjacency to the national park. Download a birding app before you go: half the pleasure is learning to match the calls to the signs. Or, indeed, at trying to imitate those calls, much to the amusement of absolutely no one in your vicinity.

The Rooms

There are ten room types across 283 rooms, suites, and villas. The entry point is the Superior – perfectly comfortable, though notably it’s the one category that forgoes a bathtub. Although, who’s taking a bath in this heat, with three pools and the big blue right at your door?

Above that, Deluxe Pool View rooms add more space and a proper bath. The Deluxe Pool Terrace takes the same room to ground floor level with direct terrace access to the lagoon. It’s what we stayed in, and the category we’d point most guests towards. The line between room and resort dissolves, and you stop thinking of the pool as somewhere you have to tick off. Interconnecting rooms are available across several categories, and a dedicated two-bedroom family room with pool access sleeps up to five. At the top end sits a private pool villa for those who want the resort experience entirely on their own terms.

The bird theme that runs through the resort makes it into the rooms too, as if they’ve flown in here and they’re just too charming to be ushered out. Above the bed, a flock of gilt swallows arcs across a slate-grey wall; small, sculptural, mid-flight. It’s a detail that could easily tip into kitsch but doesn’t. A careful balancing act well struck.

The bathrooms are a particular strength. Ours was vast, with a deep soaking tub set beneath an internal window looking back into the bedroom, a marble-topped double vanity, and a separate walk-in rainfall shower. The robes are thick, the shelving generous. Having stayed in enough Thai hotels where the bathroom is an apology tacked onto the room, it’s worth saying clearly: this one is not.

Balconies are private and, if you book an east-facing room, they catch the morning sun beautifully. Welcome amenities on arrival are a nice touch (fresh fruit, a small cake, chocolates), as are the in-room toiletries; Malin + Goetz, if you’re asking. Not the generic white-label product most Thai resorts default to, and a thoughtful choice when you’re spending the day living between the pool and the sea. The shampoo and conditioner leave your hair noticeably soft in a way that matters when saltwater and chlorine are taking turns with it.

Facilities & The Beach

The three lagoon pools are more interesting than they sound on paper. The main one functions almost like a water park, with bridges to duck under, a volleyball net, a basketball hoop at the deep end, and, during our stay, a foam party that kids and adults loved in equal measure. It’s executed with enough restraint that it never tips into holiday-park territory. Grab an inflatable and drift. You’ll be fine.

For younger guests, the resort earns its reputation as one of Thailand’s best family beach stays. The kids’ club runs daily activities (arts and crafts, nature discovery sessions, bird-watching walks) and the expansive beachfront lawns are set up with games throughout the day, giving children somewhere to burn energy that isn’t the pool. Kayaking and paddleboarding are complimentary. On the main lawn every evening, there’s a cinema screen set-up and a couple of rows of deckchairs populated by enraptured kids and the occasional parent. Someone knows their stuff, sound engineering-wise, as Toy Story doesn’t overspill into any of the outdoor dining areas.

The gym is 24-hour and well-appointed. There’s a dedicated boxing setup next door to the main gym area, and each has cold towels in the fridge smelling of tiger balm and eucalyptus, as well as flavoured waters, and free fruit. The treadmills line up along a vast window that runs the length of the gym, looking out over a dense canopy of banana palms and areca trees swaying under a blue Phang-Nga sky. The staircase up to the fitness centre is steep enough to count as a workout in its own right, which did give us a convenient excuse to cut short each and every session.

Bangsak Beach itself is the real facility. Walk it early, when the tide is out, and the sand holds the patterns made by the crabs overnight as local women work the waterline digging for clams that may well end up on your dinner plate. Borrow sea shoes from the hotel if you want to walk further right along the coast, where the beach becomes more untouched. Go left, and further down you’ll find a handful of bars, Happy Beach among them, where cold Singha goes for a fraction of what the Bamboo Pool Bar charges. Though the all-inclusive option renders that redundant, of course.

Food & Drink

Three restaurants plus three bars means that, in theory, you don’t need to leave for the duration of your stay. In practice, the all-inclusive package is what makes that calculus work financially; without it, the on-site prices feel steep for what’s on offer, which is the honest trade-off of being captively located. You don’t have to leave, and you don’t have to think. Surrender yourself to it.

That said, there are genuine highlights. Breakfast at The Nest is an event worth setting an alarm for, but strategy helps. The first rush belongs to families with small children. Wait it out with a coffee and the brisk hostess will have a table cleared in short order, and handy table-claiming signs are provided for when you need to browse the buffet without losing your seat. The sausages are proper butcher quality, not the hot-dog pallor you find at most hotel buffets. The fruit selection is excellent, including sour green mango served with chilli-spiked dipping salt. If your first coffee didn’t wake you up, this will.

The juice fridge runs named blends rather than the usual carton OJ: the Hot Sabparod (ginger, celery, pineapple) has real kick to it, the Golden Siam (mango, banana, honey, yoghurt, milk) is essentially a dessert doing its best impression of a smoothie, and the Tropical Essentials (banana, mango, passionfruit, orange juice) is the one to start with. The jams, really more like compotes, come in mango, papaya and cantaloupe, and are worth spreading thickly.

The waffle and pancake station felt like the headlining act. Boozy caramel bananas are served alongside, and the combination is one of the better things you’ll eat all week. There is also a bread pudding, rich and custardy and golden on top. It had no business being this good. There’s a good selection of Thai food too, a kanom jeen station, and, of note for anyone partial to southern Thai flavours, a moo parlow that you would happily pay good baht for in a decent restaurant in Phuket Old Town.

Coconut Jo’s beach bar is where the evening should begin. There’s live music, and the coconut mojitos and piña coladas are exactly what the situation calls for. On certain evenings the resort runs a beach barbecue, worth timing your stay around if you can, as it’s an opulent spread. Do be aware that it’s not covered by the all-inclusive package, however.

The Beach Grill is the one to book. Sat right on the sand with fisherman’s buoys strung across the ceiling, it leans into its coastal setting without overdoing the theme. The Andaman prawns served with a sharp nahm jim are a good way in, but the seabass wrapped in banana leaf is the order here. Tables fill up fast from sunset onwards, so it pays to book ahead rather than chance a walk-in.

The Pizzeria is worth sitting down in rather than treating purely as a collection point, though plenty of guests do exactly that. The room earns it: gingham napkins, scenes of black and white Naples on the walls, a pizza oven in constant rotation and offering the necessary ambience to boot. While we were there, a steady procession of people came through collecting boxes for the beach, and staff disappeared into the grounds with deliveries for rooms. Both are good options. But so is just staying put with a carafe of wine.

Le Scoop is the place for ice cream: fresh green coconut served with two scoops of coconut ice cream, roasted pineapple, and sliced almonds. Scoop the coconut flesh and eat it with the ice cream; it’s excellent. The pandan macaroons shouldn’t be missed either.

The Latitude 08 lobby bar has a slightly half-hearted Great Gatsby theme, but it runs happy hour between 2pm and 4pm, and then again 8pm to 10pm. During that time, it’s buy one, get one free on cocktails. File that information somewhere accessible.

Ideal For…

Families who want beach without chaos. Le Méridien’s strongest card. The kids’ club, family rooms, lagoon pools, and a beach that is genuinely safe and uncrowded make this an easy choice. The all-inclusive option removes the wallet anxiety, and the remoteness that might frustrate a couple without children is an outright benefit here.

Couples who want to do very little. Not honeymooners in search of boutique romance – The Sarojin or Casa de la Flora handle that better. But a week of pool, beach, breakfast, and perhaps one Similan Islands day trip? The pool access rooms are the move.

A base for Phang Nga province. Le Méridien’s northern position puts you closer to Takua Pa Old Town, the Similan Islands departure pier at Thap Lamu, Khao Sok National Park, and the working fishing villages along the coast. If you want a hotel from which to actually explore the region rather than simply inhabiting it, the location makes sense.

Why Stay?

Le Méridien Khao Lak is a large resort that wears its scale lightly, on a beach you won’t have to share, in a province that hasn’t yet decided to become the next Phuket. The all-inclusive package is the sensible way to book it, and the pool access rooms are worth the upgrade. Go while the shells are still on the beach. Guests here become migratory creatures, the pull to return less a decision than an instinct. We now count ourselves among them. Hang on, why aren’t these wings working?

Rooms start from around 2,750 baht (£55) per night during low season, and 11,500 baht (£230) per night during high.

Address: 31 Moo 7 Bangmoung, Takuapa District, Khao Lak, Takua Pa District, Phang Nga

Website: marriott.com/en-us/hotels/hktml-le-meridien-khao-lak-resort-and-spa

The restaurant comes first. Before the rooms, before the design awards, before the question of how far the beach is, the main reason to stay at Hotel Gahn is Juumpo, and it would be worth the detour even if you weren’t sleeping here.

A juumpo is the chef aboard a Chinese trading junk, and the restaurant takes its name from the owner’s grandfather, who cooked on the trading routes between southern China and the Andaman coast nearly a century ago. His recipes survived him, passed through the family and now the backbone of the menu here. What arrives at the table is Baba-Peranakan cooking with no real equivalent elsewhere on the coast, a cuisine shaped by a culture that took root here when Chinese settlers came for tin and never quite left; Chinese technique and Straits sweetness shot through with lemongrass, turmeric and galangal, producing curries, soups, salads and noodle dishes that taste like nowhere else.

Khao Lak feeds its visitors well enough, but most of them eat the same things they’d eat anywhere else on the Andaman coast. The Baba-Peranakan heritage that shaped this region – most visible in the shophouses and temples of Takua Pa, just up the road – barely touches the chief resort strip. Hotel Gahn and its signature restaurant is one of the rare properties where it’s proudly celebrated.

The hotel itself is well worth the stay, an elegant, deeply-designed place. But it begins here, at the table. There are few better ways to understand a place than through its kitchen.

The Location

Most visitors to this stretch of the Andaman coast prefer not to stray beyond its beach resorts. The formula is reliable, the logic sympathetic: a long, pale shoreline, a pool, a swim-up bar, and the particular contentment of having nowhere to be. Hotel Gahn makes a compelling case for straying – even staying – inland.

Hotel Gahn sits around a kilometre from the beach as the great hornbill flies, on Phet Kasem Road, Thailand’s longest highway and the main artery through Khao Lak. Its 1,300 kilometres connect Bangkok to the Malaysian border and it’s a busy thoroughfare, with all the Toyota Hilux traffic that entails.

It’s not a glamorous address, and the hotel makes no attempt to pretend otherwise, but everything you need is within walking distance, and the area gives you a flavour of everyday Thai life that the resorts down on the sand can’t offer. There’s a boxing stadium next door, a som tam shack just down the road, and the neighbourhood’s main night market just a few hundred metres further. On top of that, the beach is a 10 minute walk away which is closer than you might expect from a road-facing property, and you don’t actually need to negotiate Phet Kasem to get to any of these places – they’re all on your side of the road.

We know the gravitational pull of the Andaman is hard to resist, but the more interesting story is Takua Pa, one of southern Thailand’s oldest Peranakan Chinese trading towns, just a few kilometres north. It’s this heritage, rather than the coastline, that Hotel Gahn is really in conversation with. If you’re staying here over the weekend, be sure to visit Takua Pa Old Town’s Sunday Walking Street. It’s a wonderful place to see off an afternoon, especially if you’ve got a sweet tooth and want to taste local specialities.

Character & Style

There are only a handful of hotels in the region that make the Baba-Peranakan heritage of southern Thailand their defining feature, and most are concentrated in Phuket’s Old Town, where the pastel shophouses and Sino-Portuguese facades have become, in recent years, a kind of heritage tourism shorthand.

When you step inside, you’d think Hotel Gahn had always been here, that it had simply been renovated rather than built from scratch. But it’s only been open since 2019, which makes the innate sense of gravitas and grounding in the building all the more impressive.

Designed by Studio Locomotive, a Phuket-based practice, the exterior features a steel gateway modelled on the Ngo-Ka-Ki (five foot way) of traditional Straits shophouses and a wood lath façade stained black using an engine oil treatment, a vernacular technique that gives the building its distinctive, weathered presence. The gateway is best appreciated from across Phet Kasem, a view most guests never actually get, approaching as they do from the pavement on the hotel’s side of the road. It’s an interesting flex, but feels fitting for a hotel that doesn’t peacock.

The principle continues inside. Steel arches frame a continuous sightline from the street through reception and into the restaurant, the same logic as the five-foot way, turned into a whole building.

Checking in feels more like being welcomed into a family home than anything transactional. The ground floor – reception, café, and restaurant – is arranged around a large central table with antique-styled stools and benches, the kind of multi-purpose communal surface that was a fixture of extended Chinese family life in this part of the world. On it, a tsunami memorial book and an encyclopedia of Siamese fighting fish.

It could pass for a small museum. Intricate Peranakan porcelain lines the shelves, timber chairs are cushioned in batik cloth, and tall glass cabinets display the owner’s mother’s vintage collectibles: old irons, an abacus, an exquisite pair of beaded shoes with the photograph of the woman who wore them placed alongside. Along the restaurant walls, traditional cooking equipment and crockery do a kind of work that the kitchen beyond continues. In the corridors, framed stories about local superstitions offer advice on the correct direction to sleep in to avoid ghosts. It feels like a family home that happens to have rooms available, which is more or less exactly what it is.

Hotel Gahn won the Design Anthology Awards for Hospitality Spaces in 2021, was shortlisted for the World Festival of Interiors INSIDE 2020/2021, and was nominated for ArchDaily’s Building of the Year in 2021 too, all recognition that feels richly deserved rather than surprising once you’ve spent time here.

The Rooms

With only 20 rooms, Hotel Gahn is genuinely familial, and the rooms themselves are built around a warm, considered aesthetic – dark teak, warm concrete, and Peranakan references threaded throughout.

Chinese canopy beds sit at the centre of most rooms, with hand-painted ceramic wash basins in the bathrooms, brass tulip light bulbs overhead, and beautiful robes on the hook. Even the kettle looks as though it belongs to another time (don’t worry, it boils water). The craftsmanship of the antique furniture – a hidden-mirror dresser, for instance – reminds you how unwieldy most hotel furniture really is. I’ve never been moved to describe a dresser as graceful before, but I’m bloody tempted now.

Fuck it.The whole room is graceful. The wash basin alone is worth a moment’s pause long after you’ve deposited your mouthwash down the plug: a wide, shallow ceramic bowl hand-painted with red peonies, blue florals, and a Chinese double happiness symbol at its centre fed by wall-mounted brass taps. It makes you resent your boring white bathroom sink at home. Even the shampoo and shower gel arrive in hand-painted ceramic dispensers, floral-patterned in the Peranakan tradition, with brass pump fittings.

Bathroom products are lemongrass-scented though conditioner is absent, which might matter depending on your hair. Ours is fucked by the sun, so it kinda mattered. Even more so to the other guests, who had to share their space at breakfast with me…

We stayed in a Grand Deluxe room, and the centrepiece is magnificent: a vast circular freestanding soaking tub in matte stone composite with a heavy, ornate brass tap. There’s this weird urge to get in it, lay down and contour your body to the curve, even if you don’t run a single drop of water. It’s that big and that inviting. I considered sleeping in it for a laugh. You can even swivel the TV to face the tub. Sure, you’ll be watching France 24 on half hour cycles, but the subversiveness of the whole affair is pretty fun for a while.

Book a rear-facing room if you can. A vast picture window opens onto low palms, open scrubland, butterflies, and the occasional dog crossing the field below with no particular agenda. Occasionally, a local farmer might cross the field in just a towel, but maybe that was just for us? Anyway, though the hotel sits on one of Khao Lak’s busiest roads, none of that reaches you back here.

One note: Superior rooms are smaller and, unlike the Deluxe and Grand Deluxe category, don’t have windows – worth knowing before you book.

Facilities

The pool is narrow and not exactly designed for doing lengths, but it does the job for cooling down after a sweaty walk. Though, we should add, only heathens are jumping into a hotel pool sweaty; you shower first, guys!

It’s a chilled spot to hang out, with a handful of deck chairs arranged around the pool beneath the shade of a large sea almond tree – its broad, rounded leaves doing useful work in the Andaman heat. It’s not a resort pool built for spectacle, but it’s genuinely pleasant, and the small garden surrounding is a lovely place to spend the afternoon. In the evening the garden is lit up with fairy lights, which creates a twinkling little spectacle that the restaurant overlooks.

You can tell we’re scratching around for ‘facilities’ by now: UV umbrellas are provided in-room which are useful for the walk to the beach, come rain or sun. Honestly, having all the mod-cons isn’t really the point here.

Food & Drink

At Hotel Gahn the dining room is the heart of the hotel. It’s where the hotel breakfast is laid out each morning and where Juumpo serves lunch and dinner, open to the small pool on one side through tall timber-framed doors, the reception and the café counter on another. There’s no threshold to cross. You drift between them. It gives the whole property an easy, domestic rhythm – the kind you associate with staying with family. You start to fantasise about living here, reading the Sunday paper while your adopted Nyonya grandma whips you up something implausibly complex with such grace that you enter a flow state and finish the crossword with ease.

At Juumpo, the menu draws directly from a century-old family archive that you just know has never been committed to paper, only shown. The restaurant has held a worthy place in the Michelin guide for five years in a row and counting.

We ate the sab pa rod phad kung – stir-fried pineapple with shrimp – which is listed on the English menu as a sweet and sour dish, but was considerably more complex than that much-maligned descriptor suggests. Phuket’s famous pineapple, sweeter and more fragrant than the varieties in Tesco (or, indeed, in Big C), takes on a different character here when kissed by the wok; floral, full-bodied, extraordinary really.

It’s a dish worth travelling for. As is the Baba-style coconut milk soup with shrimp and herbs. The coconut milk had that first-press quality – no soap-tinge, a faint nuttiness – that suggests someone had wrestled with a rabbit earlier in the day. The seasoning was reticent in a way that distinguishes the repertoire from the more bold Thai soups you’ll find out the door. Neither are necessarily better; just different. Here, the restraint was so in keeping with the dignity of the room that it felt like time had locked into place.

The moo phad koei kem arrived next, pork stir-fried with pickled garlic – deceptively simple, deeply aromatic. Then pla kem foi, fried salted krill served with sweet fish sauce: a dish with tension, a dish designed to be eaten with plain steamed rice that is of course cooked with the ultimate care.

There’s a few wines available by the glass, and Leo beer too. Honestly, for some reason this one called for a crisp water.

The Gahn Café, on the ground floor, is worth factoring into your day if you need a pitstop. It’s a relaxed place for tea or coffee, with handmade bakery items and local Thai desserts alongside. You might find yourself sitting longer than planned, which fits the hotel’s unhurried character well. The drinks menu is extensive: Thai teas (the Honey Thai Tea is worth ordering), fresh watermelon and coconut juice, and traditional Thai coffee. Don’t miss the orange or coconut flower espresso, and their signature house cocoa is good, too.

A self-service refreshment station where guests can help themselves to fruit throughout the day brings that perfect domestic cadence back around again.

Breakfast leans Thai, and rightly so. Pa Tong Go – the deep-fried dough sticks famous on this part of the coast – sit on the buffet table alongside a pot of condensed milk for drizzling. There’s crispy cai poh tofu with sweet noodles, a generous spread of khanom wan (Thai sweets), and congee that earns its place on a slow morning.

Western options exist, mainly eggs cooked to order, but they’re an afterthought. A table of fellow guests near us made it clear they’d expected more croissants, baked beans or whatever they were reaching for. If they’d just gone Thai, they wouldn’t have been disappointed.

When you block out the moaning, it’s a wonderful way to start a morning.

There are some decent food options on this side of Phet Kasem road, including the perennially popular Jim Fiske, the perennially popular Bang Niang night market (which does some superlative crispy pork baked in a massive earthen clay jar – you can’t miss it), and an Isaan restaurant just a minute to the right of Hotel Gahn that doesn’t have a name but lasts long in the memory for its som tam, catfish laab and the rest.

And a five minute taxi ride north along Phet Kasem, the Michelin Bib Gourmand-holding Krua Luang Ten is one of the best southern Thai restaurants we’ve been to. It’s great value, too; you’ll genuinely pay more for the extortionate Grab there-and-back than you will a full, five or six dish spread at the restaurant.

Ideal For…

Hotel Gahn doesn’t really suit the standard Khao Lak beach-resort visitor. It’s a different kind of stay for a different kind of traveller.

Travellers curious about the region’s heritage. The Baba-Peranakan history of the Andaman coast is the point here, not a backdrop. The artefacts, the architecture, the food: all of it connects to something specific and genuine.

Serious food lovers. Juumpo holds a Michelin Guide listing, and you’re unlikely to eat like this anywhere else in Khao Lak.

Couples and solo travellers who want intimacy over scale. Twenty rooms, a considered pool garden, no swim-up bar, no activities desk. The whole property rewards those who want to slow down rather than be entertained.

Design-conscious guests. The Studio Locomotive-designed building has won and been shortlisted for multiple international awards, and the craft extends into every room.

Anyone using Khao Lak as a base rather than a destination. With Takua Pa just up the road and the beach closer than the address suggests, this works well as a launchpad for the wider region.

It’s perhaps less suited to anyone after a classic beach holiday with pool bars and organised entertainment. There’s no kids’ club, no buffet, no evening programme. If you want Khao Lak for the sand and the sun lounger, you’ll find it too cerebral.

Why Stay?

That layered sense of inheritance gives Hotel Gahn a quality that’s increasingly rare in a region where luxury tends to announce itself in square footage and infinity edges.

The restaurant is the chief reason to stay, and one of the best places to eat in Khao Lak, full stop. But the building around it earns its keep too – a genuine design identity sharing a less well-known chapter of Thailand’s culinary and architectural heritage with real warmth. Stay here over a beach resort and you’ll see a side of Khao Lak that most visitors never find.

Rooms start from around 1,250 baht (£25) per night during low season, and 3,000 baht per night (£70) during high.

Address: 27, 76 Phet Kasem Rd, Khuekkhak, Takua Pa District, Phang Nga

Website: hotelgahn.com

The taxi driver couldn’t help himself. Driving past Surin Beach, he mentioned that Leonardo DiCaprio had once stayed on this stretch of Phuket’s coast during the filming of The Beach, and that rumour has it that in a resort just up the road, Shakira had been persuaded to sing for her supper – or at least for a bowl of green mangoes. We’re not sure we need to know if it’s true.

What is true is that this part of Phuket sits in stark contrast to the other West Coast beach strips you’ve just left behind. The heaving, hurling, lurching Patong, the Cyrillic-signed strip of Karon… They are twenty minutes but feel worlds away. Here in Surin, secluded hotels have discretion built into their architecture, a residential calm that the louder southern beaches have long since surrendered. The Twinpalms feels like the apotheosis of it all.

When Swedish entrepreneur Carl Langenskiöld opened Twinpalms in Surin in 2004 (in Phuket terms, a lifetime ago), his ambition was straightforward: to bring a different kind of luxury to Phuket – one defined by considered design and understated calm rather than scale and spectacle. Two decades on, that vision holds. What he built, with Argentinian architect Martin Palleros, is a property of laid-back luxury in the most honest sense of the phrase: built-in, thought out. Felt, not furnished.

The Location

Surin Beach sits on Phuket’s north-west coast, between Patong to the south and Bang Tao to the north, around thirty minutes from the airport. It is a calmer, more residential stretch of the island, one that has attracted money without making too much noise about it. Just up the coast lies Pansea Beach, a private cove shared by Amanpuri and The Surin Phuket.

The resort itself sits around 175 metres back from the water – close, but not beachfront. You cross a road and a small car park to reach the sand, which is public and, since a second clearance of all commercial premises in May 2025, now completely free of the beach clubs, vendors and sun-lounger operations that once lined it.

Whether that reads as a loss or a restoration depends on what you want from a beach. For guests staying at Twinpalms Surin, it is largely academic – the pool is the main event, and the beach is there when you want a change of horizon rather than a destination in itself.

Inland, Surin Village is a predominantly Muslim community with a small market and an indulgence of dependable halal restaurants, and just along the road, Masjid Mukaram in Bang Tao is the island’s largest mosque – a welcome reminder that this part of the island has a life beyond the resorts.

The Welcome

On arrival you’re greeted with a choice of welcome drinks, champagne among them, which sets the tone for the stay – you’re on holiday after all, and this is a grown-up greeting fit for a grown-up place.

The hotel encourages guests to download its app, which handles everything from requesting extra water to room cleaning. It’s practical rather than gimmicky, and in keeping with a property that has thought about the friction points of a stay.

You’re also given a phuang malai, a jasmine flower bracelet, to slip on your wrist. It’s a small touch, but one that grounds you in Thailand again after all the check-in chatter. These garlands have been used for centuries as gestures of welcome, respect and good luck, and the scent of fresh jasmine trailing you through the lobby is a far better introduction to the place than any amount of paperwork.

The Vibe

Tranquil, serene, oasis? The brochure words that hotels reach for and rarely justify. At Twinpalms Surin, they do.

The moment you pass the moat that encircles the lobby, the world outside feels decisively left behind. The main reception sets the tone immediately, taking its cue from traditional open-sided Thai wooden pavilions. But Palleros pushes it into something more dramatic – a soaring pitch of dark timber and steel that draws the eye upward before directing it through the length of the building toward the lagoon pool beyond. Three antique chofa, the curved gilded finials that crown Thai temple roofs, are arranged inside and bronze stupas flank the entrance steps. All stripped of their original context, but no less commanding for it.

Palleros trained in both architecture and landscape architecture, and at Twinpalms the two disciplines are inseparable. Indeed, the pool, the planting, the pavilions and the pathways were conceived as one from the outset, which is why the property feels so coherent. It’s a site that grew from its gardens rather than one that had them arranged around it afterward. He describes his approach as “Contemporary Tropical”, and on arrival you understand what he means. 

Twinpalms Surin is deliberately low-rise, which keeps the scale human and the atmosphere leisurely. There’s a pleasing tempo to the place that you notice without being able to immediately label it: no music thumping at the pool, just the sound of trickling water from the features and birdsong from the gardens. No scramble for deckchairs either, no towels left out all day as denoters of selfishness. People seem to prefer just to drop in and duck out elegantly. It is, without any effort to perform the fact, serene.

The lagoon pool that sits at the heart of the hotel gives the property much of its rhythm and cadence. Its soft organic curves wind through the lush verdure around it, passing frangipani and palm trees. The gardens that surround the pool are noticeably better-tended than most resort grounds, with a horticultural precision that extends to the flower beds and smaller planting throughout.

If you’re up early enough, the grounds reward it – gardeners tending to the plants, birdsong threading through the palms, the air still cool, the light still low. It’s enough to make you embrace gökotta, the Swedish practice of rising early to listen to the birds, which they claim brings happiness for the rest of the day. At Twinpalms, it requires no alarm clock.

Part of what makes this hotel so absorbing is how the property holds Phuket’s changing light throughout the day. In the morning, sun filters through the palms at a low angle, catching the cordyline and tropical planting in deep reds and greens that seem almost implausible in their intensity. By midday, the pool has stilled to a mirror, the dark angular geometry of the sala roof reflected cleanly against open sky. At dusk, the sky behind the pavilion turns soft gold and the water takes it up. And after dark, the property shifts register entirely. The gardens are lit with the same care that went into planting them – uplighters picking out the palms, the pool electric against the night sky, the sala dramatically lit up. It is the kind of place that repays being watched at every hour.

The Rooms

The rooms at Twinpalms Surin have the quality that the best hotel design always aims for and rarely achieves: they feel timeless. All dark wood and white linen and the hum of a ceiling fan – the tropical hotel room of the imagination. There’s no trend-chasing, no statement pieces that will date and decay, just considered materials and clean lines.

There are ninety-seven rooms, suites and lofts across fifteen configurations. We stayed in a Lagoon Suite, positioned at close quarters with the pool. The suite opens up entirely with full-width panels folding back to erase the wall between bedroom and terrace, leaving nothing between you and the lagoon pool but warm air and the sound of the gardens. It’s a design move that feels generous. Rather than looking at the landscape through glass, you’re actually staying in it.

Inside, a rust-red throw lay across the foot of the super-king bed; the rug beneath it matched. It reads, at first glance, more Scandinavian hygge than Phuket tropics, but it works, giving the room a cosiness uncommon in this part of the world, and making perfect sense once you know the property’s lineage and ownership. On the table, a fresh orchid. On the walls, paintings by the Thai artist Nong Bin Bin. Both a sustained, deliberate conversation with the lush nature just outside the glass.

The details accrue without fanfare. A ceiling fan – so many hotels have quietly dispensed with these, but the movement they give a room in tropical heat is irreplaceable. A leather key wallet to keep your room keys. A laundry basket for towels instead of just leaving them on the floor when you want them changed. A dedicated dressing area with doors that close off your suitcase from the rest of the room, a small mercy for anyone who has lived out of luggage for a fortnight. In the bathroom, a bespoke lemon body scrub sat beside the tub – the kind of small provision that constitutes a spa moment without requiring you to leave your room. A home hub that controls lighting, air conditioning and the fan from a single panel, sparing you the usual archaeology of switches and remotes.

The room smells wonderful too. The in-house reed diffusers carry a tea and sea-salt fragrance the owner designed himself; quite masculine and nothing like the floral sweetness common across Thai hotels. It’s worth saving suitcase space for. Inside the room is a glass cabinet stocked with Twinpalms branded products – polo shirts, caps, the reed diffuser and candle in that tea and sea salt scent – available to buy at your leisure. It could easily feel like a gift shop that wandered into your bedroom, but it doesn’t. By the time you leave, you’ve spent enough time with the brand that you actually want to be associated with it, to take a piece of it home.

Facilities & Spa

The pool is the centrepiece of the resort and one of the best reasons to stay here, an attractive prospect for guests who prefer a pool to the oceanfront. Shaped with the organic softness of something found rather than constructed, it is large enough to lap and shallow enough to wade, with multiple entry points and semi-private zones that eliminate any scramble for position. 

The double cabanas dotted around the hotel sit beneath mature palms; on a hot afternoon in the shade of one, with the sound of water moving through the features and a koel calling from the palms in lieu of an ‘Ibiza tropical chill’ playlist, the sense of being genuinely removed from ordinary time is immediate and convincing.

There is a pool bar, with a menu running from healthy smoothies and seasonal salads through to Thai and Western dishes, classic cocktails, beers, wines and spirits, served until 6pm. There is a call button by every deckchair – you don’t even have to move to get your next pina colada.

The pool stays open until 11pm – most hotels stop at 8 – which on a warm Phuket night is exactly the right call. Before 11am, towels are collected from the reception lobby rather than poolside; worth knowing on your first morning.

Morning yoga is hosted in an open-sided Thai sala framed by palms, with the lagoon stretching out in front and the gardens still cool in the early light. The gym is a serious one – not the afterthought two-treadmill arrangement that some hotels get away with – and comes with towels and shower access, making it a useful option for waiting out the post-checkout hours before a late flight.

The onsite Palm Spa offers a focused menu of massages and treatments rather than an overwhelming list – traditional Thai, aromatherapy, an energy rebalance deep tissue, a candle massage using warm oils applied to calm and nourish the skin, plus a body scrub, facial, foot massage and upper back treatment. Prices start from 1,200 baht for 30 minutes. Book ahead to guarantee availability. On rainy days especially, everyone arrives at reception with the same idea.

Elsewhere there is a wine room which hosts a complimentary wine and cheese hour every afternoon. There’s also a small library with convenient computer stations for those doing the whole digital nomad thing, and a little onsite boutique for those who whisked their partners away on a spontaneous trip and need to replenish their wardrobe as a result.

If you do decide to venture out of the resort’s warm embrace, then there’s a complimentary ‘Take Me To’ shuttle that runs from 11am until late, connecting guests to Catch Beach Club and Kalido on Bang Tao, and to the group’s sister property Twinpalms MontAzure on Kamala Beach, where Shimmer restaurant sits directly on the sand. It turns what might look like a location concession into something more useful; access to several of the best spots on Phuket’s north-west coast without arranging your own transport.

For something more ambitious, Twinpalms Yachts offers fully crewed charters ranging from half-day island hops to overnight escapes, with a fleet spanning 42 to 98 feet and destinations taking in Phang Nga Bay’s limestone formations, the Phi Phi Islands and the powder-white beaches of Koh Racha. Private and join-in day cruises are both available, bookable directly through the resort.

Food & Drink

One of the most unexpected things about Twinpalms is the coffee. The beans are roasted to the owner’s personal preference, and he’s built his own brewing machine specifically for the property. The result is a distinctive, delicious cup, with the hotel’s logo pressed into each cappuccino. And once more, we’re buying into the brand all over again. 

The Oriental Spoon is Twinpalms Surin’s all-day dining offer. The space itself is gorgeous, with raised dining platforms, and alfresco and covered areas. All these different zones give it a considered and private vibe. Food-wise, it bills itself as an east-meets-west place and serves comforting classics from both traditions. On the Thai side, a chicken pad grapao is particularly good – a dish that Thais call ‘no idea’ because if you have no idea what to order, you often just order this, and it always – as it does here – delivers. The Wagyu Cheeseburger is full of flavour and, likewise, an excellent option for those lingering in the realm of indecisiveness. 

Speaking of wagyu, the hotel has its own Michelin-recommended restaurant: Wagyu Steakhouse, a place that leans more Bangkok than beach resort in its ambition, with dark wood panelling, plush leather, and a dimly lit two-storey interior that has no interest in reminding you the sea is nearby. Here, choosing your steak from the display fridge, then your knife from a box of bespoke blades, is exactly as enjoyable as it sounds. Behind the pass, chef Nok leads an all-female brigade working a Josper charcoal oven and a beechwood grill. We’ve named it one of the best places to eat steak in Phuket for good reason.

The wine list is broad and crowdpleasing, with the Coravin system allowing by-the-glass access to some serious vintages. Above the restaurant is a small Art Deco bar where the cocktails are punchy and seriously good. Bookend your evening here; your room’s only a stumble away, after all.

Breakfast is served back at the Oriental Spoon. It’s a calm, considered affair – jazz low in the background, chefs carving fresh fruit as guests arrive, a bottle of champagne on ice should you be so inclined.

The head chef is there in the morning, attending to the stations. The bread selection warrants particular attention: baked each morning by the hotel’s own bakery operation, BAKE, which has been feeding the north-west coast of Phuket for close to two decades and operates a standalone café in nearby Cherngtalay. Sourdough with a pleasingly hefty crust, croissants that shatter at the touch, pastries arranged carefully… It’s not a table you pass by quickly.

Elsewhere there’s the usual Thai and Western classic breakfast staples, a baked bean tray generous enough to suggest someone on the team really, really likes baked beans, and a salad station with a parmesan wheel and roasted tomatoes completes the picture.

Ideal For…

Couples, first and foremost. The atmosphere, the lagoon pool, the candlelit steakhouse, the spa treatments for two… It has honeymoon written all over it.

Those who’d rather not think too hard about logistics. The resort’s own offering, lagoon pool, Michelin-listed steakhouse, spa, morning yoga, afternoon wine hour… It already amounts to something close to a full itinerary. But the complimentary hourly shuttle extends that further, connecting guests to some of the resort’s partner venues like Catch Beach Club and the Lazy Coconut (both ten minutes away). You could spend a week here and never feel the pull to arrange anything yourself.

Design-conscious travellers who cherish the fine touches. The Swedish ownership’s stamp on things, the Palleros architecture, the considered details in the rooms – this is a property that rewards attention.

Repeat Phuket visitors ready for something different. If you’ve done the big beach clubs and loud southern beaches, Twinpalms offers something more residential and grown-up.

Food-focused guests. With BAKE’s bread at breakfast, a Michelin-listed steakhouse and the owner’s custom coffee setup, there’s genuine substance to the food programme here.

Solo travellers and remote workers. The calm, undemanding atmosphere means no pressure to be sociable, the pool is the kind you’re happy to spend a full day beside with a book, and rooms come with a good desk. The library has computer stations, and the overall peace of the place makes entering a flow state considerably easier than at livelier resorts.

It’s perhaps less suited to anyone seeking nightlife on the doorstep or direct beachfront action. The resort’s set-back position means this isn’t exactly a toes-in-the-sand-from-your-sunbed kind of stay, though the complimentary shuttle to Twinpalms’ beachfront properties, running from 11am until late, handles both well enough. Families with young children may find the atmosphere geared more towards adults.

Why Stay?

There’s a cultural logic to how Twinpalms Surin feels. Swedish ownership brings lagom to the tropics. That distinctly Scandinavian instinct for exactly enough, nothing in excess is evident in every considered detail of the place. It finds an easy partner in sabai sabai, Thailand’s settled contentment with the unhurried and the unforced. Two philosophies arriving from opposite ends of the world, bringing out the best in each other.

Twinpalms Surin has the rare quality of reminding you why you came away in the first place. As we left, we learned that the hotel has a handful of residential apartments – people who have, in effect, decided never to leave. How we’d love to join them.

Rooms at Twinpalms Surin start with the Palm Deluxe – a 55 sqm room with pool and garden views – from as little as 4,900 baht (£110) per night in low season, rising to over 13,600 baht (£305) in high season.

Address: 106, 46 Moo3 Surin Beach Road, Choeng Thale, Thalang District, Chang Wat Phuket

Website: twinpalmshotelsresorts.com

Up there with ‘hidden gem’ and ‘oasis of calm’, the word hideaway is among the most abused in the travel industry’s vocabulary. Hotels deploy it liberally, to properties on busy roads, resorts within earshot of beach bars, places that offer seclusion only in the sense that they have doors. The word has been drained of all meaning through sheer ubiquity. The Avista Hideaway would like to make the case for its rehabilitation. 

Here, the name isn’t mere marketing. This is a hotel that has taken the idea of a hideaway to its logical extreme, and then pushed further still – architecturally, philosophically, and in the small, considered details that accumulate over the course of a stay. It all adds up to something that feels less like a hotel experience and more like a sustained act of refuge. 

Its rooms vanish behind layers of tropical planting. Its terraced levels wind down through gardens dense enough to get lost in (that’s us; we did). Its restaurants, its spa, its pools, its staff – everything here strolls in the same direction, with the same unhurried conviction: to make the world outside feel, for the duration of your stay, entirely optional.

The Location

If you’re a stressed-out soul seeking refuge from the outside world, you’ll be happy here, and actually getting to the Avista Hideaway is part of the experience. The road up from Patong proper winds steeply through the hillside, the town dropping away behind you as the vegetation closes in. At first you can feel the pull of the tide tugging at your sweaty collar as the arctan of your ascent does its level best to change your mind. The waves are murmuring something persuasive about retreating to sea level. But your Thai isn’t good enough to instruct your driver to turn back, so you’re invested now.

By the time you reach the gates, you’re in a strange fantasy about how it might feel to reach heaven. Something has shifted, chaos to calm. You are somewhere else now. Last night on Bangla Road has a sepia quality to it so far removed from its usual stark neon that you exit your Grab befuddled.

You haven’t died fella, chill out. You’re just hungover, and this is where you need to be today, perched on a hillside looking at the twin bays of Patong and Tri Trang rather than immersed in them. Avista Hideaway occupies its own pocket of Phuket – a world away from down there, where the streets buckle under the pressure of tourists and traffic jams. The rainforest that flanks the hotel lends the place an atmosphere of deep green seclusion. From this hillside, the noise of Patong doesn’t reach you. It might as well be on another island. 

You came here for beaches though, and it’s reassuring to know they’re near if you need them. Close by, Tri Trang Beach – a sheltered, emerald-watered bay just south of Patong – has held onto a quieter character than its neighbours, though its rocky, coral-covered seabed makes it better suited to sitting and looking than serious swimming.

Freedom Beach is the smarter move. It’s one of the finest on the island (and named 28th best in the world recently, too), and just a 700-metre jungle hike away. Go early in the morning, before the heat sets, and you will have it largely to yourself. And perhaps manage expectations on the walk back up. Over the course of our stay, staff encouraged – with some enthusiasm – to make the trek down to it. One suspects previous guests who had not done their due diligence had expressed disappointment that the hotel is not directly on a beach, and the staff were well drilled in their response. But honestly, these hypothetical moaners had somewhat missed the point of the Hideaway.

Anyway, that’s enough mental gymnastics for one paragraph, we’re in desperate need of some ya dom. Good news, then, as just outside the entrance, there’s a 7-Eleven. There’s a handful of food stalls, a barber’s and a tattoo shop, too – the small, unassuming infrastructure that tends to gather wherever tourists eventually find their way.

The Welcome

With the scene set quite comprehensively, the ground is laid for a grand arrival, and the welcoming ceremony at Avista Hideaway is theatrical in the best sense. Guests are invited to strike a large gong in the reception area three times – a common practice in Thai temples, believed to bring good luck, blessings, merit, and protection.

More impressive is what greets you when you first step across the hotel’s threshold: a courtyard inspired by the ancient Sukhothai Kingdom, at its heart a mirrored mosaic Radiant Sun sculpture, a starburst of geometric, faceted tiles set in a shallow pool that catches the Phuket light and scatters it in a thousand directions. It is designed to embody the vibrant life force of the island, and at night, when it lights up, the effect is of a sun that never sets on the resort.

You’re then invited to float a lotus flower on the water, a tradition meant to bring good luck, happiness, and a fresh start. The ritual is designed to connect you with the serenity of the resort, and might seem overwrought were it not delivered with such naked conviction.

Arrive in the evening and the courtyard transforms entirely. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, fire performers take to the space around the sculpture, which by night is lit from within and glows a deep gold, its mirrored tiles catching the flames below. Guests gather along the colonnade to watch. It’s spectacular, and makes good on the lobby’s promise that the sun never really goes down here.

The connection carries inside. The lobby ceiling features a coffered starburst echoing the courtyard’s design directly, with a sweeping circular chandelier of lanterns suspended at its centre. Overlooking the Andaman sea, the lobby itself is outstandingly beautiful, flooded with natural sunlight, spacious and featherlight.

The hotel’s herb garden supplies butterfly pea flowers for the welcome drink, a vivid electric blue, that when mixed with lime juice transforms to a violet. There’s symbolism here that’s too much of a reach, even for us. We’re still looking for it in the bottom of our glass when we’re told our room is ready.

Pearl Café, a corner of the lobby given over to good coffee and cake, ensures there is no particular reason to rush either. If you arrive before check in time, there are worse places to wait than lounging on the huge horseshoe-shaped sofas floating in the water. The same unhurried quality extends to checkout: the lobby is too beautiful to abandon without a final farewell, and with a flight or onward transfer pending, there are considerably worse places to wait. 

The Vibe 

The resort is arranged across multiple levels, its maze of terraced pathways winding steeply between them, dense with banana palms, elephant ears and tropical planting so abundant it feels less like a hotel garden and more like the hotel has been built into the jungle itself. 

The lush grounds are magnificent. Little benches are dotted around, half-hidden by foliage, inviting a kind of purposeless sitting that the resort seems actively to encourage. The greenery mirrors the forested hills on all sides, blurring the boundary between the two. High in the hills, it has something of a giant treehouse about it. You might get a little lost trying to find your way back to the lobby, but that’s okay.

Central to everything is that lobby, with Avista Hideaway’s two signature restaurants, Tambu and Sizzle (more on those later) sitting above it on the open-air upper level. If the hillside setting makes the first case for not leaving, the restaurants make a second, arguably more persuasive one for outstaying your welcome.

The view from up here – the Andaman Sea stretching ahead, forested hills rolling away on either side, the bays below catching the last of the afternoon light – stops you mid-sent…

…ence. Sorry, that’s terrible. At sunset, with a drink in hand, you stop pretending you’re going to do anything else today. In fact, you row back on all tomorrow’s plans too.

The Rooms

There are 150 rooms and suites in total, spread across ten categories. All share the same Thai-inspired design language. Rich local woods feature throughout, along with water elements and deep, peaceful blue tones that have a settling effect the moment you close the door. Rain showers, king beds and furnished terraces are standard across the categories; the traditional motifs in the fabrics and woodwork keep the rooms feeling grounded in place rather than generically ‘tropical’.

Views range from garden and mountain to pool and sea, depending on your category. Suites and villas are spacious, each coming with either a private plunge pool or whirlpool, and a floating breakfast can be arranged in the private pool, if that’s your thing.

Garden view rooms in particular feel tucked away – verandas disappear behind layers of tropical planting, the vegetation pressing in close enough that you’d barely know the room was there. We stayed in a ground floor garden room and the sense of being hidden from the world felt entirely appropriate for a hotel that wears its name so literally.

In our room, a birdcage tiered stand waited on the table, housing a pink macaron, a lemon meringue tartlet, a dark chocolate petit four, and a pineapple cake made with locally grown Phu Lae pineapple, a revered variety native to Phuket and the surrounding region. The snacks were so ethereally light someone had obviously been concerned they’d fly away. No better advert for booking the hotel’s afternoon high tea, we thought.

Our room had a deep freestanding bath – the kind you actually use rather than photograph. After a brazen attempt to traverse the whole hotel grounds on foot, we needed it. Since you’re on a hill, the hotel operates a buggy service that will come and collect you should you wish – which you may well appreciate, as the walk back up through the hillside can be a little daunting. Landlines outside each block of rooms are provided for making that call.

Facilities & Spa

At the Avista Hideaway, there are three swimming pools – the main pool, a riverside pool and a hillside pool, the latter of which is adults-only. Each has a swim-up bar. The main pool does not catch full sunlight until around 10am, which eliminates the early-morning lounger scramble that afflicts so many comparable properties – a small grace that reflects the general rhythm of the resort. Many villas have their own private pools, keeping the communal areas pleasantly uncrowded during the day.

The wellness programme is extensive and largely complimentary. Sunset yoga, practised up here with the Andaman Sea stretching out below, is a different proposition entirely from a studio class. A Thai cooking session at Vista Restaurant, led by one of the hotel’s resident chefs and built around the fundamentals of green curry – flavour balancing, coconut milk preparation, the use of local herbs and spices – is a more useful souvenir than anything available at Malin Plaza. For those unwilling to entirely abandon their routines, the Sculpt fitness centre runs 24 hours a day and looks out over the tropical pool with Phuket’s jungle rising behind it – a view that makes the treadmill considerably more bearable.

Families are well served by a dedicated kids’ club, which keeps younger guests occupied and gives parents reasonable grounds for a long lunch. 

At Jivana Spa, the Singing Bowl Ritual offers something between a treatment and a minor philosophical experience, designed for stillness, clarity, and something approaching self-discovery. Elsewhere, a pandan-scented library stocked with titles in multiple languages invites the kind of afternoon that has no particular agenda.

If you ever need a reminder of what you’re hiding from, the hotel runs a complimentary shuttle to Patong, which takes just five minutes. 

Food & Drink

Arguably the Avista Hideaway’s crowning glory is its two headliner restaurants. Tambu and Sizzle, both featured in the Michelin Guide, sit on the rooftop, and, quite simply, these are two of the best restaurants in Patong, if not all of Phuket.

Tambu serves progressive Indian charcoal cuisine inspired by the lavish tented palaces of the Mughal emperors. Its chef, Saurabh Sachdeva, is an Iron Chef Thailand winner who has trained in Michelin kitchens, and his technical confidence is evident throughout. The butter chicken – sweet with tomato, full-bodied with butter, smouldering from the tandoor – is made to a secret recipe and tastes like the kind of thing you’d want to be proprietary about.

The smoked naan, seasoned with charcoal, is gorgeous, but perhaps best of all is the dahl. It’s enriched with cream and Amul butter to a degree that suggests a certain philosophical commitment to clogging your arteries, but you can’t argue with how good it tastes. Go on, argue with your dahl about how good it tastes; the dining room could use a fresh distraction now the sun has finished setting. You’d be foolish not to set aside an evening for the tasting menu.

Sizzle somehow boasts an even more confident sunset experience. The menu leans into premium grills and fresh seafood, and the steaks are superb, with Chef Alvaro de la Puerta’s Spanish influences surfacing in the confidence with which the kitchen handles fire and meat, a bold, clean cooking style that lets the quality of the ingredient do the talking. 

Simone, the host, has a warmth of the kind that makes you feel you’ve been friends for years within minutes of sitting down. In a region where hospitality can sometimes feel performed, hers is entirely natural. Go for sunset, stay for the steak, and don’t be surprised if you end up closing the place down (and not because you’re still over there arguing with your dahl, we might add).

Elsewhere, Vista, the hotel’s central restaurant, is a real workhorse, serving Thai and international food through the day. The interior is designed to evoke the Andaman Sea, with shimmering blue mosaic tiles, pearl-white pillars and aquamarine lighting accents that give the space a cool, almost underwater quality. Those tiles reflect the sea views, meaning you can watch the water even with your back turned to it.

Vista is where breakfast is served. Arrive before 10am for the calm; after that, it does fill up. Get there early enough, and the outdoor terrace is agreeably cool.

Breakfast highlights include superb salty cookies – pistachio and dark chocolate chip – and a wood-fired oven producing pide for the breakfast buffet. Look out for Rosie, the Thai chef behind the ovens, who offers personalised recommendations to those suddenly frozen by the paradox of choice.

Each day, alongside an array of dim sum, there is a regional Thai dish on as a special. The restaurant has a surprisingly good playlist, too. None of your usual breathy muzak Ed Sheeran covers, but rather, Kacey Musgraves deep cuts. Whoever’s in charge of the tunes is earning their keep.

There isn’t much food in the immediate vicinity beyond the resort, but Sun Moon Star, a street stall outside the local 7-Eleven, is worth knowing about – a cook stir-frying noodle dishes on a portable wok burner, doing brisk and entirely satisfying work.

Ideal For…

Honeymooners & couples seeking luxury without the noise. The hillside setting, the privacy, the garden rooms that vanish behind tropical planting – everything here is calibrated for two people who’d rather not be found. The food adds another dimension entirely; two Michelin-listed restaurants mean you can dress up and stay in without it feeling like a compromise.

Foodies. Tambu and Sizzle are genuinely among the best restaurants in Patong, and arguably beyond. Add Vista’s breakfast pide, the cooking class and Sun Moon Star’s wok noodles outside the 7-Eleven, and you could plan an entire stay around eating.

Families with younger children. A dedicated kids’ club keeps younger guests occupied, the pools are generous, and the buggy service means nobody has to carry a tired child up a hillside. The resort’s size and greenery give kids space to explore without parents worrying about traffic or crowds.

Solo travellers after genuine downtime. There’s more than enough here to fill a week – the spa, the yoga, the pools, the restaurants – without once feeling the pull of Patong. The atmosphere is discreet rather than social, which suits anyone who’s come to be left alone.

It’s perhaps less suited to anyone chasing nightlife or travelling on a tight budget. What it isn’t, and makes no attempt to be, is a party hotel.

Why Stay?

Avista Hideaway does what its name promises and what so few hotels with similar claims actually deliver. The hillside setting, the maze of levels, the greenery pressing in on all sides, the food that removes any reason to leave the grounds – it all conspires to make staying put feel less like inertia and more like the smartest thing you’ve done all holiday. The general pace of the place – unhurried, private, a little removed from everything – rewards those who surrender to it. Stop planning. Stop scrolling. You came here to hide, and the hotel takes that contract seriously.

Rooms at Avista Hideaway start with the Deluxe Garden View – a 55 sqm room with pool and garden views – from as little as 3,700 baht (£84) per night in low season, rising to over 8,300 baht (£186) in high season.

Address: 39/9 Muen-Ngern Rd, Pa Tong, Kathu District, Phuket

Website: mgallery.accor.com/en/hotels/A245

The Avista Hideaway’s sister hotel down in Karon, the Avista Grande, is a different beast altogether – read our review here. It’s well worth a look.

On arrival at the Avista Grande, you’re handed a cup of Ceylon tea with some homemade banana candy. Not just because it’s a nice touch – though it is – but because the Hokkien Chinese settlers who shaped this island brought their tea-drinking and greeting culture with them.

Their presence is woven through everything. MGallery properties are built around storytelling, each shaped by local history and culture. The Avista Grande goes further than simply referencing Phuket’s past in its décor. It builds the island’s architectural DNA into its very bones, then opens the whole thing up to let the Andaman in. The result is striking, and grants a sense of place that so many hotels here fail to deliver on. In Phuket’s increasingly ubiquitous, identikit resort scene, that is hugely appealing.

The Location

On a verdant mountainside above Karon road and its sprawling beach, this really is a hideaway (oh wait, that’s a different hotel by the same group in Patong). Walk five minutes down the hill and you’ll come to a dusty strip of fruit stalls, smoothie shacks and noodle joints. Then you’ll hit Karon road, lined with roadside shacks selling seafood. Cross over and you’re on the beach.

Beyond that, Karon town is a fairly typical slice of Thai tourist infrastructure – beer bars, souvenir shops, tailors and massage parlours. The town and night market are busy and functional rather than charming. Gone are the bohemian hipsters of the past; today this part of Phuket draws a largely Eastern European market. But whichever demographic is currently in vogue here, the hotel feels a world away from the throngs of the town.

At nearly 4km long, Karon Beach is the real draw beyond the hotel grounds. It’s wide, spacious and scenic, and one of the cleanest stretches of sand in Phuket. So much so, in fact, that sea turtles have been returning to nest here again. Marine officials note that for a turtle to choose this stretch of sand – busy with tourists, lined with hotels – is itself a sign of improving coastal health. Rejoice! If you do spot turtle tracks on the sand at night, let the hotel know so they can contact the relevant authorities.

It’s also one of a rare handful of beaches worldwide where the sand squeaks underfoot, a result of its unusually pure white quartz composition; the grains are so uniformly rounded and clean that they vibrate as they slide against each other. Some say it’s like walking on fresh snow, but we found it a bit too scorching hot to agree with them. Fling off your flip-flops and have a go.

Come evening, the beach crowds swell as folk come to soak up the sunset. Speedboats pull up along the beach offering parasailing – the locals who crew them make it look effortless, though it’s back-breaking work. Despite this, because of the breadth of the beach, you can still find your own little spot to watch mercury descend.

Read: The best restaurants near Karon Beach

Back off the beach, and Karon Viewpoint, locally known as Three Beaches Hill, is around fifteen minutes by scooter. It offers a spectacular panorama of three crescent-shaped bays – Karon, Kata, and Kata Noi – that’s particularly good at sunset. If the buzz of Karon Beach gets too much, Freedom Beach is worth the taxi ride.

A six-minute stroll along the beach brings you to Tann Beach Club, a nicer spot by day than night, depending on what you’re after. A short walk in the other direction leads to The Pad Thai Shop, where locals and tourists rub shoulders over generous bowls of noodles. It’s worth seeking out.

It’s easy to stay within the hotel’s orbit, moving between pool and beach, with Karon town’s sometimes slapdash energy barely registering.

Character & Style

You’re constantly reminded you’re in Thailand at the Avista Grande, which is just as it should be, starting with the warm welcome rooted in local tradition through to the elephant keyrings gifted on departure.

The 159-room resort draws on Sino-Portuguese design – the visual language that defined Phuket’s 19th-century tin mining boom – and filters it through a distinctly contemporary lens. It won Best Design Hotel at the Thailand Tourism Awards in 2021, and has since taken Thailand’s Leading Boutique Hotel at the World Travel Awards three years running (2022, 2023, 2024). Just looking at the hotel, it’s easy to see why.

Indeed, the architecture mines the island’s history throughout. Warm, industrial elements are everywhere. While almost all the tin is long gone after decades of trade, it’s evident in the design of the building, which is arrestingly beautiful and stops you in your tracks.

Terracotta-red arched balconies run the main buildings full width, each arch framing a private balcony; the repetition gives the facade the same rhythm as the colonnaded shophouses of Phuket Old Town, scaled up to resort proportions. At its centre, a soaring golden jali screen, the latticed metalwork borrowed from Mughal and Indo-Portuguese tradition, its intricate geometric fretwork catching the light as it shifts through the day. Come late afternoon, the sun hits the terracotta and copper tones and the whole building seems to glow from within.

A spirit of cohesion extends into the common areas. Large murals etched into the hotel’s terracotta walls depict Phuket Old Town’s Sino-Portuguese shophouses in sweeping line-drawn detail – the clock tower, the arched colonnades, the street receding into the distance – a pointed insistence that you’re somewhere with a history. A soul.

Underfoot in the corridors, tiles in monochrome geometric patterns echo the same heritage: the kind you find worn smooth in Phuket Old Town’s shophouses and Penang’s colonial terraces. Metal sculptures in copper and rust tones, shaped like stylised stupas are dotted around the hotel, in keeping with the hotel’s layered references to Southeast Asian design sensibility.

The Avista Grande’s most striking quality is its visual permeability. Stand by the lifts and you can see the forested hills behind the hotel; turn your head and you’ll see the Andaman Sea stretched out in front of it. Look down the corridor and the view carries on seemingly without end. The architecture is structured so that sightlines run uninterrupted through corridors, lobbies and communal spaces, pulling the landscape into the frame at almost every turn. This transparency borrows from a principle deeply embedded in tropical Southeast Asian architecture, where buildings are designed to work with the climate rather than against it. The Avista Grande takes that underlying logic and applies it at resort scale.

Rooms

Rooms feature the same artistic nods to Phuket’s history and heritage, worked into a modern design language of clean lines and generous proportions. Every room starts at 53 sqm – the hotel claims this makes them the largest in Karon Beach, and there’s no obvious reason to dispute it.

There’s a choice of mountain, garden, pool or sea views. Rooms on the lower floors have pool access and, while they sacrifice the views, gain the option of a floating breakfast.

We stayed in the Premier Seaview Room, with the shimmering Andaman Sea defining the long distance and the occasional bird of prey drifting past on the thermals. The balcony is generous and the view from the room is phenomenal, especially during late afternoon. The hotel’s perch on the hill means sunsets are wildly vast and supremely beautiful, casting a glow over the copper building that is something else.

We arrived to a platter of cakes – the Phuket pineapple cake our favourite, closely followed by the pandan – alongside a welcome message drawn on the bed with coloured lollipop sticks. Small touches, but they land.

The minibar leans into local provenance. Branded Avista Grande snacks include dried Thai longans and mahachanok mangoes, both hand-harvested and locally grown, alongside small-batch cashew nuts in tom yum or Thai aromatics flavour — lemongrass, makrut lime and dried chilli all feature prominently, and christ they’re moreish.

The bar stocks the usual suspects alongside Chalong Bay Rum, distilled from pure Thai sugarcane in a French copper still and makes for a rather lovely souvenir. The distillery is a twenty-minute taxi ride away and makes for a rather lovely afternoon – there’s a tour and cocktail class on offer, should you need a reason to leave the pool.

The coffee pods are no standard hotel fare, either. Made from premium Northern Thai beans, the options run from ristretto (a bold blend of robusta and arabica) to cremoso (medium-roasted Doi Tun beans with fruit and caramel notes) and a decaf medium-roast arabica.

At turndown, the hotel leaves a bedtime folktale and Siam herbal tea from the Thai Monsoon Tea Company – a blend of lemongrass, chamomile, bael and rose. Bael is a traditional herb widely drunk in Buddhist monasteries. You’ll sleep very well after one of these, though, honestly, you’ll sleep very well anyway.

Facilities & Spa

There is nothing more disheartening than going down for breakfast and finding all the sunloungers staked out with towels and a strategically placed book, the occupant long gone, the good vibes taken with them. Mercifully, the Avista Grande has a policy against exactly this sort of malarkey: a sign warns that personal items left unattended for more than thirty minutes will be removed. We liked the hotel a great deal before this. We liked it more after we saw this.

For those who prefer not to play the chair-claiming game, there’s an expansive lawn overlooking the sea that takes the pressure off the poolside. The pool itself is easy to settle into – if the loungers are taken, there are high, sloping ledges, nooks and crannies within the pool where you can cool off and recline. A swim-up bar provides refreshments and the music – Boogie Wonderland, ‘Ibiza chill’, that sorta thing – is upbeat and only occasionally intrusive.  

The Pearl Spa deserves more than a passing mention. The 2025 REVE Luxury Awards named it Best Luxury Boutique Spa in the region, Best Luxury Resort Spa in the region, and Best Luxury Beauty Spa globally – a clean sweep that puts it among the best hotel spas in Asia. Treatments draw on locally sourced, sustainable ingredients, and the spa’s name nods to Phuket’s long history as the Pearl of the Andaman Sea.

There’s also Madame Perle’s Salon de Beauté, inspired by Phuket Town’s first beauty salon in the late 19th century, offering everything from nails and waxing to lash extensions. Techniques have come on a fair bit since the days when butterfly pea flowers were used to darken eyelashes, that’s all we’re saying.

Then there’s the Tearapy Lounge, a peaceful tea room serving green jasmine tea and Thai breakfast tea from the Monsoon Thai Tea Company, whose forest-friendly teas support sustainable income for local tea-farming communities. The room is adorned with photos telling the story of the local farmers. There are varieties whose specificity borders on camp, including Lychee Green, Rose White, Herbal Diuretic and one intriguingly titled Sweet Memory Black. Sitting here with a cup is therapeutic in the truest sense. It earns the terrible pun. A well-equipped gym rounds out the facilities, open 24 hours. We never did see someone in there at 4:30am.

The hotel holds Green Globe certification, with active programmes covering energy and water efficiency, waste reduction and community engagement. The commitments run through the guest experience in small but deliberate ways – locally sourced spa products, ethical tea partnerships, minibar snacks from local growers. For travellers who find these things matter, it’s good to know the hotel takes them seriously rather than treating them as a marketing footnote.

Food & Drink

Avista Grande’s flagship is Portosino. Arriving is atmospheric; the staircase up is lined with gilt-framed photographs of Peranakan women arranged in gallery-wall style – images that feel less like decoration and more like a family archive. Inside, it serves Southern Thai, Royal Thai, Indian and international fare, and has previously held the TripAdvisor number one restaurant spot in Karon Beach – a ranking that, based on breakfast alone, is easy to believe.

Portosino was one of the best breakfast spreads we encountered after spending several months eating our way through hotel buffets across Thailand, and we ate through a lot of hotel buffets. As soon as you walk in, it feels like a celebration – the chef captains the room every morning, thorough but reassuring, taking evident pride in his team. If prompted, he’ll talk you through each dish in detail. He will not need much prompting.

It’s wise to trust him, you know. One morning he bowled up to our table and said he wanted to make us an Indian style omelette. Who could say no? It was bloody delicious.

In one corner, an expansive hot section offers Indian and Thai breakfast dishes on a rotating cast: fried rice, pad see ew, and a daily-changing Thai speciality. On one of the days we stayed it was khao soi – so good we wondered aloud whether the chef was from Chiang Mai. He’s not.

The next day came khao moo daeng, a Chinese-Thai street food staple originating with Hainanese immigrants. Each dish is accompanied by notes on its history and heritage, true to the holistic narrative that the hotel has cultivated. Keep an eye out for daily-changing Thai sweets, too – sangkhaya fak thong, a traditional Thai pumpkin custard, or sago with sweetcorn and coconut cream. These are the things you remember.

On the Indian side, there’s vada pav with all the trimmings, including a gorgeous tamarind chutney, and on the following day a dal makhani with roti. Elsewhere: dim sum, including red bean paste and custard varieties, generously filled.

A daily-changing pastry special meant a purple sweet potato croissant one morning, followed by a matcha and tarte tatin-adjacent one involving caramel and apple. Both were wonderful; burnished and freshly baked, a rarity in hotel buffet breakfasts in the Kingdom.

There’s also a make-your-own juice station. Choose your ingredients carefully. We passed one guest whose combination had turned a rather suspicious brown, while a more seasoned juicer nearby had produced a vivid, confident green. It’ll break your day, having to neck a sludgy turd through sheer pride and a keen no-waste mantra.

Upstairs, the Dim Sun Rooftop Bar is a gorgeous spot for sundowners (confusingly, it’s a play on words rather than serving dim sum) with views across to the sea. It’s the best rooftop bar in Karon, and it’s not even close. When the beach gets a little crowded in the evening as people descend on it to watch the sunset, this is the perfect spot for an even better view.

Our favourite restaurant, though, was CHAR’D Grill, where you dine on charcoal grilled premium ingredients (some imported, some local) with your feet in the water. The first dine-on-water concept in Thailand, it’s a gimmick, but an immensely pleasurable one. We’ve featured CHAR’D in our roundup of the best steaks in Phuket; do check it out sometime.

Ideal For…

Couples looking to decompress rather than explore. The Avista Grande is built around slow days – pool, spa, sundowners on the rooftop, dinner with your feet in the water at CHAR’D – and it delivers that rhythm extremely well. The attention to detail extends to the personal: room decoration for anniversaries, floating breakfasts, thoughtful welcome touches throughout.

Design-led travellers who want their hotel to have something to say. The Sino-Portuguese architecture is genuinely thought-provoking, and the storytelling spun through every corner rewards the kind of guest who prefers to ponder the small details.

Food-focused visitors, even as a base. With Portosino and CHAR’D both West Coast heavyweights, you could eat every meal on-site without feeling short-changed.

It’s perhaps less suited to anyone seeking Patong’s energy or travelling on a tight budget. Families with children are catered for – there’s a kids’ club – but the atmosphere is geared towards adults.

Why Stay?

For those who want to do nothing more than decompress, the Avista Grande makes it easy. You can spend entire days moving between the pool and the beach without once venturing into Karon town – and with the on-site restaurants ranking among the best dining options in the area, there’s little reason to. Thanks to the thoughtful design of the hotel, rooted in the island’s history, your story here will be a chapter that stays with you.

Rooms at Avista Grande start with the Deluxe Mountain View Room – a 53 sqm room with a covered terrace and hillside views – from as little as 3,700 baht (£84) per night in low season, rising to over 14,900 baht (£334) in high season.

Address: 38, Luang Phor Chuan Rd, Tambon Karon, Amphur Muang, Phuket

Website: mgallery.accor.com/en/hotels/A224