Best for
Learning to dive, and staying somewhere cheap while you do it
Nightly range
฿1,334–฿5,236 a night
When to go
Same Gulf clock as Samui, so the wettest stretch is roughly late October into December, the opposite of the Andaman coast. The boats matter more than the rain here: rough seas cancel the ferry, so leave a spare day before an onward flight.
Koh Tao is about 21 square kilometres, which makes it roughly a tenth of Koh Samui, and it is the reason a very large number of people have a diving certificate. The island turns out open-water qualifications in volume, and the whole economy is arranged around that.
What this means for where you stay is unusual. There is almost no luxury market. Our listings run from ฿1,334 to ฿5,236 a night, and the most expensive of them costs less than a third of what the most expensive Samui listing does.
The other thing to understand is the geography, because it catches people out. The three settlements all sit on the west coast, facing the sunset and the ferry pier. The east coast is a series of separate bays reached by a steep and often unsealed road, with no strip, no shops, and no walking anywhere. Both sides are perfectly good. They are completely different holidays, and the price difference between them is small enough that people choose wrong.
Booking.com lists 189 properties on the island. We have checked eight so far, spread across all four areas, and we will add more as we get through them.
Where to stay
in Koh Tao.
Pick the area first and the hotel second. On a trip this size the half hour between one beach and the next shapes the holiday more than the room does.
Ordered by the mean guest score of the listings in each area, the same basis as the hotels below.
Photo by Dominic Nelson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons2 places to stayThe East Coast BaysTanote, Leuk and Sai Daeng: separate bays over the hill, with the snorkelling and none of the strip.Explore The East Coast Bays
Photo by Boonchai C, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons3 places to staySairee BeachThe long west-coast strip where most of the island's dive schools, bars and people are.Explore Sairee Beach
Photo by gary4now, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons2 places to stayChalok Baan KaoThe southern bay, quieter than Sairee and still walkable, with the deepest review history on the island.Explore Chalok Baan Kao
Mae Haad Bay. Photo by Fabio Achilli, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons1 place to stayMae HaadThe pier village in the middle of the west coast, where every boat arrives and most of the island's actual business happens.Explore Mae HaadTop rated in Koh Tao.
boutique / The East Coast Bays
Mae Ya Resort
Researched Pick฿3,500
a night
budget / Sairee Beach
Koh Tao Silver Na's Hostel
Researched Pick฿3,398
a night
boutique / The East Coast Bays
Ecotao Lodge
Researched Pick฿4,050
a night
budget / Chalok Baan Kao
MAR24 Koh Tao Hotel
Researched Pick฿1,334
a night
mid range / Sairee Beach
Sunny Side Resort Koh Tao
Researched Pick฿3,330
a night
mid range / Chalok Baan Kao
View Point Resort
Researched Pick฿2,674
a night
Ordered on guest evidence alone: mean score across every booking platform we checked, then review depth. Having stayed somewhere does not push it up the list.
Things to do.
Tours carry each operator's own score, never averaged with the others running the same trip. Places you simply visit carry no score, and say so.
Drag to explore — 2 checked in Koh Tao
Two badges.
No grey area.
Every one of the 10 Koh Tao listings carries one of these. We never blur the line between somewhere we went and somewhere we checked.
How we research →We went. The listing names who stayed, when, and for how many nights. If we haven't been, it doesn't get this badge.
0
in Koh Tao
Not been yet. Confirmed on more than one platform, with its real guest score and review count recorded from each. Each one prints its working.
10
in Koh Tao
Get the good stuff first.
New listings, price movements worth knowing about, and the occasional note on somewhere that stopped clearing our bar. No list exists yet, so this button does nothing on purpose.