How To Get To Koh Phangan, Koh Samui & Koh Tao On A Budget!
For decades, the islands of Koh Phangan, Koh Samui and Koh Tao have been popular stops on the infamous “Banana Backpacking” trail of South East Asia. Like pilgrims to a shrine, the islands offer backpackers stunning beaches, incredible diving and the neon paints of the world-famous Full Moon parties.
Getting to any island can be an expensive affair. With speedboat tickets, pier and national park fees as well as onward transfers to think about, a cheap island getaway can very quickly turn into a backpacking, budget-breaking blowout!
Here’s our guide to getting to Koh Phangan, Koh Samui and Koh Tao on a budget!
In This Travel Guide:
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Getting To The Islands From Donsak Pier - Essential Information
Donsak Pier sits on the eastern coast of Thailand, about an hours drive (around 65 KM) away from the city of Surat Thani. At Donsak there are two piers. One that serves the Raja Ferries (found here) and another that serves the Seatran Ferries (found here). Both piers are very close to each other. If you’re travelling via Raja, you will arrive at a big carpark. From there you will need to transfer to a free songthaew who will drive you down to the pier / docking area.
At Donsak Pier, both Raja and Seatran ferries offer daily services to Koh Phangan and Koh Samui. If you’re heading to Koh Tao you will need to book a speedboat / catamaran ticket with Lomprayah (see more later).
For those who have bought tickets online in advance you will need to go to the ticket office to collect your actual paper tickets. You cannot board the boat with the e-ticket. Make sure you leave plenty of time to do this as it can get very busy, especially if you’re heading to Koh Phangan in time for the Full / Half Moon parties.
We travelled with both Raja and Seatran. We found Raja to be much more basic, but perfectly fine for the 2.5 hour journey to Koh Phangan. If you’re after a more luxurious, air-conditioned transfer, plan to book tickets with Seatran. Honestly we kind of preferred Raja. For us at least it was nicer to sit out in the open air and sea breeze than inside the air-conditioned cabin.
Both ferries had small shops on-board and toilets. We didn’t use the toilets on either Raja or Seatran so cannot give a review of them, but if you needed to go, we’re sure they both would do the job! The shops on board both the Raja and Seatran ferries were stocked with water, soft drinks, snacks and pot noodles. As expected, prices were a lot higher on board than on the mainland, so we would recommend packing your own picnic before you board.
If you’re taking your own motorbike / scooter / car over to the islands you can book vehicle tickets to both Koh Phangan and Koh Samui with both Raja and Seatran.
Departure Times For Raja Ferries
Raja ferries depart every day from Donsak Pier. If you’re on foot, you’ll need to head to the Raja Office located here. From here you will be taken down to the pier on a songthaew. If you’re taking your scooter / motorbike over to the islands, just head down to the pier located here.
Donsak Pier to Koh Phangan
Ferries depart to Koh Phangan from Donsak Pier at 05:00, 08:00, 11:00, 14:00 and 18:00 and will take 2.5 hours to get to Thong Sala Pier on Koh Phangan (located here).
Donsak Pier to Koh Samui
Ferries depart Donsak Pier every hour from 05:00 in the morning until 19:00 in the evening and take 1.5 hours to get to the Lipa Noi pier on Koh Samui (located here).
Departure Times For Seatran Ferries
Seatran ferries also depart daily from Donsak. The pier / ticket office can be found here on Google Maps.
Donsak Pier to Koh Phangan
Seatran ferries depart from Donsak Pier to Thong Sala Pier on Koh Phangan at 05:30, 08:30, 11:30. 14:30 and 17:30 and it will take 2.5 hours to reach the island.
Donsak Pier to Koh Samui
Seatran ferries depart every hour from Donsak Pier to Nathon Pier (located here) from 05:00 in the morning until 18:00 in the evening. There are additional services every half hour that run at 06:30, 10:30, 13:30, 15:30, 16:30 and 18:30. Each journey will take 1.5 hours to reach the island.
To book your ferry tickets in advance, click on the links below:
Ferries to Koh Phangan
Ferries to Koh Samui
If you’re planning to travel to or from the islands during the Full / Half Moon parties, over the Christmas and New Year’s Eve period or during Songkran, make sure to book your tickets well in advance! They can and will sell out.
Getting to Koh Tao with Lomprayah Speedboats
To get to Koh Tao you’ll need to head to a different pier (located here) in Donsak and book speedboat tickets with Lomprayah. The Lomprayah pier will take about an hour to get to (around 65 KM drive) from Surat Thani city.
Departure Times To Koh Tao
The high speed catamarans depart at 11:00 and 15:00 every day. The boats also stop at Koh Samui and Koh Phangan along the way.
If you’re short on time, the catamarans / speedboats make a lot of sense, as although much more expensive, they halve the amount of time it takes to get to the islands. Using the Lomprayah route, you can get to Koh Samui in 45 minutes, Koh Phangan in 1 hour 45 minutes and Koh Tao in 3 hours, 15 minutes.
To book the speedboat tickets, click here.
Getting To The Islands From Bangkok
For most travellers, Bangkok will be their first point of call on any backpacking trip to Thailand. After a couple of days in the busy city, most travellers head one of two ways. North to the mountains of Chiang Mai and Pai, or south to the beaches!
Combined Bus and Ferry tickets from Bangkok to Koh Phangan, Koh Samui and Koh Tao
If you’re planning to head to the islands from the Thai capital, the easiest and cheapest way to get there is to book a combined bus and ferry ticket. Most of the overnight buses depart from the backpacking hub of Khao San Road (located here) before travelling south overnight to the ferry port. From there you’ll transfer to the ferry and you’ll get to your chosen island by mid-morning (or after lunch if you’re travelling to Koh Tao). The buses almost always start from outside the office of the tour operator in Khao San Road. Just make sure you check your ticket and contact them well in advance if you’re unsure where to catch the bus from.
If you’re not staying near Khao San Road, then you can also catch buses from the Southern Bus Terminal in Pinklao (located here it’s sometimes written as Pink Lao).
Over the last 4 years we’ve ridden many of the overnight buses in Thailand, travelling everywhere from the very north of Thailand all the way south to the border with Malaysia. We have always found the buses to be super comfy and super stress free. On the longer journeys, they have always given us a blanket, water and a bag full of snacks, and halfway through the journey, they have always stopped at a service station where you will almost certainly get a free meal included with your ticket.
To book your combined bus and ferry tickets from Bangkok, just click on the links below:
Bus journeys will take around 13 hours to get to Donsak from Bangkok. From there you’ll board ferries and head to your designated island.
Catching the Train from Bangkok to Surat Thani
An alternative way to get to the islands is to catch a train south, all the way to Surat Thani. Trains depart daily from Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal Station (also known as Bang Sue Grand Station, located here) and take approximately 10 hours to reach Surat Thani Railway Station (located here).
To book your Bangkok to Surat Thani train tickets, click here.
From the railway station you will need to catch a bus and ferry transfer to get to the islands. There’s plenty of companies offering transfers with their offices located in the strip of buildings that line the railway carpark. The main travel agency is Phanthip Travel, with their office located here.
If you would prefer to book your transfers in advance, click the links below:
Getting To The Islands From Surat Thani
If you’ve already spent a bit of time travelling around Southern Thailand, the easiest place to catch a transfer onto the islands is the small city of Surat Thani (located here).
If you have the time we can really recommend staying a few days in the city. We had a fantastic stay and really enjoyed its vibrant night market, colourful temples and its chilled out riverside vibes (we will write a guide to the city shortly ). We stayed in the super comfy, Rajthani Hotel which was located in the heart of the city, within walking distance of the riverside, nightmarkets and bus terminal.
Bus and Ferry Tickets from Surat Thani City to the Islands
From Surat Thani you can easily book a combined bus and ferry transfer, just speak to your accommodation or head to one of the travel agencies in town. We booked our onward tickets to Koh Yao Yai via Phanthip Travel located here. Or to book your tickets online in advance, click the links below:
If you’re looking for the cheapest and most budget friendly option though, you’re going to need to book tickets for the …
The Budget Friendly Overnight Ferry From Surat Thani
If you’re an ultimate budget backpacker, then by far the cheapest way to get to the islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Tao is to take the overnight ferry that departs from Surat Thani’s riverside, travels throughout the night and docks at either Koh Phangan or Koh Tao around dawn.
Ferries depart from the Surat Thani’s riverside pier located here. The ferry to Koh Phangan departs at 23:00 and the ferry to Koh Tao departs at 22:00. The journeys to Koh Phangan take around 6 to 7 hours and to get to Koh Tao it takes around from 8 to 12 hours (depending on ferry company).
We obviously didn’t take this ferry, so cannot give an honest opinion about comfort, reliability or whether the journey is worth it to save some baht.
Whilst we were in Surat Thani we did see the overnight ferries docked up and having a big clean down. From the outside, they looked basic, but as long as you don’t need to travel in luxury, we’re sure they’d be a super cheap way to get to the islands!
We’ve always found travelling overnight to be a good budget hack. Not only does it get you from A to B without wasting a day of exploring, but it can also save you a lot on accommodation as you’ll be travelling overnight. Plus if you’re heading to an idyllic island, the day you arrive you can plan to recuperate on a paradise beach!
Next time we’re heading to Koh Phangan or Koh Tao, we will almost certainly book a trip on the overnight ferry.
To book your overnight ticket, head down to the riverside to where the ferries are docked or book in advance via the links below:
Travelling Between Koh Phangan, Koh Samui & Koh Tao
If you’re planning to island hop between all three islands, then it’s very easy to do with ferries criss-crossing between the three islands everyday.
The easiest and cheapest way to book your tickets between the islands, is always to head down to the piers and buy from the ticket booths there.
It’ll take 30 minutes to travel from Koh Samui to Koh Phangan and from Koh Phangan to Koh Tao it’ll take 1 hour. From Koh Tao back to Koh Samui, it’ll take 2 hours to 2.5 hours depending on which ferry you take.
To book your tickets in advance and online, check out 12Go here.
Our Experience Travelling By Ferry To And From Koh Phangan
We decided to head to Koh Phangan after spending a week exploring the beautiful coastline of Khanom. In the distance we could see the silhouetted peaks of Koh Samui and not wanting to say goodbye to Thai beach life, we decided to book a trip to the eastern islands.
After a lot of deliberation we settled on Koh Phangan and so arranged a taxi (for 700 baht) through our accommodation, the excellent Natureline Resort to take us to the Raja Ferry pier in Donsak (located here). This is not the most backpacker friendly start to our island adventure, but if you’re not staying in Khanom or you have your own transport you can avoid the pricey taxi.
We arrived with plenty of time to collect our tickets. We had pre-booked our tickets online and to board the ferry, you needed an actual paper ticket. Tickets sorted, we sat on the pier and waited to board.
Whilst you wait, make sure you keep an eye out to sea, as the shoreline in and around Khanom is home to the very rare and endangered, albino pink dolphins. As we sat waiting, Ellie with her eagle eyes, spotted in the distance, one very small, pale pink fin come out of the water before disappearing underneath the waves. A couple of seconds later, it emerged again. This time, much more of the dolphin's body jumped out from the water. We couldn’t believe our eyes - we were actually seeing one of the very rare dolphins right from the pier! We sat watching the dolphin for about 5 minutes before he disappeared from sight.
We quickly boarded our ferry and headed to the seats on the open deck. On our Raja ferry there were seats both inside and out. As Ellie gets a little sea sick we decided to head outside and made camp on the deck at the back of the ferry. We had packed a 7-Eleven breakfast picnic and munched down on bananas, yogurts, eggs and a banana cupcake (if you know, you know) as we floated, slowly away from the pier.
The 2.5 hour journey flew by and it wasn’t long before we were docking at Thong Sala Pier (located here) on Koh Phangan.
When it came time to leave Koh Phangan, we booked an early morning taxi from our guesthouse Mythai in Chaloklum in the north and headed straight for the pier. At Thong Sala Pier, you can book tickets with all the ferry companies as well as onward transfers on the mainland. We booked a combined bus and ferry ticket with Seatran to take us back to Donsak Pier and then onto Surat Thani city. We had a little while to wait until our ferry, so we headed to the nearby Dots Coffee (read more about the cafe here) for an iced latte before heading to the pier. Our Seatran ferry was much more luxurious than our Raja ferry over, with comfy seats and very eager air-conditioning - If you’re prone to the cold make sure you pack a hoodie! This journey although comfier felt a lot longer, possibly as you couldn’t really see out of the windows. At Donsak we quickly disembarked and after a little confusion (there were a lot of coaches waiting) we found our bus to take us onto Surat Thani. The bus journey to Surat Thani from Donsak Pier took about an hour and we were dropped off in the middle of the city.
Onward Travel - Where To Go Next?
Whichever island you are on, you can easily book onward transfers to pretty much anywhere in Southern Thailand. To get an idea of prices / idea of where to go, just speak to one of the tour operators on the island, at your accommodation or book in advance via 12Go. We came back from Koh Phangan and stopped in Surat Thani for a couple of days before heading to the opposite coast to spend a week on the island of Koh Yao Yai (read more about it here). The bus we got onto at Donsak Pier (after our stay on Koh Phangan) headed to Surat Thani first and then onto Khao Sok National Park where most of our fellow backpackers were heading to.
To get some ideas of where you could go next, we’ve written a whole bunch of guides to the islands of Southern Thailand. Check them out below:
If you’re planning to head north to Chiang Mai, then you could easily catch a flight from Koh Samui airport or from Surat Thani airport on the mainland. Both airports have at least one flight a day departing for Chiang Mai. Or, if you’ve come to the end of your visa, you could easily head back to Bangkok via a train or bus, or, you could even catch a bus from Surat Thani, cross the Thai / Malaysia border and head to Georgetown.
Whichever island you’re heading to, we hope you have an incredible island escape!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie
#adventuresofjellie
Our Koh Phangan Travel Guides
If you’re booking a trip to Koh Phangan, make sure you check out our two travel guides, covering everything from what there is to see and do and all our favourite food spots!
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