Tarutao National Marine Park is a group of 51 islands in the Andaman Sea, just a few kilometres from the Malaysian island of Langkawi. Unlike Phuket or Koh Phi Phi, Tarutao has been kept largely free of large-scale development — outside of Ko Lipe, the only accommodation is national park bungalows and camping.
Ko Tarutao itself is the largest and wildest, with jungle-covered mountains, mangrove-lined creeks, and long empty beaches. During World War II the island served as a prison colony; the prisoners, left without supplies, turned to piracy in the Strait of Malacca before British forces put a stop to it. The ruins of the camp at Talo Wao Bay and the long sweep of Pante Malacca Beach by the headquarters are the main draws.
An hour west by speedboat sits the Adang–Rawi group — Ko Lipe, the popular sea-gypsy island with the bars and dive shops, faces the steep forested wall of Ko Adang across a narrow turquoise channel. The uninhabited Ko Rawi lies further west with the best snorkelling, and the tiny Ko Hin-Ngam — a beach of polished black pebbles, supposedly cursed — is a standard stop on the day-trip circuit.
The park is open from mid-November to mid-May. Outside this season the seas are too rough for the boats and the Tarutao facilities are closed; Ko Lipe stays partly open year-round. Boats depart from Pak Bara on the mainland, about 60 km from the town of Satun, with seasonal services also running from Langkawi in Malaysia.