Ko Lipe

The small, lively island of white sand and turquoise water that anchors most visits to the marine park.

Ko Lipe is the busy heart of the archipelago and the island most travellers actually visit. Three kilometres long and shaped like a butterfly, it has three main beaches: Pattaya Beach on the south coast (the busiest, with most of the bars and dive shops), Sunrise Beach on the east (longer, quieter, with the famous view across the channel to Ko Adang), and Sunset Beach on the north-west (the most laid-back, watch-the-sunset spot).

Connecting them is Walking Street, a sandy pedestrian lane lined with restaurants, dive shops, tattoo parlours, and small bars. It is touristy but not unpleasant — the absence of cars and motorbikes keeps it walkable, and a few of the Urak Lawoi-owned restaurants serve good local Thai-Malay food alongside the standard banana pancakes. The sea around Lipe is genuinely as turquoise as the photographs suggest, the snorkelling from the beach is decent, and the boat trips to nearby uninhabited islands are the main daytime activity.

The trade-off is that Lipe has been comprehensively developed in a way the rest of the marine park has not. It is best out of high season — January is crowded and prices are doubled. February to April is calmer and just as warm.

things to do sight beaches
A story
Ko Lipe is technically inside the boundaries of Tarutao National Marine Park but is owned by the **Urak Lawoi** sea-gypsy community, who were granted ownership rights before the park was established in 1974. The legal anomaly means private development was permitted on Lipe when it was banned everywhere else in the park, which is why Lipe alone is full of bungalows, bars, and dive shops.