Thailand is a super friendly country for families to holiday and travel in. The Thai people love children. But where is the best place in Thailand to visit with kids? Well, we absolutely fell in love with Koh Lanta! It’s like Bali and Phuket of 20 years ago – and I do hope it remains that way for some time yet!
Getting to Koh Lanta
Koh Lanta is an island located in Southern Thailand. It is slightly south geographically of Phuket, but directly south of Krabi. You could also visit it if island hopping north doing the Langkawi – Koh Lipe – Koh Lanta / Krabi / Phi Phi route.
Aside from the ferries and speedboats from the south, there is also the option to get the ferry from Krabi or Phuket. We left Koh Lanta by ferry and travelled to Phuket, taking the longer and cheaper 3 hour option via Phi Phi – you’ll even change boats directly in the middle of the sea! If you are looking to leave Lanta by boat you can book all the routes from the tour agencies which are everywhere over the island. In fact they offer everything for road and boat travel! The ferry pier is at Saladan, only a 5 minute drive north of Klong Dao beach.
There is also the option to fly into Krabi and travel the 2 hours south by road. Trang is the other airport or transport hub nearby with a 3 hour drive to Koh Lanta. Trang is where the sleeper train from Bangkok arrives into and the route we chose.
Koh Lanta is an island so if travelling by road, you will board the car ferry for the 10 minute crossing, but your ticket should be part of your bus fare is travelling this way.
Where to stay on Koh Lanta
Once you arrive on Koh Lanta, life is easy! It’s a quiet, chilled island with a wonderful family friendly vibe. High season is December to February when we heard it is a lot busier. We visited for the first 2 weeks of December and you could feel it was just on the brink. The roads remained quiet and we had a choice of accommodation, but we know some families who struggled to fine what they were looking for over Christmas.
We stayed on Klong Dao, the most northern beach on the West coast of the island. The beach is a 2km sweeping bay lined with bars, restaurants and guest houses hidden behind the palm trees. There’s no high-rise hotels here (or anywhere on the island) just independent places to stay. We chose Lanta Cottage mainly because it was in our budget, and had a pool! We had a family room, with bunks, a double bed and a small kitchen area with microwave, toaster, kettle and fridge. In hindsight we probably didn’t need the pool as the beach here is so safe for kids.
The best thing about Lanta Cottage was definitely the location. It was a 90 second walk from our family room to the beach. The beach itself has beautiful soft white sand, and slopes gently to the sea. There is no steep drop into the ocean and our tall 9 year old was never in a position she couldn’t comfortably touch the floor, even when going out quite a bit. There were also days when the waves were good enough for body boarding/boogie boarding. The kids were so happy on this beach and due to how safe it is, we as parents could really relax whilst they played and splashed. The beach was also full of families and both our children made friends with other kids every day we spent here. We really thought it has Tioman Island vibes which as many of you know is our favourite island in Malaysia. We found loads of hermit crabs and even a sea snake whilst on Klong Dao.
Getting Around Koh Lanta
Renting mopeds in Koh Lanta will cost you between 200 and 250 baht per day including helmets. The roads are easily to navigate, and they drive on the left like in the UK. A bottle of petrol is 40 baht and we needed 4 bottles to refill our moped after 2 weeks here. There’s shops all along the main road selling their bottles of petrol! The other way to get around on Lanta is tuk tuk, but we found these to be quite expensive, around 50-150 baht per person each way between Klong Dao and Long Beach. Visiting the old town was around 1000 baht a family. Laundry is 40 baht per kilo and again readily available. We used Sawadee Laundry.
Klong Dao Beach
The Klong Dao area itself is one long main street that runs parallel to the beach. There is no shortage of supermarkets, restaurants, bars, moped rental companies, laundry drop-offs and massage places – everything you could need for a break in Thailand with kids! The biggest supermarket is Lanta Mart where you can buy everything – even proper cheese and wine! There are also 2-3 Muay Thai complexes that offer both private and group lessons. We ventured to Muay Thai Lanta Complex for a private lesson costing 1000 baht for both kids, and then followed up in a group children’s class for 300 baht each. They both enjoyed it and really worked up a sweat! Another exercise option is the yoga centre of Soul Fitness located right next to Lanta Cottage on the beach. In terms of a massage we can recommend EZY massage where a back, neck and shoulder + food massage was 500 baht for the hour. It was genuinely one of the best massages I have ever enjoyed! This place is next to Majestic bar.
Food on Koh Lanta
A main Thai meal will set you back around 150 baht, a western dish around 200 baht, pizzas are 300 baht and beers are 70baht. Most of the beach places have happy hour where cocktails are 100 baht rather than the usual 180baht.
Most evenings on this beach you will also find a fire show which the kids will really enjoy. It seems to move along the beach stopping every 500m or so at different restaurants, but if you want to guarantee to see it, then we recommend ‘So Good’ restaurant for their BBQ dinner and the fire show starts at 19.10. So Good also offers sun loungers free of charge during the day if you buy a drink and we found ourselves here a few days in our 12 day stay. There’s a minimarket and pharmacy next door too.
The other restaurants we tried with no complaints included Coco Loco, Majestic (great music), Easy Bar. They all offered vegetarian options including tofu curries – anything on the menu they would make vegetarian when we asked. All restaurants offered kids menus, western food and thai cuisine. If you’re craving something different, there is an amazing Greek restaurant, El Greco, but it is also more expensive. We adored the halloumi after months of not getting it.
The final thing worth mentioning on the Klong Dao front is the Walking Street night market. This is an area to the north of the bay opposite Lanta Mart supermarket. There is one street full of food vendors from Indian, to Thai, sandwiches, sushi, jacket potatoes and twisted potatoes. Fruit stalls, icecream and drinks can also be enjoyed here. It has a central area where live bands played a couple of evenings we were there and then merges into ‘shops’. The stalls in this part of the market are toy, clothing and electronic focussed. If you need cheap toys for the kids this is a good place to stock up, with fake card games, lego sets, rubics cubes etc all at very cheap prices. There are also the usual football shirt knock-offs. The shopping part of the market is open from 10am-10pm with the food vendors starting at 5pm. It’s a great atmosphere for some relaxed, fun, family dining.
Long Beach
The beach to the south of Klong Dao is Long Beach, a slightly larger area than Klong Dao. We visited here for Friday evening frisbee as part of our worldschooling hub experience and that was great fun, taking place by Thai Cat restaurant which also had a basketball court, play area and was very family friendly. The beach here we found to not be as safe as ‘our’ beach with a slight sudden dip as you enter the water and the kids being up to their necks/chests within just a couple of metres. It was also choppier water and the waves would crash on the shore line so we couldn’t let Nyle enter by himself.
In Long Beach itself, you’ll find all the same tourist needs as Klong Dao. We ate in The Backyard restaurant which was good food, and has a play area for kids. Yawee is a wonderfully tasty restaurant serving Thai food which is both delicious and great value. We recommend the penang curry topped with pan-friend tofu. There’s also 2 x coworking spaces here – The Hub and The Glass House. The other two attractions on Long Beach (or near it) is the water park and Lanta Animal Centre.
Things to do on Koh Lanta
Lanta Animal Centre is a good place to visit for a rainy day. Book a tour of the centre online in advance. They run at 10.30 and 13.30 each day and accommodate around 20 people at a time. 1 adult and 2 child tickets cost 550 baht and the feedback from the kids was amazing. The tour explains how the centre was set up, how they look after the animals, and you could play with the cats and dogs. It is a charity and costs $1000 a day to run, and much of their funding comes from the profits of the joined cooking school – definitely pay this place a visit and show your support. We nearly adopted Bobby the dog!!
Fit Lanta can also be found on Long Beach and Stef enjoyed 5 fitness classes here during our stay. This is a crossfit centre which also does kids fitness classes. Yoga can be found here and in many places too.
The other place we did venture out to visit was Lanta Old Town. This is located on the south eact of the island and took us 25 minutes on our mopeds – again a very easy drive. The town is made up of one long street full of tourist shops and restaurants, many of which overlook the water and have amazing views of the bay and islands on the horizon. Some also have swings and kids play areas in them which is handy. Also be warned many have the water tanks full of crabs and lobsters ready for someone’s dinner! We also spotted a restaurant that did pie, chips, beans and gravy…….a wonderful sight for a northern UK family like us!
Aside from the main street there is a jetty where boats go to nearly Koh Por island, just a 15 minute longtail boat ride away. The boat leaves at 9am and then every 2 hours after until 5pm and costs 100 baht. Had we remembered our swimming things we may have ventured over for something else to do from the Old Town. There is also a museum which is currently closed for renovation until mid-2025 but by all accounts, this is a lovely place to visit. The giant lobster at the entrance to the jetty will undoubtedly be a photo spot for younger kids too! There is also a ship wreck next to the jetty which is only part submerged and the kids enjoyed seeing this, and a small play park – although much of the equipment is broken unfortunately.
There are many excursions you can do on the island but we got so into the chilled vibe we didn’t really maximise it as much as we usually would. There’s a zipline centre (£££), mangrove kayak tours, waterfalls and a national park. The national park was a 45 minute drive from Klong Dao and then a mile walk through the trees to a beach.
The one excursion we did book was a snorkelling trip to Koh Haa and Koh Rok. Booking through Rainbow Lanta Tours we paid 1100 baht for an adult and 550 baht per child (under 12) with under 3s free. The fee included the speedboat, snorkelling gear, lunch on the beach, insurance and water and fruit. We had seen this trip costing upwards of 1800 baht so it’s worth shopping around.
We were collected from our hotel at 8.30am and returned at 4pm. The speedboat ride was quite bumpy with our first stop being on Koh Haa for 40 minutes snorkelling, before then a 30 minute trip to Koh Rok where you could either get off the boat and head straight to the beach, or head to another snorkelling point. After that snorkelling session, it was lunch on the beach of curries, chicken, rice and veg. There were 7 speedboats all parked up here at one point and that glance down the beach made it look busy, but we didn’t feel like we were following the other boats around all day. Some of us got off the boat rather than doing the second snorkel trip and we almost had the island to ourselves – bright white sand and crystal clear water. You could also snorkel off the beach here. The final snorkelling point was just off Koh Rok for another 40 minutes before heading back to Koh Lanta.
The snorkelling was good with both kids really enjoying everything they saw including an eel, cuttlefish and of course the usual Finding Nemo characters! We had friends who did the ‘4-island’ trip and they weren’t as impressed with the snorkelling but they enjoyed their trip and visited the emerald cove which is accessed via a cave tunnel. They paid 700 baht via the facebook page ‘Lanta for Cheap’ which was around 50% cheaper than we saw anywhere else.
With any snorkelling trip there are also national park fees to pay – 400 baht per adult and 200 baht per child.
The reason we came to Koh Lanta was two-fold: a couple of recommendations from family who had visited and also the Bliss Investor Worldschooling hub which is very active during the November – April period. This is a community of travelling families who arrange meet ups, activities and play dates via a whatsapp group, facilitated by the two families who set this up. We joined several of the meet ups including frisbee, beach hangs and a educational talk on sharks from one of the parents. There is a loose programme of activities from games meet up on Mondays, crafts on Wednesday and then adhoc ones when suggested by the other parents. It’s free to join and you’ll get out what you put in.
But even without the hub, I think the kids would have made loads of friends anyway – Koh Lanta is just such a family friendly place in Thailand to visit with kids.
