If you’re in Phuket and have the opportunity to do a James Bond Island day trip out to Phang Nga Bay, do yourself a favor and DO IT. Full disclosure: we totally weren’t planning on doing this trip until someone who had just got back from Phuket basically told us she would skin us alive if we didn’t visit Phang Nga Bay from Phuket. With that kind of threat coming our way, we knew we had to book a tour. I’m the type of person who books activities before we get to our destination, so we had our itinerary set.
Even the best made plans can get ruined.. especially when there’s some booze involved! We may or may not have had one or 12 too many drinks on Bangla Road the night before we were scheduled to go on this tour and slept through our alarms (sorry, driver) therefore missing the tour we had booked prior. But luckily, there are countless companies that will take you on this amazing trip so a last minute booking job should work out just fine. We ended up *successfully* attending this tour through Klook which picked us up at our amazing hotel – the Thavorn Beach Village Resort & Spa – in Phuket. Let’s just say if we weren’t able to do our James Bond Island day trip, we would have been sad.
James Bond Island Day Trip Overview
Getting to Phang Nga Bay from Phuket
If you’re doing a full James Bond Island/Phang Nga Bay day trip from Phuket, you’re going to wake up early and head to the marina to find your tour group. From there, you’ll hop on your boat and take the ride out to your first stop of the day.
Not a morning person? Lucky for you, there are many different types of boats to choose from and tour options (early in the day, sunset, long boat, speed boat, etc.) so you can truly cater your day to how you want to explore.
Start Your James Bond Island Day Trip
You’ll make a first stop on Panak Island along the way to Phang Nga Bay from Phuket and it’s honestly a delight. We parked our boat, got off, and started to duck and dip through caves to get to this huge green opening in the middle of the island. We hung out here for awhile; checked out the interesting wildlife at home here, and moved onto the next activity which was…
Cave Kayaking
KAYAKING! Kayaking was a blast. We hopped in an intertube kayak with our guide and he paddled as around these amazing caves. This was a really, really cool element of the trip and would be worth it just on its own. There were a lot of us being kayaked around but it in no way put a damper on my experience not being alone in the kayak without the guide. I was in awe of the beauty around me. And I’ve got to admit it was a damn delight to not have to paddle myself around!
Koh Panyee
Next on the stop was Koh Panyee, aka the Muslim Floating Village. This was a truly remarkable stop. We started at the large restaurant for lunch and then explored. We had free time to walk around this amazing community built on stilts out in the middle of the water. I can’t even begin to express how cool this was. It was like being in the movie “Waterworld” but without any of the bad stuff that stranded Kevin Costner. 360 families live in this floating community; there was even a school with a soccer field! Each walkway had a bunch of different shops for the tourists to buy knick knacks from. This village is something I didn’t know about before I started looking into James Bond Island tours. And I’m so glad it was a part of my day.
James Bond Island (Khao Phing Kan)
After we left Koh Panyee, we made our ways to the main event, the star of the show; James Bond Island. No trip to Phang Nga Bay from Phuket is complete without the main event. This was a relatively quick stop so everyone could get their picture and possibly buy some souvenirs from the local vendors. For a tour named after it, it really wasn’t the star of the show. Don’t get me wrong, the island was beautiful; so interesting to look at and worth the stop, but the other elements of this trip are what would bring me back again.
Naka Noi Island
And the last stop before heading home was an hour or two at Naka Noi Island to relax, eat, drink, and frolic in the sun. It was your typical island in Krabi, meaning it was so gorgeous you forgot you were on planet Earth for a moment. We had a wonderful time relaxing, exploring the island, and slathering ourselves in SPF 30.
Overall, if you’re in Phuket and looking for a day out on the water, I would highly recommend any of the James Bond Island day trip tours available. They make it easy to get to Phang Nga Bay from Phuket. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out. And to figure out what else to do on Phuket, check out my full itinerary.
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