🇹🇭 Thailand · SE Asia
Koh Samui
Palm-ringed Gulf island — paradise with a pricey airport secret.
beachislandsslow☀ best: Feb – Apr
The Koh Samui guide
Inside the premium guide
A preview of the real thing — a detailed premium guide, researched and checked in 2026. Click a page to enlarge.
THE COMPLETE CITY GUIDE
THAILAND · RESEARCHED 2026
Koh Samui
Palm-ringed Gulf island — paradise with a pricey airport secret.
sama·sama
The cover
What this guide covers
39 pages, A4 — cover to back. A phone edition comes with it.
What’s inside + how to use
The place & what a day costs
City at a glance — the best-of snapshot
What & how to eat
Where to eat — cheap & local
Mid-range & special occasion
Sweets, cafés & coffee
Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Supermarkets & typical prices
Markets & food halls
Souvenirs & shopping
Where to stay — neighbourhoods
Budget, boutique & luxury stays
Hostels — the backpacker shortlist
Six big things to do
Top 10 experiences — book & compare
Nightlife & after dark
Best day trips
Insider tips + safety & scams
Ready-made day plans
Getting around
Arrival, tickets & transport cheat sheet
When to go + best time to visit
Cash, cards & tipping
Connectivity & insurance
Health, safety & entry
The travel toolbox
Every link, one place
Sama·Sama · Koh Samui guide39 pages
Everything it covers
STRAIGHT FROM THE GUIDE
Designed cover to cover
One real entry from the Koh Samui guide
The price tables further down give you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — 30 of them in Koh Samui, each priced, each one tap from Google Maps.
€2–6.50Grilled seafood — Nathon & Bang PoSquid, prawns and whole fish charred over coconut husk with a fiery nam jim seafood dip. Nathon's evening stalls are the cheapest on the island.📍 Open in Google Maps →One of 30. The rest are in the guide.
Everything. Two files. One price.
This isn’t a blog post saved as a PDF — it’s a detailed, premium, 39-page A4 magazine — researched and checked in 2026, designed to be used. And every purchase comes as two files: the A4 edition for your laptop, tablet and printer, and a phone edition laid out tall and narrow so you never pinch or zoom — the same guide re-flowed into 98 phone-sized pages. Keep it on your phone or print it, open it at a street corner in Koh Samui and it answers the question you’re standing there with.
39A4 pages — cover to back
98phone pages — same guide, re-flowed
257+researched prices in €
232live, verified links
109jump straight to Google Maps
66hand-picked photos
Add it up: 555+ researched details — every price checked, every venue placed, every link live. More usable information than a week of blog-tab hopping, in one beautiful file.
- Made for the phone in your pocket — as well as the A4 magazine you get a phone edition: one attraction per screen, nothing cut, every link still live. No pinching, no sideways scrolling.
- Every venue is one tap from navigation — 109 Google Maps links mean you never type an address on holiday.
- Real prices, not vibes — three honest daily budgets (€30 / €65 / €165) and prices on everything from a dorm bed to a splurge dinner.
- Zero sponsorships — nobody paid to be in this guide. If it’s in, it’s in because it’s good.
- Book everything from the page — stays open on Booking.com & Hostelworld, experiences on GetYourGuide, Trip.com & Klook, transport on official operator sites.
- Plan-it-for-me included — ready day plans, a Top 10, a best-of snapshot, and neighbourhood “best for” labels that choose your base with you.
Buy the Koh Samui guide — €9.95 →Or buy Koh Samui on Etsy ↗
Was €14.50 — now €9.95, every city the same.
This page gives you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — every venue named, priced and linked.
SHOESTRING
€30/day
dorms, street plates, transit
COMFY
€65/day
private room, sit-down meals, a treat
FLASH
€165/day
nice hotel, good dinners, no maths
🧮 Trip maths
€456 total
What Koh Samui costs, day to day
🛵 Getting around
Grab
Bolt
Uber — merged into Grab across SE Asia in 2018
Songthaew along the ring roadper ride — Fixed-ish by day, negotiate at night.€1.3–€2.6
Scooter rentalper day€5.2–€7.8
Shared airport minivanper seat€3.5–€6.1
Ferry to Koh Phanganone-way€6.9–€10
🛏 Stays
Per night
Hostel dorm bed€7.8–€13
Bungalow double, Lamai / Maenam€22–€39
Airbnb 1-BR with pool access€30–€56
Private pool villa€87–€217
Monthly
Studio apartment€330–€521
1-BR house with garden€521–€868
🛒 Groceries & daily life
Big C & Lotus's, Chaweng — the big two — island prices run ~10% high
Makro, Chaweng — bulk buys for villa self-catering
Fisherman's Village market (Fri) — street food + produce
Water 1.5 L€0.4–€0.6
Milk 1 L€1.4–€1.7
Eggs ×10€1.6–€2.1
Bread loaf€1.1–€1.6
Rice 1 kg€1.2–€1.7
Chicken breast 1 kg€2.4–€3.3
Bananas 1 kg€0.8–€1.2
Local beer 0.5 L (shop)€1.4–€1.9
🍜 Eating out
Local curry shop plate€1.7–€3
Night-market dinner€2.6–€4.3
Beachfront Thai restaurantper person€6.9–€14
Seafood BBQ on the sandper person€13–€26
Jungle-view fine diningper person€39–€78
🎡 Things to do — with kids
Pig Island boat triphalf day€35–€52
Na Muang waterfallsentry€0–€0.9
Paradise Park Farm (mountain zoo)entry€13–€17
Kayak on Chaweng lagoonper hour€4.3–€6.9
🌙 Things to do — grown-ups
Ang Thong marine park day cruiseincl. lunch€48–€65
Muay Thai stadium nightticket€17–€35
Secret Buddha Garden jeep tour€22–€35
Sunset cocktails, Fisherman's Villageper drink€5.2–€8.7
🌤 Climate
Day °CSea °CRain
Best: Feb – Apr · Wet: Oct – Dec
Opposite rhythm to Phuket: driest Feb–Apr, monsoon peaks Oct–Nov.
✈️ Getting there
Bangkok AirwaysAirAsia (via Surat Thani)Bangkok (Samui airport)€78–€139
Surat Thani + ferry combo€30–€48
Samui's airport is privately owned — fares stay high. The mainland combo takes longer but costs a third.
🏧 ATMs & money
Fees: The region's worst: a flat 220 ฿ (~$6) surcharge on every foreign-card withdrawal, at every bank. Soften it by withdrawing the max (20,000–30,000 ฿) in one go.
Limits: 20,000–30,000 ฿ per pull (Krungsri and CIMB sit at the generous end) — max it out to dilute that flat fee.
Best machines: Bangkok BankKasikornKrungsri
Thailand is an EXCHANGE country: bring crisp USD/EUR notes and change at SuperRich (the green/orange booths) or Vasu in Bangkok — rates beat any card path. Counter cash-advance inside a bank branch (passport needed) also dodges the 220 ฿.
🩺 Health & safety
Vaccines: Routine shots up to date, plus Hepatitis A and (for street-food adventurers) Typhoid. Rabies and Japanese encephalitis only for long rural stays — a travel clinic will tell you in five minutes.
Health: Dengue mosquitoes bite at dawn and dusk — repellent is the one habit that matters. Skip tap water (sealed bottles and purified ice are everywhere); busy stalls with turnover are the safe street food. Private hospitals are world-class and affordable — Bangkok is where the region flies for treatment.
Tap water: ❌ Don't drink the tap. Sealed bottled water is cheap and everywhere; ice in established places is factory-made and fine.
Safety: Violent crime against visitors is genuinely rare — the real risk wears two wheels: traffic. Helmet on every scooter, Grab at night, and you've handled 90 % of it. Classic scams (gem shops, 'closed temple' tuk-tuks) are annoyances, not dangers — a smile and a walk-on solves them.
Emergency: 191 police · 1669 ambulance · 1155 tourist police (English)
🌱 Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Plant-based: Easy if you say it right: 'jay' (เจ) means fully plant-based and every market has a jay stall. Watch fish sauce and oyster sauce — ask 'mai sai nam pla'.
Gluten-free: Rice-based heaven: most noodles and rice dishes are naturally gluten-free; soy sauce (wheat) hides in stir-fries — ask for 'no soy sauce'.
Veg = 'gin jay' · no fish sauce = 'mai sai nam pla' · Bangkok's Chinatown runs a whole Jay festival every October.
🛂 Visa & entry
For most short tourist trips, citizens of the US, UK, EU/Schengen, Canada, Australia and New Zealand either enter visa-free or get a simple online authorisation (an eVisa or eTA) before flying. Typical visa-free stays run 30–90 days. Some countries want a visa arranged in advance, and a growing number ask you to fill an online arrival or eVisa form even when 'visa-free' — so always check the official portal for your exact nationality before you book.
Rules change — always verify with an official source for your nationality before you book.
💬 Traveller tips & reports
The airport monopoly workaround — Bangkok Airways owns USM, so direct fares rarely drop. Fly AirAsia to Surat Thani and take the Lomprayah bus + catamaran combo — about 5 hours door to door for a third of the price.
@gulf.hopper · May ’26 · ▲ 178