Koh Chang Beaches, Ranked Ruthlessly (2026)

Koh Chang beaches come with a built-in filter: there is no airport, so everyone on the sand arrived by car ferry. One road runs down the west coast through six named beaches in twenty kilometres, from a strip with a 7-Eleven every 200 metres to a bay where the road simply ends. Then there are the ones the road doesn’t reach.

Brochures rank these by hotel inventory. This ranks them by whether you’d swim there, in which months, what a beer costs on the sand and how much hill you must survive to reach it. Eleven entries, one of which is a pier. Nothing was comped.

The short version: Klong Prao is the best beach on Koh Chang and Kai Bae is the best place to stay near one. Klong Kloi, at the end of the road past Bang Bao, is the calm swim nobody mentions; White Sand Beach is good sand ruined by its own success; Lonely Beach is a rock shelf with a sound system; Bang Bao is a pier you eat on, not lie on. Swim November to April; from May the west coast takes the swell. What to do once you’ve picked is in our things to do on Koh Chang guide; the route from the capital is in Bangkok to Koh Chang.

How we ranked the beaches on Koh Chang

Four tests, in order: can you swim there most of the year without wading 200 metres or being knocked flat; is the sand good in person rather than from a drone; can you eat and drink on it at a fair price; can a normal person get there. Each entry ends with a Best for and a Skip unless, plus walk-up beach-shack prices for a lounger, a large beer and a pad thai — September 2026, checked against our Thailand Price Index. Geography does most of the work: the west coast faces the open Gulf and takes swell, red flags and storm debris from mid-May to October; the east coast faces the mainland and doesn’t. The west-coast road is easy bar two short, brutal hairpin climbs south of Kai Bae; shared songthaews run it for ฿50–100 a hop, ฿150 ferry to Bang Bao. The east coast is a separate drive over the top.

The best Koh Chang beaches: the top five

1. Klong Prao (Hat Khlong Phrao). Three kilometres of wide, pale, gently shelving sand, cut by an estuary you wade at low tide and paddle at high. The only beach on the island with room; the resorts are far enough apart that you can’t hear the next pool. Calm, clear and waist-deep a long way out from November to April; brown and choppy after a storm. No village behind it, so the shacks are resort-run — lounger ฿100–150, beer ฿100–120, pad thai ฿120–160 — and dinner is a ฿50–80 songthaew to Kai Bae. The big beachfront stay is The Emerald Cove. Best for the swim, families, a week of nothing. Skip unless you’ll pay resort prices or ride out to eat.

2. Kai Bae. Narrower and more honest, with a Thai village on the end and three islets offshore that the sun drops behind at six. Fine light sand at the northern end, none at high tide by the village, calm in season with a few rocks underfoot. What Kai Bae has that Klong Prao doesn’t is a street: ฿60 noodles, a pharmacy, a viewpoint five minutes up the hill, rooms at two-thirds the price. Lounger ฿100, beer ฿80–100, pad thai ฿80–120. GajaPuri has the teak villas on the sand. Best for most people, most of the time. Skip unless you’ll check the tide before a beach day at the village end.

3. Klong Kloi (Bang Bao Beach). A kilometre past the Bang Bao turn-off the road stops at a bay of shallow, shin-then-waist-deep water with casuarinas along it and a row of bamboo bars on the sand. The corner is sheltered from the worst of the swell, so this is the west-coast swim that survives longest into the wet months. Weekdays near-empty; Saturdays, Bangkok families and barbecues. Seafood grills from ฿150 a plate, beer ฿80–90, pad thai ฿70–100, loungers free with a drink; bungalows are basic and walk-up. Best for a calm swim and a cheap grilled squid as the boats come in. Skip unless you’ll ride the Bang Bao hairpins or take the ฿150 songthaew.

4. White Sand Beach (Hat Sai Khao). The name is fair: the northern end is the softest sand on the island, swimmable a few steps out. The problem is behind it — the busiest road on Koh Chang, a strip of bars and minimarts, and hotels built onto the sand so that at high tide the southern half is a ribbon between the sea and somebody’s breakfast terrace. Swell hits it hard from June. Lounger ฿100–150, beer ฿90–120, pad thai ฿100–150. The landmark stay, pool on the sand, is KC Grande. Best for first-timers on three nights who want dinner, a bar and the sea within 200 metres. Skip unless you’re happy with the least Koh Chang beach on Koh Chang.

5. Long Beach (Hat Yao). The east coast’s reward, and the entry most visitors never see. Turn off at the 12-kilometre marker past The Spa Koh Chang, through Chek Bae hamlet; the concrete now runs to the end, fifteen minutes where it used to be a legendary hour of potholes. The bay faces the mainland, so it stays flat while the west coast is surf: coarser, darker sand than Klong Prao, shallow clear water, one set of thatch bungalows (Long Beach Bungalows, once the Treehouse) with a generator six hours an evening, no shop, nobody else. Beer ฿80 when the bar is open; no loungers because no economy. Nearest proper stay is The Spa Koh Chang at Salak Khok; day-trip it with a car. Best for being alone on the biggest island in the east. Skip unless a generator and a 40-minute drive over the hill sound like a holiday.

The rest of the Koh Chang beach list, honestly

6. Lonely Beach (Hat Tha Nam). Not lonely since about 2005 and not much of a beach. The village sits on rock; the actual sand is a few hundred metres north, a short, decent strip in front of a couple of resorts, fine in season and rough from June. What it has is the cheapest beds on the island, dorms ฿300, fan huts ฿600, and the only nights that run past midnight. Beer ฿70–90, pad thai ฿70–90. The grown-up way to sleep here is Warapura, a small pool over the rocks at the quiet end. Best for being twenty-four. Skip unless the bar matters more than the beach.

7. Bailan. One bay south and a decade quieter: a small, scrappy beach with rocks at both ends, fan bungalows behind, one 7-Eleven, evenings that end when the kitchen does. Fine in cool season, poor in the wet, rock at low tide. Lonely Beach prices without the speakers — beer ฿70–90, pad thai ฿70–90, rooms ฿600–1,000. Best for budget peace. Skip unless a quiet bungalow matters more than the sand, which is the weakest on the road.

8. Wai Chaek. The last undeveloped beach on the island, kept that way by being awkward. From the east, follow Salak Phet bay past the marina to a sentry box and barrier, then about three kilometres of a road started in 2004, never finished and falling apart since — hairpins, a river crossing, a sandy track. Scooter or pickup only, then a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk from wherever you give up; reports differ on whether the barrier is enforced after dark, so assume none 5pm to 6am. The reward is 400 metres of clean sand in a sheltered bay with a lagoon at one end, the outer islands to the south, and nothing on it: no shop, no stall, no bungalow. Bring water. An unmarked trail runs west to Bang Bao in about an hour; don’t do it alone. Best for the walk-in beach you’ll still be describing next year. Skip unless you ride well, carry water and leave by four.

9. Chang Noi and Klong Son, the north. The first sea off the ferry and the last place anyone stays. Klong Son is a Thai village on a silty bay that is mudflat at low tide; Chang Noi, round the headland, is a short, coarse, rocky beach in front of a villa estate whose one asset is the sunset, with nobody on the sand. Swim at high tide only; eat in the village, pad thai ฿60, beer ฿70. Best for a sunset stop, and villa people who want the ferry close and the bars far. Skip unless you like a beach with a tide table.

10. Salak Phet bay, the east. Not a beach, kept in because people arrive expecting one. The deep south-eastern bay is mangroves, a stilt fishing hamlet, a marina, a seafood restaurant on the water and a shoreline of mud, roots and boats. Kayak, eat, then drive to Long Beach or Wai Chaek for sand; the Salak Khok channels to the north are the better paddle. Best for a plate of crab at ฿300–400 with the boats in front of you. Skip unless you’ve understood the beach is elsewhere.

11. Bang Bao — not a beach, the pier. A fishing village built along a long wooden jetty at the end of the west-coast road: seafood restaurants, dive shops, shell stalls, stilt guesthouses. Boats leave at eight, sunset dinners happen at six. No sand — the shore is rock, mud and hulls; the beach you want is Klong Kloi, a kilometre on. Best for boats, grilled fish at ฿300–600 a head, a bed a hundred metres from tomorrow’s trip; on long weekends book ahead on GetYourGuide’s Koh Chang snorkelling and island-hopping trips. Skip unless you’ve accepted you will not be lying down.

Koh Chang beaches compared

Quiet runs from 1 (a strip) to 5 (nobody); swim season is the honest window, not the brochure’s.

When you can swim: Koh Chang beaches by season

November to April is the beach: flat water on the whole west coast, visibility for the Koh Rang boats, prices at their highest, Bangkok arriving every Friday. May is the hinge, still swimmable most days and cheaper. June to October is the south-west monsoon, and the west coast faces it: surf, brown water after rain, red flags on White Sand and Klong Prao, cancelled boats, closures in June and September. Klong Kloi and the east coast stay calmer, the waterfalls roar and rooms drop 30–40%; a different holiday, not a ruined one. Month by month is in our best time to visit Thailand guide.

Jellyfish. Box jellyfish are present in the Gulf of Thailand, and this end of it has a record: neighbouring Koh Mak has logged several serious stings, no deaths, and some of its resorts now net a swimming area in high season. Koh Chang reports fewer incidents but shares the water. Stings cluster in the wet months, August to October worst as of the data we’ve seen; no month is zero. No night swims, none after heavy rain, know where the vinegar is, and if someone is stung, vinegar for 30 seconds, then the clinic.

The honest bit: hills, closures and plastic

The hills, on a scooter. Flat and easy from the ferry to Kai Bae, then two short, hairpinned, very steep climbs with sand on the bends; the island clinic sees the results daily. If you don’t ride at home, don’t start here: songthaews reach every beach here except Wai Chaek and Long Beach for ฿50–150; a car is ฿1,200–1,500 a day.

Low season closes things. Bars, some bungalows, the smaller Klong Kloi grills, a share of the boats. Cheap rooms are real, but so is a beach where the only open kitchen is a 7-Eleven; check the place is running in June or September before paying for a week.

The plastic after storms. After a monsoon blow the west-coast tideline is bottles, polystyrene, netting and timber from three countries. Resorts rake their frontage; nobody rakes the rest, so Klong Prao’s southern half, Bailan and the unstaffed stretches look worst. Not the island’s fault, and not the drone shot.

Loungers, fees and the pier. Loungers aren’t the Samui racket here; beach bars give you one for the price of a drink. The ฿200 foreigner park fee applies at the waterfalls and some boat trips, not on any beach, whatever the man with the clipboard implies. Pier touts sell ฿600 “private transfers”; the shared songthaews at the ramp are fixed-price by beach, and the rest is in our Thailand scams guide. The mainland side and ferry timetable are in our Trat travel guide.

Koh Chang beaches: your questions, answered

Which is the best beach on Koh Chang?

Klong Prao, for the widest sand, the calmest swim and the room to lose the crowd. Kai Bae is the better place to stay, with a village and cheaper rooms behind a narrower beach; Klong Kloi at the end of the road is the calmest water for the least money.

Can you swim at Koh Chang beaches in the rainy season?

Often, but not every day or every beach. From June to October the west coast takes the Gulf swell head-on, with red flags, surf and debris after storms, worst on White Sand Beach and Klong Prao. Klong Kloi and the east-coast bays stay calmer.

Are there jellyfish at Koh Chang?

Yes. Box jellyfish are present in this corner of the Gulf; neighbouring Koh Mak has recorded several serious stings and nets some swimming areas in high season. Incidents cluster in the wet months, August to October worst, but no month is risk-free: no night swims, none after heavy rain, and know where the vinegar is.

Is White Sand Beach worth it?

For three nights, yes: soft sand, an easy swim in season, everything within a two-minute walk. For a week, no; it is the busiest, loudest beach on the island, and Klong Prao or Kai Bae give you the same sea with more room.

How do you get between the beaches on Koh Chang?

Shared songthaews run the west-coast road all day, ฿50–100 a hop and ฿150 for the full run, and are the answer for anyone who doesn’t ride at home; the hairpins south of Kai Bae are where the scooter accidents happen. A car is ฿1,200–1,500 a day and the only comfortable way to reach Long Beach and Wai Chaek.

Related guides

• Things to Do on Koh Chang: Worth It vs Skip It
• Koh Mak: The Quiet Island Next Door
• Koh Samet From Rayong: The Weekend That Beats Pattaya

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Hotels: pick the beach first, then compare everything on it — Koh Chang hotels on Agoda. Boats: Koh Rang trips sell out on long weekends — compare Koh Chang snorkelling trips on GetYourGuide by group size, not price. Getting there: bus, ferry and songthaew as one ticket — Bangkok to Koh Chang on 12Go; the mainland end is on our Trat province page. Not sure a big jungle island is your Thailand at all? Our Where to Go in Thailand matcher scores all 77 provinces against your month and your crowd tolerance.