Koh Tao vs Koh Phangan: Where to Learn to Dive

by Yannick SchrothSep 5, 20268 min read

Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, one of the two islands, not both. Photo: Fabio Achilli, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

The Gulf runs on the opposite calendar to the Andaman

This is the thing people get wrong when they plan a Thailand year, and it is worth more than any comparison of the two islands.

On the Andaman side, the marine national parks shut for the southwest monsoon: Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Surin from mid-May to mid-October, and the Mu Ko Lanta sites for at least July to September. The Gulf does not work that way. Its rough stretch is the northeast monsoon, roughly mid-November into late December, when visibility around Koh Tao drops to something like 5 to 15 metres and exposed pinnacles get skipped for sheltered bays. The second half of December usually recovers, and January to October is the long season, with February to April the flat, clear part of it.

So Thailand has no closed season if you are willing to move coasts: Andaman roughly November to April, Gulf roughly January to October. That is the single most useful thing on this page for anyone here longer than a fortnight.

Koh Tao has a chamber. Koh Phangan does not.

For an island where a large share of the people underwater are on their third or fourth dive ever, this matters more than it would elsewhere.

The SSS recompression chamber sits on Koh Tao itself, at 1/124-1/125, with a 24/7 emergency line on +66 (0) 81 081 9777. It is a multiplace chamber that takes patients and medical staff together, and its operator describes the island it serves as “Thailand's busiest diving island”. SSS's own network pages list two chambers in Thailand, this one and Phuket.

Koh Phangan has none. A diver hurt there is going to Koh Tao or to Koh Samui by boat, which is a decision somebody else makes while you are lying down. Ask any Phangan centre what their evacuation plan is and how long it takes; on Koh Tao the answer is a truck ride.

One island teaches, the other works

The numbers make this sound like a comparison. It is closer to a division of labour.

Koh Tao carries 58 dive centres on our list. Koh Phangan carries 9. Koh Tao's shallow, sheltered bays are why: they are about as forgiving a place to put a nervous beginner in the water as the region has, and the island has been doing it at volume for thirty years. The two islands share the good deep site anyway: Sail Rock sits between them, and boats run to it from both.

Koh Phangan has gone the other way. The remote-work cluster is around Srithanu on the west coast: beacHub runs a beachfront coworking space on fibre with a monthly membership, and Remote & Digital operates two air-conditioned seaside spaces with phone booths and printers. Koh Tao has nothing comparable published; it is a dive island with cafes, not a work island.

What the operator registers add for Koh Tao and Koh Phangan

Neither register is compulsory in Thailand, so neither list is the whole set of operators. What the second column shows is who invited an assessor in.

Green Fins publishes membership at levels that mean different things. A Certified member (Gold, Silver or Bronze) was assessed in person against a published standard within the last twelve months. A Digital Member filled in a self-evaluation and nobody visited. Of Koh Tao's 28, twenty-four are Certified: four Gold, eighteen Silver, two Bronze. Four are Digital. On Koh Phangan there is nothing to sort.

Twenty-four assessed centres out of fifty-eight is the densest cluster of in-person assessment recorded anywhere in Thailand. It is about environmental practice rather than safety, and a centre outside it may run a tighter boat than one inside it, but if you want to pick a school on something other than the price on the sandwich board, that column is the only external check either island offers.

Koh Tao or Koh Phangan: which to pick

Koh Tao to learn, and it is not close: the schools, the sheltered bays, the chamber on the island, and two dozen centres somebody has actually inspected. Koh Phangan to stay, if you are working while you are in Thailand: Srithanu is a functioning remote-work village and Koh Tao is not, and you can still dive Sail Rock from there. Both, in that order, is what most people do, and the boat between them takes about ninety minutes.

What we would not do is learn on Koh Phangan because you have already booked a room there. Nine centres, none assessed, and no chamber on the island is a thin set of options for the week you are least able to judge one.