Diving in Phi Phi Islands

Phi Phi is Thailand's day-boat answer to a liveaboard destination: a national park built entirely around one limestone archipelago, reached directly from Phuket or Krabi, and diveable and marketed year-round, unusual for an Andaman hub, where Similan and Surin close entirely for the mid-year monsoon. The same karst topography that made Ko Phi Phi Leh's Maya Bay famous on land, sheer cliffs dropping straight into deep water, continues underwater as walls, swim-throughs and submerged pinnacles. That is where Phi Phi makes its case: divers who have also done Similan and Richelieu Rock still call Phi Phi's own reef walls comparable or better for everyday reef life, even while rating the north for bigger open-water encounters.

The signature dive is the paired Bida Islands south of Ko Phi Phi Leh. Koh Bida Nok, the larger twin, opens from a sheltered beginner bay into a colourful southwest wall and a current-swept ridge locals call the Finger Reef; its smaller twin, Koh Bida Nai, runs one continuous circuit from the calm Anemone Bay through a named outcrop, Fantasy Reef, to a proper wall on its north and west sides. Both carry a close-to-guaranteed leopard shark or blacktip reef shark sighting on an early dive. On Ko Phi Phi Leh's south side, next to Maya Bay, Loh Samah Bay circles a single small islet in one relaxed tank and turns into one of the area's stronger night dives after dark. Maya Bay's own beach closed to tourists from 2018 to 2022 for coral rehabilitation, while the surrounding dive walls, Loh Samah included, stayed open throughout. Two more walls further along the same coast, Palong and its near-namesake Malong, add the same blacktip and leopard shark pattern on calmer days. Hawksbill turtles, giant moray eels, bluespotted rays and a dense reef-fish and macro assemblage turn up at nearly every site.

Coral condition here is a live, time-layered question, not a settled one. A 2010 bleaching event and heavy diving pressure damaged several sites, including parts of the Bida/Camel Rock stretch; one long-running local operator reports a strong recovery at Camel Rock since, while more recent visitor accounts describe patchy, less vibrant coral at some of the same sites. Manta rays and whale sharks are sometimes marketed by local operators, but the Andaman's dependable manta cleaning stations lie elsewhere, at Koh Bon and Hin Daeng/Hin Muang; treat it as a bonus, not the reason to book.

Ferries reach Tonsai Pier on Ko Phi Phi Don from Phuket or Krabi in roughly 90 minutes to two hours; speedboats cover the same routes in 45 minutes to an hour. There is no motorised transport on the islands themselves, and Ko Phi Phi Don is the base for local operators generally. Open Water covers most of the local diving: Loh Samah Bay and the sheltered halves of both Bida islands sit inside Open Water's limits, while Koh Bida Nok's outer wall and Koh Bida Nai's Fantasy Reef run into the mid-to-high 20s and suit Advanced Open Water better. High season, October to April, brings the clearest water, to about 30m, and the calmest seas; the May-to-October southwest monsoon drops visibility to 10-15m and adds afternoon rain, though operators simply move to more sheltered sites rather than stopping.

A national park fee applies throughout: a nationwide schedule sets 200 THB for a foreign adult, but the special-zone rate that covers Ko Phi Phi Don, Leh and Bamboo Island, where nearly all the diving happens, runs to 400 THB, and a further 200 THB diving supplement applies on top of that, putting a first day's diving at around 600 THB total.12 The rate steps down on consecutive diving days within the same three-day cycle. Since April 2025, Thailand's national coral-protection rules apply here as everywhere: every diver needs a licensed guide or instructor, an underwater camera requires Advanced Open Water certification or 40 logged dives, and snorkellers need a lifejacket unless freediving-certified. Divers set on Hin Daeng, Hin Muang or Koh Haa can book them as a day trip from Phi Phi, but these sit inside Koh Lanta's own marine park, carry a higher fee, run roughly November to April only, and need a full boatload of at least eight divers before an operator will run the trip; Koh Lanta itself is the steadier base when one of those three is the actual target.