Beyond the tourist touts, sleazy bars and backpacker crowds, we reveal the peaceful and party-free parts of the island.
JW Marriott Phuket Resort and Spa
Where is it?
North-west coast, adjacent to the Sirinath Marine National Park, 15 minutes by car from Phuket international airport.
Flanking tranquil Mai Khao Beach, the JW Marriott Phuket offers traditional Thai pavilions and terraces with wraparound balconies sprawled across a tropical oasis.
In 2011 Condé Nast Traveller readers voted it one of the top 20 resorts in Asia. Highly recommended is the award-winning Mandara Spa’s signature treatment, the Javanese Lulur ritual (a spice scrub, yoghurt-milk bath and floral oil massage).
There are 252 rooms and 13 suites; add six restaurants, including the theatrical Kabuki Japanese dining room, five ‘chill lounges’ plus three enormous pools to the mix, and there’s already enough to indulge guests for days.
But it’s the unique in-house activities, particularly for kids in the tricky ‘tweens’ that sets the resort apart from others: circus acrobat and trapeze instruction, traditional dancing, batik painting and Thai cooking classes to name a few.
Details
Rates start from $194 per night for a Deluxe Garden View room. 231 Moo 3, Mai Khao, Talang; jwmarriottphuketresort.com
Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa
Where is it?
The blissfully undeveloped north-west coast, 20 minutes by car from Phuket international airport.
The Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa is nestled amongst vibrant gardens on the edge of a palm-fringed 17-kilometre stretch of sand. Its contemporary design is both minimal and luxurious, but in no sense precious.
Tranquil: Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa.
The palate of blues and warm oranges complement the local woods, marble and glass used throughout the resort. Surrendering to relaxation, spa pampering and healthy eating is the resort’s mantra.
That’s easy in the Ocean Front Pool Villas. Under curved sea turtle carapace roofs are spacious dwellings with up-to-the-minute mod cons opening onto private sun decks with jet-enforced plunge pools.
With revived chakras, head barefoot to the sandy-floored poolside bar at sunset before dining aloft in the breezy Takieng restaurant to savour sour and salty Thai delicacies including Yum Pla Duk Foo (crispy sea bass with spicy green mango salad).
Details
Rates start from $153 per night for a Deluxe Guest Room through to $468 per night for an Ocean Front Pool Villa. 555, Moo 3, Mai Khao, Talang; renaissancephuket.com
The Racha
Where is it?
On Racha Yai, a tiny island just off Phuket’s southern tip. It’s a 35-minute speedboat ride from Chalong Bay, which is a 50-minute drive from Phuket international airport.
The Racha is a boho-licious playground set on the shores of a pristine beach lapped by luminescent waters. The 85 white-washed low-rise villas have crisp contemporary furnishings and dark wood accents – and some have private plunge pools.
Lobby (and sea) view: The Racha, Phuket.
The vibe here is one of pared down eco-chic for those seeking a remote island paradise and outdoor adventure. There are ample facilities including tennis and basketball courts, a yoga studio, gymnasium and a dive centre offering explorations off the island’s coral reef fringe teeming with marine life.
Wind down in the Anumba Spa, immerse yourself in the beachside pool’s underwater music, and watch movies under the stars. This fantasy island sways to a tranquil beat.
Details
Rates start from $266 per night for a Deluxe Villa. 42/12-13 Moo 5, Rawai, Muang, Koh Racha Yai; theracha.com
Cape Panwa Hotel
Where is it?
South-eastern tip of Phuket, approximately one hour by car from Phuket international airport.
Tucked away on a former coconut plantation, the all-white Cape Panwa Hotel exudes a colonial charm. Sea facing suites and pool villas are settled amongst nodding palms and verdant greenery along the silky soft sands of Cape Panwa Beach. The protected alcove is great for swimming, windsurfing, catamaraning and canoeing, whilst snorkelling and scuba diving expeditions are scheduled daily to the reefs off nearby Coral Island.
Island high: Cape Panwa Hotel, Phuket.
With 11 dining and drinking venues, two swimming pools, fitness centre, day spa, badminton, table tennis and more, there’s plenty to satisfy families.
Not to be missed is a beachfront Thai feast in the fairytale-like Sino-Portuguese mansion.
Weekly travel news, experiences insider tips, offers, and more.
Details
Rates start from $120 per night for a Superior Room. 27, 27/2, Mu 8, Sakdidej Road, Cape Panwa; capepanwa.com
The Naka Phuket
Where is it?
Central west coast, 40 minutes by car from Phuket international airport.
The Naka, Phuket.
The Naka Phuket is an exclusive hideout. Its ultra modern treetop villas with glass façades cantilever down a hillside providing endless panoramas of the Andaman Sea.
Discreetly integrated amongst lush vegetation, each is equipped with private pools and an outdoor bath and shower.
The resort’s calling card is the accessible private beach at its base, and the picture-postcard outlook is best experienced from the comfort of the rooftop spa or during sunset tipples in the Meka Sky Bar.
Though cocooned in a peaceful valley, The Naka is just twenty minutes by car to Phuket Town (if you can peel yourself away from the Olympic-sized infinity pool, and fresh market produce served in any three of the resort’s restaurants).
Details
Still in its ‘soft opening’ stage, the resort is scheduled to be completed by mid 2014.
The one-bedroom pool villas start from $955 per night (the two and three bedroom villas are not yet available). 1/18, 1/20 Moo 6 Kamala, Kathu; thenakaphuket.com
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After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
Phuket’s top 5 remote hotels - International Traveller Magazine
