Island advice please

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I looked at the place you recommended in another thread - looks gorgeous but a bit spendy. Same with most of the liveaboard options that go there after all the fees.

I think the cheapest one is Boulder Island which I know personally. The other one I know from 10 years ago is Myanmar Andaman Resort. The others are too expensive for me too. I just like the fact that there are no other divers and the local dive sites are great too (and not far away).

Calypso in Tanote Bay is great too. Also the shore dive with the little wreck.

Ko Lanta with Hin Muang & Daeng is a place I enjoyed very much too but the boat rides to get there are too long for me.
 
Btw, we stayed on Klong Dao beach which is lovely and wide with plenty of restaurants and bars right on the beach. It's considered a family friendly beach and was great with our 1 year old son.
The next beach down is long beach which is supposed to have more of a young vibe, but still laid back. There are several other options depending on what you want from a beach/resort. As far as I'm aware there is no snorkelling from any of the beaches though.
Apart from the lack of snorkelling straight from the beach, we would go back to Lanta in a heartbeat but we're restricted to to the school summer holidays now so Lanta is out that time of year.
 
So unless I am missing something, you guys are all making it sound like dive sites are really far away from Lanta. That does not sound like fun. Also some of the liveaboards I have seen for the Similans also go to Hin Daeng.

Do people actively dislike Koh Lipe...? What about Phi Phi? Which has the best dive sites close to the island?
 
So unless I am missing something, you guys are all making it sound like dive sites are really far away from Lanta. That does not sound like fun. Also some of the liveaboards I have seen for the Similans also go to Hin Daeng.

Do people actively dislike Koh Lipe...? What about Phi Phi? Which has the best dive sites close to the island?

No the dive sites aren't that far from Lanta. Half hour to an hour on a big boat to the nearest sites I think. We used the speed boat to HD/HM, which was about an hour as far as I can recall, maybe a little longer and the boats quite comfortable, although you need to be a contortionist to use the toilet...but there's a big sea out there! :wink:
The dive centres will pick you up from your beach and take you to the boat. I think you generally get back by around 3-4pm for a 3 dive trip.

Dislike Lipe? Not at all. It's a lovely island with nice beaches, a cool walking street for food and drinking and the divings ok, with some nearby sites so you can do 1 tank dives if you want - at least you could in shoulder season when we went. I wasn't blown away by the sites we dived, Stonehenge probably being the best, but we didn't venture that far from sunrise beach where we were staying. However, as a very nice beach destination with so easy relaxed diving thrown in it's a good choice.

Between phi phi and Lipe for diving quality I'd go phi phi but was shocked by what I saw on phi phi last time we visited in 2015 -the main beach is totally over-developed and IMO has been ruined. However, we stayed on the east coast at Phi Phi Relax resort which was really nice, and has some ok snorkelling off the shore.
 
I'm in the same "boat" as you, following this thread. Looks like I will hit Koh Lanta for a week of relaxing, eating and diving. Still deciding on which Similan liveaboard to go with. Any recommendations welcome.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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