Phi Phi on your own boat: viewpoint at six, Pileh before the fleet, Bamboo after it

Ko Phi Phi

1. 6:15 am1

   Viewpoint 1, 2 and 3 before sunriseKo Phi Phi

   30–50B at the gate. It is 20–30 minutes of concrete stairs out of Tonsai village and it is genuinely steep. Go at 06:15 with a phone torch and you get the twin-bay sandbar in cool air with nobody on it; by 09:00 it is a slow-moving queue in full sun.

2. 7:35 am2

   Breakfast in Tonsai villageKo Phi Phi

   Eat properly before you board. Nothing on a longtail charter includes food or water, and the boatman will cheerfully go until 15:00 without raising the subject. Buy a bag of ice and water in the village too — there is no shop at Pileh.

3. 8:45 am3

   Private longtail leaves Tonsai BayKo Phi Phi

   Arrange it the evening before, directly with a boatman on the beach rather than through a hotel desk: 2,500–3,500B for the half-day Phi Phi Leh circuit, about 5,000B for a full day that includes Bamboo Island. Say the stops AND the return time out loud, agree them, and pay at the end. A longtail is slow, which is exactly the point — you leave before the speedboats and stay after them.

4. 9:35 am4

   Pileh Lagoon while it is still emptyKo Phi Phi

   Ten minutes around the headland. Between 09:30 and 10:15 you can have a walled emerald bay to yourselves; at 10:30 the Phuket boats come in forty at a time and it becomes a floating car park. This single stop is what the early charter buys.

   10 min walk · 750 m
5. 10:35 am5

   Maya Bay from the Loh Samah boardwalkKo Phi Phi

   400B per adult and essentially never included in a boat price, whatever the ticket seller implies. You land at Loh Samah on the back side and walk the boardwalk in — no boat has touched the beach since it reopened, and swimming in the bay itself is not permitted. It closes for reef recovery every year (1 Aug–30 Sep in 2026), so confirm before you build a day around it.

6. 11:50 am6

   Bamboo Island: the swim you actually came forKo Phi Phi

   Another 400B park fee, collected on the sand. White beach, shallow reef straight off it, and shade only at the tree line — a rash vest beats reapplying sunscreen. Group tours give this place 40 minutes; you have 90, and that is the difference between a photo stop and a swim.

7. 1:50 pm7

   Late lunch dropped at Long BeachKo Phi Phi

   Have the boatman finish at Long Beach instead of Tonsai. You get the better sand for the rest of the afternoon and you can walk or water-taxi back into the village whenever you feel like it.

   3 min walk · 0 m
8. 6 pm8

   Dinner on the sand at Long BeachKo Phi Phi

   Long Beach faces the sunset and sits 25 minutes' walk from Tonsai's buckets and fire shows — close enough to go, far enough not to hear it at 02:00. The last water taxi back to the village runs around 22:00 and costs roughly double after dark.