Coconut Palms, Chaweng Beach, and the Big Buddha of the Gulf of Thailand
Thailand's second-largest island offers everything Phuket does at a smaller, more manageable scale — 25 kilometres of coconut-palm beaches from Chaweng's party strip to the calm bays of the north shore. The Big Buddha Temple at the northeast tip stands 12 metres tall on a small island connected by a causeway. Beyond the beach clubs, the interior highlands hide jungle waterfalls, the Na Muang cascades, and the Ang Thong Marine National Park (42 islands accessible by boat from the pier at Ban Tai).
Koh Samui was largely unknown beyond regional fishing communities until the 1970s, when backpackers began arriving by boat from Surat Thani — there was no airport until 1989, and the island's coconut export trade gave way to tourism within a generation. By the 1990s it had become an established destination, attracting resort developers from across Asia and Europe. Today it receives 1.5 million visitors annually while retaining more of its fishing-village identity in the north and east than Phuket has managed.