Koh Tao means Turtle Island, and at twenty one square kilometres it is small enough to walk across in a couple of hours if the hills were not what they are. It is also one of the busiest places in the world to learn to dive, certifying tens of thousands of people a year, because the water is warm and shallow, the sites are close in, and competition has driven the price of an open water course to a fraction of what it costs almost anywhere else.
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That volume is the island's character and its main caution. There are dozens of schools, the good ones are genuinely excellent, and the price competition is real, so choosing on cost alone is the wrong approach. Just offshore, joined by a sandbar you can walk at low tide, is Koh Nang Yuan, three granite islets tied together, which is the image most people have seen of this island without knowing its name.
What Makes Koh Tao Different to Pack For
You are packing for the water, not the land
Most days here involve two dives, a boat, and a lot of sun on the surface between them. A rash vest or long sleeved swim top does more for you than any amount of reapplied sunscreen, and reef safe sunscreen is the only kind that should go in this water.
The roads are genuinely dangerous
Koh Tao's hills are steep, the concrete ramps between bays are severe, and the surfaces are broken. Scooter injuries here are frequent enough to be a running joke among divers, which is not funny when the nearest recompression chamber and the nearest real hospital are both a boat ride away.
The other well known scam is the rental damage claim, where a bike is returned and a charge appears for pre-existing damage. Photograph everything before you take it.
Gulf seasons, opposite to the Andaman
The best months are roughly March to September. The northeast monsoon brings the worst of the weather from October to December, with rough crossings and reduced visibility underwater. Temperatures run 27°C to 33°C year round and the sea sits around 28°C to 30°C, which is why wetsuits here are thin or optional.
A merino wool base layer for women is worth the space for the ferry air conditioning, the night boat from the mainland and several humid days without laundry.
Sandflies and coral cuts
Sandflies on the quieter beaches bite at dawn and dusk and the bites last a week. Coral and rock cuts from boat entries infect quickly in this heat.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Koh Tao Packing List
For diving
A rash vest or thin long sleeved top, which most schools will let you wear instead of a wetsuit in this water and which is far better for your back and shoulders. Reef safe sunscreen. A dive computer if you own one, though schools provide them. A logbook and your certification card if you are already qualified.
Do not bring a mask you have not tested. Schools have plenty and a leaking mask ruins a course.
Footwear
Flip flops for the beach and the village. Reef shoes for the rocky entries at the quieter bays, which are sharp.
Closed shoes with grip for the viewpoints and the interior paths, which are steep, loose and genuinely hard walking. Waterproof hiking shoes are the right tool for the John-Suwan viewpoint and the walk to the south of the island.
Clothing
Light, loose, quick drying, and more of it than you think because you will be wet twice a day. Long sleeves and long trousers for the evenings, for the sandflies and for riding if you ride.
A cover up for Mae Haad and Sairee village, which are working Thai settlements as well as a dive strip.
For sun
A wide brim sun hat with a chin strap for the boats, plus sunglasses. Surface intervals on an open boat at ten degrees north are the fastest burn in Thailand.
For rain
A packable rain jacket for October to December, and a dry bag in every month for the boats.
Health and practicalities
Repellent with DEET or picaridin for dengue and sandflies, an antihistamine, antiseptic and waterproof plasters. Ear drops, since ear infections are the commonest ailment among divers here. Rehydration salts. Cash in baht, because ATMs charge heavily and can be empty.
What to Wear at Key Sites
Choosing a dive school
Dozens operate, from very large operations to small owner run schools, and the open water course price is broadly similar across them.
Practically: choose on instructor ratio, equipment condition and how they answer a safety question, not on price. Ask how many students per instructor in the water, ask to see the rental regulators and BCDs, and ask what their procedure is for a diver who panics. A good school answers all three without hesitation. Read recent independent reviews rather than the school's own. If anything feels rushed or dismissive, walk; there are dozens of others.
The dive sites
Chumphon Pinnacle, Sail Rock between here and Koh Phangan, Southwest Pinnacle, Shark Island and the shallow coral gardens used for training. Whale sharks appear seasonally.
Practically: the training sites are shallow and calm, which is why the island works for beginners. The pinnacles are deeper with current and are not first week dives. Do not touch or stand on coral, which is both illegal in Thai marine parks and the reason the shallow sites have degraded.
Koh Nang Yuan
Three islets joined by a sandbar, ten minutes offshore, with a viewpoint above them.
Practically: there is an entry fee, and plastic bottles are banned on the island and confiscated at the pier. The viewpoint climb is a short, steep scramble over rock in full sun. It gets extremely crowded in the middle of the day; the first or last boat is much better. Snorkelling off the sandbar is good and the coral is close to the surface, so fins can damage it.
The beaches and bays
Sairee is the long main beach with the village behind it and the sunsets. Shark Bay at the south has resident blacktip reef sharks in the shallows. Tanote, Freedom and Ao Leuk are smaller and quieter.
Practically: the blacktips at Shark Bay are harmless and habituated, and snorkelling with them is the island's best free activity; go at dawn. Entry at several bays is over rock, so reef shoes. Currents run between headlands.
The viewpoints
John-Suwan at the south, Mango Bay viewpoint, and several private ones that charge a small fee.
Practically: all involve steep scrambles in heat, some with rope handholds. Go early. The access tracks are the worst roads on the island and are where scooters come off; walk or take a taxi to the bottom.
Free diving and other courses
Koh Tao is also one of the main free diving centres in Asia, and there are yoga and muay thai schools.
Practically: free diving carries its own risks and the rule about never doing it alone is absolute. Choose a certified school.
What Not to Bring
Leave the idea of choosing a dive school on price. Leave plastic bottles for the Nang Yuan trip.
Leave any intention of learning to ride a scooter on these hills. Leave a rental bike unphotographed. Leave coral untouched. And leave illegal drugs entirely out of your thinking, given Thai penalties and a small island with active enforcement.
Essential Resources for Women in Koh Tao
Emergency numbers in Thailand: 191 for police, 1669 for ambulance and emergency medical services, 199 for fire, and 1155 for the Tourist Police with English speaking operators. For a diving emergency, your school contacts the chamber directly and that is faster than any general number.
Tourist support: Koh Tao has a police station at Mae Haad and a Tourist Police presence. The 1155 hotline works nationally with interpretation. A police report is required for insurance and before a consulate will replace a passport, and it is also what you need for a disputed rental damage claim.
US Embassy: the embassy is in Bangkok at 95 Wireless Road, telephone +66 2 205 4000, at th.usembassy.gov. Koh Samui, with the nearest airport, is a ferry away. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: Koh Tao has private clinics and a small health centre, and there is a recompression chamber on the island, which is the single most important medical fact about the place and the reason it can support this volume of diving. Anything beyond that means a boat to Koh Samui, where Bangkok Hospital Samui is the main facility, or onward to Bangkok. Travel insurance must explicitly cover scuba diving to your intended depth, and most standard policies do not; this is the destination where that exclusion actually gets tested.
Official health authority: the Thai Ministry of Public Health at moph.go.th, with the US Centers for Disease Control destination page for Thailand the more practical source on dengue.
US State Department travel advisory for Thailand: current advisory level and detail. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Thailand: entry requirements, safety and health guidance, including the advice on adventure activity operators, on drink spiking, on methanol in adulterated spirits and on the motorcycle rental scams, all of which apply here. The far south advice covering Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla does not include Surat Thani province.
Official tourism authority: the Tourism Authority of Thailand at tourismthailand.org, with the ferry operators for crossings from Chumphon and Surat Thani, which are cancelled in rough weather from October to December.
Solo women safety assessment: Koh Tao is, in ordinary terms, an easy and sociable island for a woman travelling alone, and the dive course structure makes it one of the simplest places anywhere to arrive by yourself and have a group of people within a day. Most visitors are here to learn something, the schools are used to solo students, and the atmosphere is young and friendly. Violent crime against visitors is rare and street harassment is uncommon. It is also fair to say that the island has attracted difficult headlines over the years concerning deaths of foreign tourists, and that some of those cases have been criticised for how they were investigated. It is worth knowing that context exists; it does not describe the ordinary experience of the very large number of people who visit without incident, and the practical response is the same set of sensible precautions that apply in any nightlife-heavy destination rather than avoidance. Those precautions: watch your drink being poured and never leave it, stay with people you came out with, do not walk back alone along unlit tracks late at night, use accommodation with a proper lock and a safe, and be cautious about bar buckets, which are mixed strong and sometimes with unlabelled spirits. Beyond that, the two things that actually injure people here are scooters and the water. The hills are severe, the surfaces poor, most riders are unlicensed and therefore uninsured, and the viewpoint access tracks are the worst of it. Use taxis. In the water, follow your instructor exactly, never dive outside your certification, never free dive alone, and be honest with a school about your swimming ability. Currents run between headlands, and boat traffic near Sairee is heavy.
Reading On
Koh Tao is where most people in Southeast Asia learn to dive, and a week here is the standard shape of a visit. The Thailand travel guide for women is the parent for the country and the Thailand packing list for women covers a trip across it. South in the same gulf, the Koh Phangan packing list for women and the Koh Samui travel guide for women cover the two larger islands and the airport. Across the peninsula, where the seasons run the other way, the Phuket travel guide for women, the Koh Phi Phi packing list for women, the Koh Lanta packing list for women and the Koh Lipe packing list for women cover the Andaman. Inland, the Khao Sok packing list for women covers the rainforest, and north the Bangkok travel guide for women the capital. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why merino works in tropical humidity where nothing dries, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
