Phuket Bus Terminal

The Terminal for road travel in south Thailand.

The Phuket bus terminal was opened in 2012, and has been removed from congested down town to the airport road that shortens any ride out of the island for about 30 minutes. This is the direct phone to information, they also speak English: 076373193. You will be amazed how well organized Thailand bus travel is.

Phuket bus terminal and road

travel in south Thailand

South Thailand long haul bus

Mini Bus to Hat Yai

Small one to Krabi

To Ranongfor Kawthaung

Interior seating of a Thailand Bus

Phuket to Bangkok

This place is more or less a huge parking lot built as an open structure. Transport services are the big overland coaches covering the whole country and minibuses for up to about 500 km.

They are servicing the whole country all the way up to Chiang Mai, the north east, Bangkok and Pattaya,e.g. the trip to Bangkok is around 12 hours, starting between 4 pm and 7 pm ever hour and cost almost Baht 700,- for the regular bus and almost Baht 1000,- for the VIP bus which has a three seat seating arrangement.   

Travel to Trang

Travel to the Trang archipelago is probably the best in the south, it is easy accessible, by bus, train and aircraft. This is one of the pristine island and beaches in this part of the Andaman Sea, there are also some marvelous caves, called "hongs" which means room. The reason is, very long time ago this was a closed cave, erosion took away the limestone top and it broke, now it's open and when the sun comes in the beach inside makes a great view, read more.

Hat Yai bus terminal to Malaysia

Traveling beyond the border such as to Penang or KL

visit one of the travel agents in the houses just off the terminal where you arrive (there are sign post in front) they will call another agent somewhere in town who will pick you up free of charge for the Malaysian bus, dont pay more than about Baht 400,- for Penang.

Highway station spirit shrine

This is at the bypass road in Krabi here are some busy tourist i wouldn't like to be him or her when there is an accident, they are very careless. On top of it they will have an awful sunburn tomorrow, but who thinks about tomorrow? Thailand has the highest road accident rate in the world only before the last one which is Simbabwe, read more.

The bus network to Hat Yai and other places is for sure one of the best on the planet, no yoke, most big buses are are double-decker copied from Germany and the mini- or microbuses are mostly Toyotas also produced locally. The main difference is, the minis are faster and a ticket cost more, on the route to Hat Yai one more operator is using a size which is in between the both indicted before, read more.

The trade off with the bigger ones is, they run them like a local bus but on the long haul means they stop continuously which is increasing travel time dramatically. Minibuses and the one in between won’t stop often, only if someone wants to exit. They all start from the Phuket Terminal 2, this is the new one, the old one is gone.

At Hat Yai the big bus terminal long haul coaches operate and some van or minibuses. There is another minibus terminal near the through road but around 5 km to the west and they again move in different directions. 

Another line on that route is probably the best but they have their own station about 200 m off the van terminal. But none of this places cooperates with them so it's difficult to find anything, also no travel agent has a link with them, their phone number: 082-42701157 and 082-4230692. It is the usual Thai chaos nobody cares, nobody cooperates and everyone gives wrong information, read more.

A interesting ride is to Satun for Ko Tarutao, the pier is at Pak Bara, this is via Trang and also could be done through Hat Yai.

To connect locally a few options are available

that are some taxis, motorbikes, tuk-tuk and local open air buses. Don’t use tuk-tuk this are always giving a problem and cheating is rampant. Be aware that if you use one of them, let’s say to bring you to a hotel they will tell that since they bring you there they want commission, means effectively they try to sell you and they will put this onto your room rate, you wont notice that. There are also so called "Songthaew" buses which are sometimes private run and sometime run by the state.



Close to the market Songthaew buses start, they serve most destinations on the island with a regular service although they are quite slow. Plenty of motorbike taxis are around. They never managed to supply orderly taxis and a good public transport that results in thousands of scooters rushing around don’t caring about anything just like a big bulk of flies. 

The problem is the owner of the main tuk-tuk company is a “influential figure” who would lose business if they do something for the public.

Ferries to Phi Phi and Krabi start at the Rasada Pier in Phuket Town Center.