Chartering for the first time
How many days each cruising ground actually needs
How long should a yacht charter in Phuket be?
The short answer
How long should a yacht charter in Phuket be?
Three nights covers Phang Nga Bay properly, because nothing there is more than three hours from anything else. Four adds the crossing to Phi Phi and the Rachas. Five reaches Krabi, Koh Haa and Koh Lanta. Seven is the hard minimum for the Similan Islands, which sit fifty-eight nautical miles offshore, and the Surins need the full seven with nothing else in the itinerary. Ten days lets you do both halves of the region without cutting anything, and it leaves room for the weather to be wrong for a day.
The distances that set the answer
| Destination | Nautical miles from Phuket | Passage time | Minimum charter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phang Nga Bay, first anchorage | 12 to 14 | 1 to 2 hours | 2 nights |
| The whole Phang Nga circuit | 58 round trip | short hops | 3 nights |
| Racha Yai | 12 | 1 to 2 hours | 1 day |
| Phi Phi | 30 | 2 to 4 hours | 3 nights, comfortable at 4 |
| Krabi and Koh Haa | 24 to 52 | 2 to 5 hours | 5 nights |
| Koh Rok | 62 | 5 to 7 hours | 5 nights on a southern route |
| Similan Islands | 58 | 5 to 9 hours each way | 7 nights |
| Surin Islands | 100 | 8 to 12 hours each way | 7 nights, and nothing else |
| Mergui, Myanmar | overland to Ranong, then at sea | 4 hour road transfer | 7 to 12 nights |
The test that catches an overpacked itinerary
Ask the operator for the passage time in hours for each leg, not the distance. Distance sounds abstract and hours do not. Fifty-eight miles to the Similans reads as nothing until it is stated as seven hours under way with the guests aboard, twice.
Any itinerary shorter than five days that lists the Similans is either running a fast motor yacht and giving you two hours ashore, or it is not really going. The question is the hours, and it has one right answer.
Why ten is the number the region wants
The northern and southern itineraries are genuinely different cruising grounds that happen to share a departure marina. Ten days does both without compression, and more importantly it allows a whole day at one anchorage, which is the day people remember.
It also absorbs weather. On a seven-night charter, one bad day costs a destination. On ten, it costs nothing.
Last checked 6 September 2026. Rates, fees and regulations in this market change every season, so figures on this page are correct as at that date and not afterwards. How the figures are gathered.