Krabi: How to Visit and Get Around
Get three things straight before you land and Krabi is easy: it is a province, not a town, so “Krabi” on a hotel search means Ao Nang or Krabi Town, not one walkable center. Railay, the cliff peninsula everyone posts photos of, has zero road access in any season, a longtail boat is the only way in or out. And nearly every marquee day here, Railay, the islands, Phi Phi, runs on the water, so the November-April dry season is when it actually goes to plan. Sort those three and the rest of a Krabi visit runs itself.
Krabi at a glance
| How to reach it | Fly into Krabi International Airport (KBV), or bus/ferry in from Phuket, Bangkok or Ko Lanta |
| Where to base | Ao Nang (tourist strip, direct boat launch) or Krabi Town (cheaper, more local, better transport links) |
| Getting to Railay | Longtail boat only, no road exists; roughly 10 minutes and about 100 baht per person from Ao Nang |
| Getting to the islands | Longtail or speedboat day trips from Ao Nang beach or Nopparat Thara pier, weather-dependent |
| Best months | November-April dry season for calm-sea boat days; May-October SW monsoon brings rough seas and some cancellations |
Sort your base first, check Ao Nang hotel availability on Booking.com before the beachfront rooms near the Railay boats go, then build everything else around it. Tourism Authority of Thailand is the official starting point for anything below that changes without much notice.
Getting to Krabi: airport, buses and ferries
Krabi International Airport (KBV) sits roughly 15km from Krabi Town and about 40km from Ao Nang; an airport bus to Ao Nang runs about 150 baht and takes close to an hour, stopping in Krabi Town on the way. Overland from Bangkok is a genuine trek, about 814km south, with direct buses from the Southern Bus Terminal running roughly 12 hours (standard classes commonly 378 to 680 baht, VIP around 1,055 baht, treat these as rough anchors rather than fixed prices). Ferries link Krabi with Phuket, Ko Lanta and Ko Phi Phi, though frequency commonly drops, sometimes to once daily, during the May-October monsoon.
Where should you base yourself, Ao Nang or Krabi Town?
Ao Nang wins for most first-timers: it is the direct longtail launch point for Railay and the islands, dense with tour desks, restaurants and its own night market. Krabi Town is the province’s actual capital and transport hub, noticeably cheaper for food and rooms, with its own Friday-Sunday walking-street market, but it means a short songthaew ride to reach the same boats. Klong Muang and Tubkaek, further north, suit travelers who want a quieter resort beach and don’t mind arranging transfers for everything else.
How do you get to Railay from the mainland?
Only by longtail boat, and that holds in every season from every direction: sheer limestone cliffs cut Railay off from any road network, so even guests staying at the peninsula’s resorts arrive and leave by water. The standard crossing from Ao Nang beach itself runs about 10 minutes for roughly 100 baht per person, boats commonly wait to fill up before pushing off; Ao Nam Mao pier on the Krabi Town side runs a similar crossing and becomes the better bet when the sea gets rough in monsoon. There’s no ticket counter on Ao Nang beach, boats simply beach and depart, so build in some wait time outside the busiest morning hours. Once you’re there, climbers can book a guided Railay climbing session on Viator for one of Southeast Asia’s best-known limestone climbing areas, while everyone else walks the short trail from East Railay to Phra Nang Cave Beach.
Getting between the islands: longtail, speedboat and which pier
Longtail boats are cheaper and slower, more exposed to chop; speedboats cost more but cover longer hops, like Ao Nang to Phi Phi, in less time. The 4 Islands tour, the Hong Islands tour, and a Phi Phi trip are three separate products from different operators, not interchangeable names for the same day, and they commonly leave from different points: shorter island hops launch straight off Ao Nang beach, while longer runs to Phuket or the outer islands typically use Nopparat Thara pier, a short transfer away. A foreigner-rate national park fee applies at park-administered sites; confirm the current figure at Thailand’s national park portal rather than trusting an old quote. If Maya Bay, the cove from The Beach, is on your list, know that it reopened in January 2022 after a multi-year closure and runs today under real limits: no boats enter or moor in the bay itself, swimming off the main beach is banned, and both visit length and daily numbers are capped through online booking, treat any exact hour count or fee you read as something to confirm when you book. Search 4 Islands and Hong Islands tours on GetYourGuide to compare current departures.
Scooters, songthaews and getting around the mainland
On the mainland, shared songthaews run Krabi Town to Ao Nang for roughly 60 baht, about every 10-20 minutes in daytime, and tuk-tuks within Ao Nang run around 100 baht. Scooter rental runs roughly 150-200 baht per 24 hours and is genuinely useful for reaching inland sights like Tiger Cave Temple or the Emerald Pool on your own schedule, but motorbike accidents are consistently one of Thailand’s biggest causes of tourist injury, not an exaggerated warning, so wear a helmet, carry a valid license, and check a rental bike over before riding. The same caution applies on the water: check that every passenger has a lifejacket before a longtail leaves the beach, and mind riptides on open beaches rather than assuming every stretch of sand is calm. Krabi itself reads as low-risk day to day; the UK Foreign Office’s Thailand travel advice flags the far-southern border provinces and the Cambodia border zone, not the Andaman coast.
When should you visit Krabi, dry season or monsoon?
November through April is the dry season and the window to build a boat-heavy visit around: calmer Andaman seas, steadier ferry and longtail schedules, and the best odds that a booked island day actually happens. May through October is the SW monsoon, with short, intense afternoon downpours rather than all-day rain, but also rougher seas that can thin out ferries or cancel some boat routes outright, plus a real rise in jellyfish near shore. Wet season runs cheaper and quieter, a genuine upside if your plans have slack, just don’t build a short trip entirely around boat days in July or August without an inland backup.
Everything runs on Thai baht, cash still matters for longtail fares and songthaews even though cards work at hotels and sit-down restaurants. Most Western passport holders, the US, UK, Canada, Australia, EU and Japan among others, get 60 days in Thailand visa-exempt, but check your own nationality’s exact allowance. Since 1 May 2025, every foreign arrival must also complete the Thailand Digital Arrival Card online in advance, free, roughly 72 hours before landing, so “just bring a passport” is no longer accurate.
Book your Ao Nang or Krabi Town base and your TDAC before you fly, then let the season decide how boat-heavy the rest of the trip should be. For the day-by-day version of this, see our Krabi guide and the 2-day through 7-day first-timer itineraries.