Great Chaweng Beach!

Samui is visited mostly by holiday makers wanting to "get away from it all", and its main appeal is its funky rural beach communities with white beaches and clear & warm seas, and it has a few exceptional ones to choose from. Ko Samui is hardly "away from it all" anymore, but rather a cool and bustling international island resort.

Chaweng Beach covers a large portion of the island's northeast coast, and is easily the most crowded and tourist saturated region on the island. The beach itself, while beautiful and clean often suffers from seasonal overcrowding as ever increasing numbers of visitors discover the island. Several hotels, ranging from budget resorts to luxury villas line up the shore.

Restaurants are set right along the beachside, making Chaweng Beach seem to glow from within the sands. Set back about 100 meters from the sand the one way beach road in Chaweng has developed into a bustling international tourist town packed with every kind of resort, restaurant, and bar (ranging from busy traditional family-run open air sea food and noodle Thai at Ninja, through exclusive Thai-Californian fusion food at Jeff Lord's Betelnut to Irish Pubs and American Fast Food places McDonald's and Starbucks), Fine art, tailors, and souvenir shops, markets and wild, rambunctious, or chilled out nightclubs.

It gets ultra busy on the beach road at night with a crazy and colorful mix of pedestrians, motorcycles, and 'Song Taos', or small truck-taxis carrying people up and down the village.
Chaweng is a jumping place with people exploring the shops (which also stay open late) and dancing the night away. There is plenty of nightlife, and Soi Green Mango is ground zero for a raging club and bar scene that only begins to simmer down after two AM.

In the summer months the waters in Chaweng can occasionally have some wind swell & surf, so be prepared for strong rip tides or side shore currents. The waters are shallow, but inexperienced swimmers should either stay close to shore or swim with other people.