Do You Need a Hire Car in Phuket? For Most Visitors, No

Phuket is about 50 kilometres from the bridge in the north to Promthep Cape in the south, and there is no railway on it – the nearest station is at Surat Thani, on the other coast. That sounds like an island you have to drive. For a lot of visitors it is not, and the reason is specific rather than general: the things most people come here for either sit on one flat-fare bus line, or they collect you from your hotel.

What follows is the material for deciding, including the case against.

What the island gives you without a car

One bus line does most of the work. The Phuket Smart Bus runs from the airport down the west coast to Rawai, and the operator’s own fare page gives a flat 100 THB for that route – airport to Patong, Karon, Kata or Rawai, the same price whichever stop you take. A second route links Bus Terminal 2 and Phuket Town with Patong Beach for 50 THB, and the Dragon Line, a circular shuttle between Central Festival, the Old Town and the OTOP market, is free. Children under 6 travel free with a paying adult, and the operator states plainly that locals and visitors pay the same – there is no tourist fare. You can pay cash, by QR code, or by tapping a contactless Visa, Mastercard or JCB card.

Read that route list carefully, because it decides the whole question. The line covers the west coast beaches and the airport. It does not cover the east, it does not cover the north-east, and it is a bus, with more than 25 stops on the way. Local guides report about two hours for the full run down to Rawai, against the 45 minutes a private airport transfer states for the same journey.

Songthaews fill in between the towns. These are the converted pickups with two benches in the back, and they run fixed routes out of Phuket Town rather than between the beaches. Local guides put the town-to-beach fares at roughly 30 to 50 THB and the last departure at about 6pm; ask the price before you climb in, because they are not metered and the figures move.

Grab and its competitors are legal here. Ride-hailing apps operate in Phuket under Department of Land Transport certification, which matters more than it sounds: it is the difference between an app fare you can see in advance and a negotiation at the roadside.

Airport taxis run on a meter plus a surcharge. The counters sit outside arrivals at both terminals. The meter starts at 50 THB, and every journey leaving the airport carries a 100 THB airport surcharge that is printed on the official rate board – it is not a driver’s invention. Local price guides put the total to Patong in the region of 700 to 800 THB.

And the excursions come to you. This is the part that gets forgotten in the arithmetic. Most of the island’s day trips – the Phi Phi boats, the Phang Nga Bay canoe days, the elephant sanctuaries, the evening shows – include hotel pickup from the main beach zones. If your week is three boat days and two beach days, the car sits in a car park for five of them.

Where the answer is no

A week on the west coast with two or three excursions. Patong, Karon, Kata and Rawai are all on the 100 THB line, the tours collect you, and the beach is outside the hotel. A hire car here buys you the ability to reach a restaurant you would have taken a 200 THB Grab to.

Anyone who wants a beer with lunch. Thailand’s general blood alcohol limit is 0.05 % – 50 mg per 100 ml – and it drops to 0.02 % for drivers under 20, for holders of temporary two-year licences and for anyone licensed less than five years. A first offence carries a fine of 5,000 to 20,000 THB and up to a year’s imprisonment. For practical purposes on a holiday island, that is a limit of nothing at all.

Anyone not comfortable driving on the left. Thailand is a left-hand-traffic country, and Phuket is not the place to find out how that feels: the island’s hills are steep, the road down into Patong is a notorious black spot for heavy vehicles, and the traffic includes a great many motorbikes moving faster than you expect.

A cruise passenger or a two-night stopover. The paperwork and the deposit alone eat a morning.

Anyone thinking about a scooter instead. Worth saying plainly, because it is the cheap answer everyone reaches for. The UK Foreign Office warns that motorcycles and scooters for hire in Thai tourist areas “are often unregistered and cannot be used legally on a public road”, that a helmet is required by law, and that driving without a valid licence “could invalidate your travel insurance”. And a car licence is not a motorcycle licence: if your national licence and your international permit only cover category B, they do not authorise a scooter here, however small it is.

Where the answer is yes

You are staying away from the west coast strip. A villa at Mai Khao, Layan, Cape Panwa, Pa Klok or anywhere on the east side is off the Smart Bus route, and the alternative is a Grab for every single movement.

You are travelling with small children. Not because it is cheaper – it usually is not – but because a boot that stays packed and a nap that happens on the way back are worth real money. What the tours themselves allow at which age is a separate question and worth settling first; our guide to island hopping with children works through it.

You want the island early or late. Sunrise at the viewpoints, the Old Town before the coach groups, Promthep Cape after the light has gone – the songthaews have stopped by then and the buses are thin.

You are staying ten days or more and intend to move around. That is where the break-even sits. Compare current rates for Phuket rather than trusting a figure printed in an article; the partner page shows an average of about €31 a day, with the cheapest listings from €13, and those numbers move with the season.

The figure a hire car has to beat

Check on each booking page whether the price covers the vehicle or the person, and how many seats it includes – transfer listings differ on both, and the difference is the whole calculation.

Two airport transfers and three tour days with pickup will cost a couple less than a week’s hire plus fuel plus the deposit sitting on their credit card. Four adults who want a day of viewpoints in one vehicle are a different case: the private tour above works out at about €29 each, and nobody has to think about the descent from Nakkerd Hill in the dark.

If you do hire

Carry both documents. The UK Foreign Office tells British drivers to “carry both the 1968 version of the international driving permit (IDP) and your UK driving licence while driving”, and you cannot buy an IDP once you have left home. The same principle applies wherever you are from – get the permit before you fly, and check that it carries the vehicle category you intend to drive.

Then read the small print before the counter does it for you. The headline rate is not the number that costs people money here; the deposit, the excess and the items that appear at the desk are, and they have an article of their own. If you have decided to drive and want one day that justifies the car, we have picked the route worth doing.

For everything else, the full list of what to see and the tours with hotel pickup will get you round the island without a key in your pocket.

Sources: Phuket Smart Bus fares · UK Foreign Office travel advice for Thailand