Villas & homes for rent in Ko Kaeo

Ko Kaeo is a subdistrict on Phuket's east coast, facing Phang Nga Bay, about ten kilometres north of Phuket Town on the main road to the airport. Despite the name, it is not an island. Two marinas sit on its shoreline, Phuket Boat Lagoon and Royal Phuket Marina, and British International School Phuket has its campus here. What it offers is a central position, a school and two marinas, not a beach.

Ko Kaeo has no swimming beach. Its waterfront is mangrove creek and tidal flat, which is exactly why the marinas are here. Boat Lagoon was built on a tidal flat at the head of Klong Tha Rua, a shallow creek, and getting a deep-draft boat in and out still depends on the tide. For sand you drive west, under twenty kilometres to Patong through Kathu and over the hill, or north-west to Bang Tao. What Ko Kaeo gives you instead is position. Phuket Town is about ten kilometres south, ten to fifteen minutes in normal traffic, for markets, hospitals and the old shophouse streets. The airport is about half an hour north. Life runs along Thepkrasattri Road, the island's main north-south route, so the highway itself is busy while the lanes set back from it are quiet. It suits families on the school run and people who keep a boat. It is the wrong choice if you want to walk to the beach.