Sirinat National Park

Sirinat National Park covers roughly 90 square kilometres of northwestern Phuket, protecting a stretch of coast that includes three beaches — Nai Yang, Nai Thon, and Mai Khao — along with significant mangrove forests and coral reef. It's named after the late Princess Mother Srinagarindra and sits just minutes from Phuket International Airport, yet it feels genuinely removed from the island's resort machinery. Mai Khao is Phuket's longest beach and one of the few places in Thailand where Olive Ridley and leatherback sea turtles still come ashore to nest, typically between November and February.

In practice, visiting the park means choosing your own pace. You can walk the long, wind-swept arc of Mai Khao with almost no one else around, snorkel the relatively healthy reef off Nai Yang's bay, or follow the boardwalk trail through the mangroves near the park headquarters and watch mudskippers and monitor lizards go about their business. The beaches here have no jet skis, no banana boats, and no hawkers — the national park designation keeps them that way. Nai Thon is the smallest and most sheltered of the three, popular with families for its calm water in the dry season.

The listed opening hours apply to the visitor centre and park headquarters rather than beach access, which is effectively unrestricted at all hours. Entry fees are collected at checkpoints and are modest — foreign visitors pay a standard national park rate. The best practical advice is to arrive early at Nai Yang if you want shade under the casuarina trees, and to ask at the headquarters about current turtle nesting activity if you're visiting in the nesting season, as rangers sometimes run low-key guided evening walks.