Phuket is sold as a single place. It is not. It is an island the size of Singapore with at least three Phukets stacked on top of each other and the one most visitors are shown is the worst of them.
The first Phuket is Patong. Bright, loud, neon, drink buckets, mediocre Thai food at tourist prices. If you arrived expecting that, you will get exactly that.
The second is the developer's Phuket. Resort enclaves on Bang Tao and Surin where you can fly in, eat hotel food for a week, leave again and never have a Thai conversation. There is nothing wrong with this. There is also nothing of Thailand in it.
The third is the south. Rawai, Nai Harn, the lanes around Chalong. Fishing villages that became neighbourhoods. Small restaurants run by people who live next door. This is the Phuket we write about.
When To Go
The dry season runs November to April. December and January are the best weather and the worst prices. February gets you most of the upside with fewer tour buses. October is wet but cheap. May to September is monsoon season and you should know what you are buying.
Songkran, the Thai new year in mid-April, turns parts of the island into a water fight that lasts a week. Either embrace it or avoid Phuket entirely that week.
Where To Stay
Stay in the south. Rawai and Nai Harn are residential, quiet and within a short ride of the better beaches. You will eat better, sleep better and meet more Thais than you would in any resort.
Old Phuket Town is the other honest pick. Shophouses, coffee, real life, an hour from the beaches by car. Worth two nights even if you mostly want to swim.
Avoid Patong unless nightlife is the point.
What To Eat
Phuket's food is its own thing. It is southern Thai, with strong Hokkien Chinese roots from the tin-mining families who settled here in the nineteenth century. This is not the food of Bangkok.
Eat hokkien mee. Eat moo hong, a slow-braised pork belly that locals will tell you about before you ask. Eat the curries at any open-front shophouse in Old Phuket Town. The food court at Lard Yai (the Sunday walking street) is honest and cheap, if more recently a victim of its own popularity.
What to skip: any "international Thai" tasting menu inside a resort. The food is not bad. It is just not what you came for.
Getting Around
Phuket is bigger than first-time visitors think. Driving the length of the island takes an hour and a half without traffic.
If you can ride a motorbike, renting a scooter is the cheapest way around. It is also the most dangerous. Phuket has one of the highest road-death rates in Thailand and most fatalities are foreigners who underestimated the traffic. If you are not already a confident rider, do not start here.
Grab works across the island. It is more expensive than in Bangkok but reliable. Local songthaews run fixed routes for ฿30 to ฿50. The blue songthaew from Phuket Town to Rawai is the practical example.
What To Skip
Most of the postcard activities are oversold. Phi Phi day trips are an exhausted theme park. The "tiger temples" are not what they look like in the marketing. Elephant rides on the beach are best avoided full stop. Any "sanctuary" that lets you ride is not a sanctuary.
A few things are worth the hype. Sea kayaking through the limestone karsts in Phang Nga Bay is one. So is a longtail trip to Coral Island that leaves before nine in the morning, before the tour buses arrive.
How Long To Spend
Three nights is enough to understand Phuket without surrendering to it. Five nights is comfortable. Seven and you have time to do a day trip to Khao Lak or take a boat to Krabi, both of which are better as bases than as day trips. Beyond a week and you are committing.