Phuket or Koh Samui for Christmas and New Year: 10 years of rain and 1,343 stays priced night by night

For Christmas and New Year, Phuket is the drier island. December rain at Patong and Kata averages 137–152 mm against 223–237 mm at Chaweng and Lamai on Samui, and January is 77–81 mm against 134–150 mm. If dry beach days are the point of the trip, the numbers point to Phuket.

On price, Christmas Eve cost a median 1.29 times an early-December night at the same Phuket hotel, against 1.58 times on Samui. New Year's Eve is expensive on both: 1.80 times in Phuket and 1.88 times on Samui. If you are flexible, Samui's turn comes in March, when its beaches are as dry as Phuket's or drier.

Every distance on this page is a straight line between coordinates, not walking or driving distance.

Yes, more than Phuket. Ten-year means (2016–2025) from ERA5 at the grid cells nearest each beach put December rain at 223 mm for Chaweng and Bophut and 237 mm for Lamai, with 19–21 rain days. Patong and Kata get 137–152 mm and 17 rain days. November is wet on both islands, 253–317 mm. Samui's December is also a little cooler, with a mean high of 27.8°C against 29.2°C in Phuket.

A note on our own data: our older Phuket weather page uses the Surat Thani mainland point for Samui, which shows 196 mm in December. The grid cells on Samui itself come out wetter, 223–237 mm, so if anything that page understated Samui's December rain. The month-by-month comparison there still holds.

The two airports are 251 km apart in a straight line, so for a two-week trip most people pick one island. On Samui the airport sits next to the main beaches: 1.5 km from the centre of Chaweng, 2.3 km from Bophut and 9.4 km from Lamai. Phuket's airport is in the north of the island, 23.2 km from Patong, 26.1 km from Phuket Old Town and 31.7 km from Kata (all coordinates from Google Maps).

Real drives are longer than straight lines, and flights into each airport change by season, so check routes with the airlines directly.

Patong is the busiest area in our set: 290 stays inside its 2.2 km circle and 31 that clear our bar (review score 8.5+ from at least 500 reviews). Kata, further south, has 65 stays and 11 that clear the bar, and the lowest February rain in our table at 35 mm.

Phuket Old Town is not on a beach, but it held up best on New Year's Eve: 76 of its 95 stays were still bookable, against 86 on 3 December. Patong fell from 270 to 187 and Kata from 58 to 33.

Chaweng is Samui's biggest area in our set, 131 stays inside its 2.4 km circle, with 26 that clear our bar — the most on the island. Lamai, to the south, has 76 stays but only 8 that clear the bar. Bophut, around Fisherman's Village, is small: 30 stays and 5 that clear the bar.

On New Year's Eve Chaweng fell from 122 bookable stays to 70, Lamai from 72 to 53 and Bophut from 29 to 18.

We priced the same set every night: 864 stays on Phuket and 479 on Samui, 2 adults, 1 room, 1 night, and every night a Thursday so the day of the week does not skew the comparison. On Thursday 3 December 803 Phuket stays and 450 Samui stays could be booked. On Christmas Eve that was 740 and 386. On New Year's Eve it was 578 and 294 — 67% of the Phuket set and 61% of the Samui set.

Checked a second way: searching ภูเก็ต and เกาะสมุย the way anyone would, the prices in the search results matched our same-set pull almost everywhere — for example 154 of 155 Phuket stays and 229 of 230 Samui stays on New Year's Eve. The limit: that search returns about 140–240 stays a night, so it cannot count missing rooms across a whole island.

Against Thursday 3 December at the same hotel, Phuket's medians were 1.29 on Christmas Eve (725 pairs), 1.80 on New Year's Eve (568 pairs), 1.20 in mid-January, 1.10 in early February and 0.96 in early March. A quarter of Phuket hotels rose 2.66 times or more on New Year's Eve.

Samui moves differently: 1.58 on Christmas Eve (380 pairs), 1.88 on New Year's Eve (288 pairs), then 1.55, 1.50 and 1.38 through mid-January, early February and early March. Early December is still wet on Samui, and its hotels stayed at 1.38 times that level or more all the way to March, while Phuket's rise was mostly the holiday fortnight. A control check: Thursday 10 December against 3 December came out at 1.00 on both islands.

What the second method shows: for Samui, the stays that appeared in ordinary search results on both 10 December and New Year's Eve (114 pairs) gave a median of 1.72, close to the 1.76 from our same-set pull against that night. For Phuket, only 46 stays overlapped — too few to conclude. Ratios use each hotel's lowest room rate on the day we pulled the feed, not the price you will get.

By February the gap narrows: 35–39 mm in Phuket against 60–68 mm on Samui. In March it turns around: Chaweng and Bophut average 42 mm and Lamai 57 mm, while Kata gets 57 mm and Patong 89 mm.

So the honest answer depends on your dates. For Christmas and New Year, the rain numbers favour Phuket. For a trip in March, Samui is at least as dry, but in our data its prices were still 1.38 times its early-December level, while Phuket's had fallen back to 0.96.

If you are still unsure, decide by your dates first, then by what you want to walk to.

• Christmas or New Year, want the driest beach days: Phuket
• First time in Phuket, want everything within walking distance: Patong
• Phuket with family, quieter beach: Kata
• Need a room on New Year's Eve and don't mind no beach: Phuket Old Town
• Samui with no car, want to be near the airport and the most choice: Chaweng
• Travelling in March: Samui is at least as dry as Phuket — compare prices for your exact dates

Here is what this page does not promise.

• It is not a paid hotel list. The stays in the cards are chosen with the same rule in every area.
• Room counts and price ratios are from the day we pulled the feed, 3 Oct 2026. They are not a forecast and not the price you will get.
• 1,343 is the number of stays our feed found on the two islands, not every stay there. Samui's list had stopped growing by our last searches; Phuket's had not, so Phuket has more stays than we counted.
• Rain figures are ten-year averages at grid cells several kilometres wide, not a forecast for your trip.
• The royal cremation ceremony is scheduled for 14–19 Dec 2026. If you travel in mid-December, check provincial announcements about festivities before you go.