Best Neighborhoods for Raising Kids or a Family in Koh Samui

March 28, 2024

You can’t go with Thailand as far as making it your family holiday vacation destination of choice. It’s a country full of wonder and delights, like a day at the beach, delicious food you’ve probably never heard about, and plenty of activities to pursue.

With that said, you can also depend on Thailand’s Koh Samui or Coconut Island as your place of permanent residence. It’s full of neighborhoods where you can raise a family, even.

Koh Samui is Thailand’s second largest island, right behind Phuket. However, it only takes a few hours to travel from one end of the island to another. Regardless of where you stay on Samui Island, you’ll still have access to everything it has to offer.

However, not all neighborhoods are created equal. Along the main ring road are parts of Samui that offer many different benefits to many different families both local and foreign.

Bophut

The dreamy area of Bophut is a great place to raise children or to visit in Koh Samui with your whole family. First off, it’s only 15 minutes away from the airport by car. It’s also located in the North part of Samui Island.

In terms of past history, it’s believed the first settlers of the island arrived there, with them setting up their homes and raising their families at Fisherman’s Village.

• Bophut Beach is Kid-Friendly: Tourist families decide to travel to Bophut Beach for a variety of reasons. First of all, it has a tranquil, stress-free vibe to it, making it perfect for relaxation. It also provides families with plenty of things to do in terms of exploration and water sports. For example, while on holiday here, you can rent jet skis, banana boats, or paddle boats to explore around the clear waters and powdery white sandbars.

• Welcoming Neighborhoods and Chill Locals: In turn, raising a family there is similarly chill. Vacations aren’t a problem since you’re already surrounded by paradise. Your children will grow up surrounded by fun-loving locals who’ll teach them how to live life to the fullest.

• The Fisherman’s Village: Aside from lounging on seat cushions on golden sand as various beach boats pass you by the beachside backdrop, you can also go to the Fisherman’s Village.

  What’s so appealing about it for you and the family you’re raising? It has a night market with various affordable items you can buy. The treasures of the sea are yours for your fine dining or cooking pleasure.

• Restaurants Galore: Feed your family with Bophut’s fine dining delights from time to time, since they’re built to cater to tourist tastes and thus, you’re assured of the most delightful of menus and the most stunning of beach views.

• The Big Buddha Temple: Tourists also love the famous Big Buddha located in Wat Pradoem, a Buddhist temple that was built around 250 years ago. Some families might wish to be near that Buddha statue like how New Yorkers love seeing the Statue of Liberty around or how Parisians adore the Eiffel Tower.

It’s hard to overlook the statue—it’s the huge golden one sitting cross-legged with a wheel behind his head like a halo. The temple and statue are15 minutes away from Bophut by car.

Chaweng

Chaweng, not to be confused with Chaweng Noi below, is another great family-friendly area of Coconut Island. For tourists, it gives them plenty of exciting activities while on holiday. For family residents, they love it here for its cosmopolitan feel.

Its beaches are gorgeous, and it has a busy, almost eclectic atmosphere to it. It’s an area enjoyed by people of all ages. Admittedly, it’s more tourist-oriented than family-friendly because of its wild nightlife.

• What’s So Family-Friendly about Chaweng? In fairness to Chaweng, the things that make it a tourist attraction also make it a good family residence. For example, its many hotels offer babysitting services for couples on holiday.

• The Best of Both Worlds: In between school and home, your children can have ready access to the sea, the nearby resorts, and a whole lot of urbanity, thus giving them the best of both worlds in terms of relaxed beach life and modern amenities.

• Many Beachside Activities: Even with the hustle and bustle of a cosmopolitan area like Chaweng, it’s great for your kids to indulge in beach or water sports, Muay Thai classes, fitness gyms, the food service industry, or interactions with the different locals and expatriates.

• Never Have Issues with Entertainment: You won’t have many issues getting an exciting night out with the kids since you’re in the middle of paradise and in its most urban or developed parts of it, at that.

• Isn’t the Chaweng Nightlife More for Single People Than Spouses? The wild nightlife of the island does help keep a married couple’s romantic flame alive, but for the most part it’s more of a party scene here than a residential one.

Chaweng Noi

As for the similarly named Chaweng Noi, it has its share of heartbreaking sunsets and soft sandy beaches (since it’s right beside Chaweng for good measure). However, the main appeal of this location is it’s a more peaceful version of Chaweng.

You will love Chaweng Noi for its seclusion, more deliberate focus on privacy, and less urbanization to make way for Koh Samui’s natural beauty.

• Not as Chaotic but Near the Action: Chaweng Noi isn’t a bustling metropolis filled with tourists, expatriates, and entertainers left and right but it’s still near the beachside action when push comes to shove. If you want to raise your family in a slower-paced environment, Chaweng Noi is the Chaweng alternative.

• What Do You Mean by Slower Pace? While Chaweng is a metropolis in the middle of paradise or an oasis in the middle of a desert, Chaweng Noi has more beach or nature to it than urban development.

• A Different Vibe Just South of Chaweng: Enjoy a more subdued but not necessarily rural ambiance in Chaweng Noi when compared to Chaweng. It’s the picture of paradise with its sandy beach, calm and clear waters, and a wide range of luxury hotels to choose from.

• It’s More Relaxed Because It’s Made That Way: Chaweng Noi intentionally slows the pace down with the breakneck speeds of Chaweng by focusing more on its beach-life rather than attracting tourists.

• You Don’t Need Nightlife Raising Children: As a Chaweng Noi resident raising a family, you don’t need an active nightlife to build your so-called nest. As a family man or woman, you can always drive to Chaweng instead for your romantic clubbing or partying needs.

• Family Friendly Hotels and Residences: The Chaweng Noi hotels and private villas are family-themed, as in the case of The Jungle Club. However, when it comes to beachside single-story houses and apartments, you can get cheaper prices in mortgage or rent when all is said and done.

Lamai

As for Lamai, it’s located at Coconut Island’s southeast portion. It’s another wonderful choice to raise kids in because it’s also like Chaweng Noi in that they’re both like Chaweng but calmer.

What distinguishes Lamai from Chaweng Noi though is its emphasis on swimming and surfing because it has a 4-kilometer-longsandy beach or sandbar next to turquoise waters. Chaweng Noi still curates the beach activities with resorts galore.

• Restaurants, Beach Bars, and Palm Trees: When getting a villa or house in Lamai, expect to always have fine dining access. You can also start a food service business of your own to support your family while you’re there, if you’d like.

• Access to Everyday Needs: Urbanization here at Lamai isn’t as sophisticated as that of the touristy locations of Chaweng and Chaweng Noi. Nor is it blessed with the Big Buddha tourist attraction. However, your family should still have access to all your everyday needs.

• Heaps of Luxury Hotels: There are heaps of luxury hotels and resorts housing tourists going to Lamai, particularly in premier locations like the Banyan Tree Resort. When you become a resident there, you can have access to everything they access without paying for hotel fees. Or you can go to a hotel to enjoy some luxury you won’t get at home.

• Endless Sand, Sun, and Fun: Your children will love growing up beside the calm beach and white sands. They’ll become like the folks in Hawaii, with them blending in with the locals and adopting a laidback and carefree attitude that permeates the citizenry.

• Picnics with Coffee to Watch the Sunrise: You can even grab a blanket and get a thermos of coffee ready as you and your children catch the sunrise rising in the east. They can serve as core memories for your kids growing up.

Taling Ngam

What makes Taling Ngam the best place to raise your family on top of being a family-friendly location for tourists? It’s a place that emphasizes relaxation.

While Bophut has the Big Buddha Statue and temple, Chaweng and Chaweng Noi varying degrees of urban metropolis and paradise in them, and Lamai is a sun-kissed sandbar full of resorts and bars, Taling Ngam is the more rural location of them all.

• The Appeal of “Underdevelopment” to Families: Rural locations and provinces naturally have cheaper real estate prices even if they’re beachside villas or single-story bungalows when compared to their urban counterparts.

  In places like Bangkok, you have to pay a mint for an apartment, while in places like Koh Samui they’re much cheaper even if we’re talking the same number of square meters of land.

• The Unspoiled South Coast of Koh Samui: Located on Samui Island’s South Coast, Talim Ngam is filled with deserted beaches and local villages. It doesn’t have as many resorts and hotels claiming beach areas as Chaweng or Chaweng Noi has.

• What’s the Catch with Rural Areas? Rural areas like Taling Ngam have more relaxing attributes to them than even the “slower paced” urbanity of Chaweng Noi exactly because they’re rural. Fewer tourists, fewer vehicles, fewer roads. The catch is that it feels like you’re in the middle of the jungle here.

• Views and Attractions: Your family will have a ball with the views and activities you can indulge in with Taling Ngam, such as strolling into Angthong Marine National Park or the nearby golden Laem Sor Pagoda in Bang Kao.

• Authentic Thai Life and Culture: The rural areas of Koh Samui depict authentic Thailand culture and lifestyle better than its more metropolitan or arguably international locations because of its rural or undeveloped nature.

It’s a great place to raise children because Thailand has a culture that values optimism and a positive outlook in life so that stress or hardship doesn’t steal your will to live away. The surrounding villages are great places for you and your kids to interact with these happy-go-lucky locals.

Maenam

In our opinion, Mae Nam is the best neighborhood in Koh Samui to raise a family in. While the other locations tend to be more cosmopolitan, touristy, or rural, Mae Nam is just right—like the porridge that Goldilocks ultimately picked in the tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”

• Families Looking for Peace and Quiet: If you’re the patron or matron of a family searching for serenity but not to the point of absolute seclusion, Mae Nam brings a great balance for it for both tourists and residents.

  Maenam has the same serene quietness you’d come to suspect of the rural Taling Ngam thanks to its secluded location just down a road from Bophut. It still has its share of touristy action though, like its amazing beachside views.

• Scattered Restaurants and Smattering of Bars: Unlike the sand dunes of Lamai and Chaweng (Koh Samui’s main nightlife hub), there’s more of a scattering of different bars and restaurants rather than a concentration of them all throughout the area.

• Plenty of Activities to Explore: You have plenty to do nearby even as you can seclude yourself in a more familial pace of island living at a moment’s notice. It’s still also a touristy location in its own right.

  Nevertheless, like in the case of Bophut and Chaweng, you can access various beachside or cosmopolitan entertainment hubs in Mae Nam within it or nearby. You can also indulge in watersports if you’d like.

• It’s a Huge Stretch of Beach: It shares the same sandbar near Bophut and similar to the one in Lamai, thus you’re left with a huge stretch of sandy land overlooking the gorgeous sea for your beachside needs.

• Golfing Options Also Available: From time to time, after your kids have had their fill searching for quick snacks or cold drinks at the nearest beach sellers or collecting seashells on the seashore, they can also avail of fun sports activities like Samui Disc Golf or Samui Canopy Adventures.

Lipa Noi

Last but not least is Lipa Noi on the westside part of Samui Island. You can raise your children there for some relaxed island living because this is another slice of Koh Samui paradise filled with friendly locals and the most heartbreaking sunsets.

• Everything is Accessible and Available: Families raising their own kids are mostly concerned with safety, trustworthy neighbors, affordable real estate, school accessibility, complete utilities, and modern amenities. Lipa Noi has that in spades.

• The Most Beautiful Areas of Koh Samui: While other areas emphasized beach access or resort density, Lipa Noi’s main claim to fame is its stunning looks. It’s easier to relax in an area that looks like it came straight out of a postcard or the pages of National Geographic.

• One of the More Secluded Locations: Lipa Noi is not as rural as Mae Nam or Taling Ngam, but it’s not as expensive to live in compared to Chaweng Noi and Lamai. It’s secluded enough, so you need not worry about dealing with the frenetic pace of hordes of tourists.

• The Most Relaxing Tropical Areas: Soak in some sun, behold some sunsets, breathe in fresh air, and unwind at this secluded tranquil area. Like with Taling Ngam, you can sunbathe and relax in wide-open spaces and beaches unclaimed by any particular resort, like you’re stuck on a deserted island.

• Kid-Friendly and Family-Safe Beaches: You can also do some warmups, stretches, and light exercises around this stretch of beach. It’s a great place to swim in because of the lack of rocks and corals to harm your feet. The water is also shallow for children to swim in.

• Why Live in Paradise? Although there’s a lot that can be said about hardship helping build character, needless trauma isn’t necessary in helping you meet your potential. Why not connect with friendly locals and widen your horizons by meeting with expatriates from all walks of life in the middle of paradise?

What is the Best Area in Koh Samui for Families?

Mae Nam is probably our main recommendation as the best area in Koh Samui for families to stay at and raise their children. However, other areas may offer other benefits that could intrigue and satisfy your unique preferences.

After all, the needs of any given family won’t necessarily be the same across the board, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Regardless, this guide includes recommendations on things to do, where to eat, and where to stay in peace.

Now that you know the various options available to buyers of Thai real estate, it's time to locate the property of your dreams within Coconut Island!

Begin your search today by looking through Conrad's Koh Samui properties for sale in Thailand!