Full Moon Party
- 🎉 Monthly
- 🏖️ Haad Rin
- 🎶 Beach sound systems
- ✨ All night
Once a month, on the night of the full moon, somewhere between ten and thirty thousand people converge on a single stretch of sand on Koh Phangan. Haad Rin Nok is a few hundred metres long, lined end to end with bars running their own sound systems, and the party goes until well after sunrise. It is the most famous thing of its kind in Asia, and it has been running since the 1980s.
How the dates work
The party follows the moon, not the calendar. It happens on the night of the full moon every month, which means the date moves by roughly twenty-nine days each time and never lands on the same day twice.
| Year | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Monthly, on the full moon | Occasionally moved for Buddhist holidays |
| 2027 | Monthly, on the full moon | Check Haad Rin listings before booking |
There are two complications. Parties are occasionally shifted by a day or two when the full moon falls on an important Buddhist holiday, when alcohol sales are restricted nationwide. And Koh Phangan runs other parties on other nights — Half Moon in the jungle, Black Moon, Jungle Experience — so the island has something on most weeks regardless.
Check current listings before you book flights around a specific date.
What it is actually like
Each bar along the beach runs its own sound system and its own genre, so you walk the length of the sand and the music changes every fifty metres — trance at one end, drum and bass, house, commercial pop further along. There is no single stage and no headline act.
There is an entry fee to get onto the beach, collected at the access points. Drinks are sold in buckets. Fire performers work the sand, and there are fire skipping ropes and limbo bars which are exactly as dangerous as they sound.
It starts filling after dark, peaks somewhere around two or three in the morning, and thins out at sunrise with people swimming or sleeping on the beach.
Read this part properly
Serious injuries happen at every party. The main causes are broken glass on the sand, the fire skipping ropes and limbo bars, and motorbike accidents on the hill road back from Haad Rin afterwards. Wear shoes, stay away from anything on fire, and do not ride a scooter that night.
Drink spiking and theft are both real problems. Buy sealed drinks rather than buckets from strangers, leave your passport and cards at the accommodation, and take only the cash you need.
Drug laws in Thailand are severe and enforced, and plain-clothes police operate around Haad Rin on party nights. Penalties for possession are far harsher than most visitors assume.
Accommodation on Koh Phangan triples in price around the full moon and many places impose a minimum stay of several nights. Book well ahead or stay elsewhere on the island and travel in.
Where to stay
Haad Rin itself puts you in walking distance, which matters at five in the morning. It is also the loudest, most expensive and most booked-out part of the island, and it is unpleasant on the nights when nothing is happening.
Baan Tai and Ban Kai sit along the south coast within a short ride and are considerably calmer and cheaper.
Srithanu and the north is the other Koh Phangan entirely — yoga, wellness, quiet beaches — and plenty of people base themselves there and make exactly one trip south.
Getting there
From Bangkok: Fly to Koh Samui (USM) or Surat Thani, then a ferry to Koh Phangan. Samui is faster and much more expensive; Surat Thani is the budget route. 1 hr flight + 30–90 min ferry.
From Koh Samui: Frequent ferries from Big Buddha and Maenam piers to Thong Sala on Koh Phangan. Extra sailings run around party nights. 30–45 min.
From Thong Sala pier: Songthaew or taxi across the island to Haad Rin, or a longtail boat around the coast. Both are busy and priced accordingly on party night. 20–40 min.
The other party nights
Koh Phangan does not stop between full moons. The island runs a circuit of parties through the month, and several are better than the main event if crowds are not your thing.
Half Moon Festival takes place in a jungle clearing inland, twice a month around the half moons. Ticketed, smaller, better sound, and widely preferred by people who have done both.
Jungle Experience runs weekly in the forest with a more underground lineup. Black Moon Culture fills the new moon. Waterfall and various beach parties fill most other weeks.
If you are on the island for more than a few days, you will not run out of nights out regardless of when the full moon falls.
The rest of Koh Phangan
The island is considerably more than Haad Rin, and most of it has nothing to do with the party.
The north and west — Srithanu, Haad Yao, Haad Salad, Mae Haad — is quiet, scenic and the centre of the island's large yoga and wellness scene. Bottle Beach in the north is reachable only by boat or a hard walk and is the best beach on the island. Than Sadet waterfall on the east coast was a favourite of several Thai kings, whose initials are carved into the rocks.
Plenty of visitors come for the party and end up staying a month in the north.
What it costs
There is an entry fee to get onto the beach on party night, and buckets and drinks are priced well above normal Thai rates. The bigger cost is accommodation, which multiplies around the full moon with minimum-stay requirements of three to five nights at many places.
Staying in Baan Tai or the north and travelling in for the night is substantially cheaper and means you are not sleeping next to a sound system for a week.
Is it worth it?
If you want a very large beach party and you go in with your expectations set correctly, yes. It is a genuine spectacle, the setting is beautiful, and there is nothing else at that scale on a beach anywhere.
It is not a cultural event, it is not Thai in any meaningful sense, and the crowd is almost entirely foreign and almost entirely in their twenties. If that is not what you are looking for, Koh Phangan on any other week of the month is one of the nicest islands in the gulf.