Where to

Phuket · Pansea Beach

Amanpuri

Aman began here. Teak pavilions in a working coconut plantation, and a black pool with nothing at the far end but the Andaman.

Past the gate the noise stops. There is no lobby. What there is instead is a raised timber platform under a pitched roof, open on every side, and a view straight down a black-tiled pool between two rows of coconut palms to the Andaman Sea. The drive from Phuket International is 45 minutes of ordinary island — rubber, palm oil, Bang Tao's building sites — and none of it prepares you for the last 200 metres. Ed Tuttle drew it and it opened in 1988, and it has not needed changing since. Everything here is a roof, a floor, and the distance between them. Pointed Ayutthaya gables in dark timber with a red line along the bargeboard, standing on posts, joined by raised walkways through a coconut plantation the resort was built inside rather than cleared for. The pavilions went in between the trees, which is why they sit where they do. Below the pool a broad flight of stone steps runs down the hillside to Pansea Beach, a crescent of pale sand between granite boulders that the resort has largely to itself.

One pavilion gable close up at the end of the day — the pitched roof, the fretted timber apex and the red-painted bargeboard that every roof on this property carries.

A pavilion is one room of 50 square metres, and it is the same 50 square metres in every grade. Teak on the floor and stacked teak panelling on the walls, a low platform bed with a tall lacquer lamp either side of it, a bathroom of latticed screens and twin vanities and a deep tub, and a dressing room you could sleep in. What changes as you go up is entirely outside: 65 square metres of sundeck and a lounging sala at the bottom, 97 and a private pool from the Garden Pool grade upward, and then only which way it faces and how much sea is in it. The difference between the cheapest pavilion and the dearest is the view and the pool, not the room. Late in the afternoon the light comes in flat under the eaves, the lattice throws its grid across the teak, and the sea goes from turquoise to pewter. The pavilions with pools sit still and dark; the ones without look out into palms.

Nobody performs here. Aman's way of looking after people started here, and it is quiet rather than warm: there is enough staff to each pavilion that things simply happen. In the villas it goes further — a live-in housekeeper, a Thai chef and a villa host apiece, so you eat what you feel like eating at the hour you feel like eating it. Where the place is genuinely expert is the water. It keeps its own fleet, an MTI speedboat and a 26-metre Riva Domino, and Phang Nga Bay's limestone stacks, Phi Phi, Koh Wa and the Similans are all a morning away. There is a full PADI operation, with the pool for the first lesson and Shark Point, Koh Dok Mai, Anemone Reef and the King Cruiser wreck for the rest. On the surface: Seabobs, eFoils, a flyboard, a MasterCraft for wakeboarding and waterskiing, and stand-up boards for people who would rather not. Ashore there are 4 floodlit courts with ATP- and WTA-ranked coaches from LUX Tennis, 5 golf courses within 45 minutes with the clubs thrown in, Khao Phra Thaeo's rainforest for a 4-hour morning walk among gibbons, and Phuket Old Town's Sunday night market. Children get the Eco-Beach Discovery Centre — a nature museum, a craft room, batik, Thai cooking and dance — and teenagers get the Hot Spot, which has a bouldering wall, a skate halfpipe and a room full of GoPros and editing kit.

The house

The whole resort from the air: pointed Thai roofs scattered through a coconut plantation on a green headland, with the crescent of Pansea Beach and its granite boulders below.

The main pool from its shallow end, loungers set out under the palms on both sides and the open sea at the far edge in flat afternoon light.

Red-ridged pavilion roofs stepping down through dense palms towards the water, the way the resort reads from below.

Straight down onto the headland's edge — jungle, black rock, and clear turquoise water breaking white over the shallows.

The pool terrace at the top of the resort: two long ranks of loungers, a timber sala at the end, and the sea past the palms.

Drink and Dine

5 restaurants and a bar

Cucina del raccolto — the harvest, cooked plainly
Arva
When
Dinner 6 to 11
Season
Closed each year for the resort's refurbishment; in 2026, 16 May to 13 September
Tables
Worth booking
Arva means cultivated land, and the kitchen takes the word seriously enough that the shopping list is the menu: fish landed by Bang Tao's boats that morning, free-range chicken and eggs out of Phang Nga, fruit and vegetables from the markets in Phuket Old Town. What comes of it is fresh pasta, risotto and sharing plates — refined versions of things everyone already knows, with a few dishes each season that only make sense here. The room is a glass-walled pavilion under a pitched Thai roof, which should not work for an Italian restaurant and does. Open to non-residents. The pasta and risotto masterclass is taught by the Italian chef and is worth an afternoon.
Full entry →
Washoku, at the top of the steps, by Kengo Kuma
Akari
When
Dinner 6 to 11, last order 10.30. Omakase Wednesday to Sunday, 6 and 8.30
Season
Closed each year for the resort's refurbishment; in 2026, 16 May to 13 September
Tables
By reservation
Akari means light, and the room is built to catch it: Kengo Kuma designed it, it stands at the head of Amanpuri's stone staircase, and the whole of the bay is in front of it. The cooking follows washoku — Japan's UNESCO-listed tradition, which is less a style than a discipline about seasonality and about doing as little to an ingredient as it will tolerate. There is izakaya seating on one side, an omakase counter on the other and a sake bar between them, so an evening here can be 3 dishes and a drink or it can be the whole counter. The omakase runs Wednesday to Sunday at 6 and half past 8, and the counter is small.
Full entry →
The main room, and the south of Thailand cooked properly
Buabok
When
Breakfast 6.30 to 11; dinner 6 to 11
Season
Closed each year for the resort's refurbishment; in 2026, 16 May to 13 September
Tables
Worth booking
Beside the pool, open-sided, and the room the day begins and ends in — breakfast here every morning, Thai and international, and then southern Thai cooking at night. The south is the fiery end of the country's food and Buabok does not soften it: aromatic curries, tom yam laced with lemongrass, green mango salad with betel leaf and crispy soft-shell crab, and whatever the local boats brought in. Herbs and vegetables come out of Amanpuri's own gardens and the curry pastes are ground by hand, which you can watch and then learn at the Thai cooking masterclass. Open to non-residents, subject to availability.
Full entry →
The beach club, Mediterranean, and only in season
Nura
When
Lunch midday to 4; bar midday to 7
Season
Closed for the season; reopens December 2026
Tables
Worth booking
Nura sits on the sand at Pansea and works the Mediterranean end of the resort's cooking. Grilling is the whole idea: the day's seafood and local meat over fire, Spanish-leaning tapas, and salads meant to be shared across the table. It opens at noon and runs through the afternoon, with bar service until 7 and the light doing most of the work.
Full entry →
The bar, next to the steps, facing the right way
The Sunset Terrace
When
Bar 11 in the morning until 11 at night; lunch midday to 4; dinner 6 to 11
Season
Closed each year for the resort's refurbishment; in 2026, 16 May to 13 September
Tables
Worth booking
The social room of the property, set beside the great staircase with the whole bay in front of it and the beach directly below. The cocktails are the reason to come: the Elixir list is built out of Thai myths and folk stories, on locally distilled spirits and organic ingredients, and The Classics are made with Aman's own gin. Lunch and dinner are served as well as drinks, and it works as a room before dinner and again afterwards, when the digestifs come with a petit four. The mixology masterclass is held here.
Full entry →
Lunch on the sand, off a live grill and a wood oven
The Beach Terrace
When
midday to 4, last order 3.30
Season
Closed for the season; reopens November 2026
Tables
Worth booking
A lounge-style room on the beach, looking straight at the Andaman, built round the outdoor kitchen that does all the cooking. Organic meat, whole fish and handmade pizzas come off the fire; the Thai side of the card runs to wok-fried vegetables, noodles and satay, and there is enough vegetarian cooking on it to eat here twice. Finish with the Phuket pineapple, grown on the property. Resident guests only, and lunchtime only.
Full entry →

What is here

The Holistic Wellness Centre
There are 12 treatment rooms, each with its own shower, lavatory and dressing area, in pavilions that step down the hillside. What separates it from a hotel spa is that the diagnosis comes first: a wellness specialist sits with you, and depending on what they find you are sent to a therapist, a doctor, a physiotherapist or a traditional Chinese medicine consultant, with nutrition and lifestyle coaching over the top. There is a granite steam room, an infrared sauna and a cold plunge, a finishing salon for hair and nails, a juice bar, and a fountain terrace where the health drinks are served. Amanpuri Awakening — a Thai herb and coconut-oil polish, a classical Thai massage and a personalised facial — is the thing to book on the first afternoon of the stay, not the last.
The Spa House
Separate from the wellness centre and taken by the half-day or the whole day, with private access to the hydrotherapy circuit — a Vichy room, a banya, an infrared sauna, a swimming pool and an outdoor jacuzzi. Take it if you want the building to yourselves.
Tennis, Padel and the Muay Thai Ring
There are 4 floodlit courts, 2 of them now given over to padel, with ATP- and WTA-ranked coaches from LUX Tennis — private lessons, group clinics, a hitting partner, or a match under the lights. A resident pro takes the courts for the winter. Up at the gym there is a professional Muay Thai ring, and the training in it is the real thing: the art of 8 limbs, fists, elbows, knees and shins, taught for strength and balance as much as for self-defence.
The Water, and Everything on It
Most of the kit comes with the room: kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, snorkelling gear and Hobie Cat sailing. Beyond that there are Seabobs, Fliteboard eFoils, a flyboard, and a MasterCraft towing wakeboards, wakeskates and old-fashioned waterskis. A full PADI operation runs from the beach, with the first lesson in the resort pool and boats out daily to Shark Point, Koh Dok Mai, Anemone Reef and the King Cruiser wreck. Surfing is at Bang Tao, 15 minutes up the coast, where the water is shallow enough to learn in.
The Steps, and Pansea Beach
A single broad flight of stone stairs runs from the pool terrace down through the palms to the sand — the most photographed thing on the property and, more usefully, the reason the beach feels private. Pansea is a crescent between two granite headlands and the resort has the run of it. The boats moor off it, the beach bar works from breakfast to sunset, and in the season the Beach Terrace and Nura set tables out among the boulders.
The Black Pool
Freshwater, 27 metres of it, clad in midnight-blue tile and laid on the resort's central axis, with two rows of coconut palms down either side, salas at the corners and nothing at the far end but the Andaman. It is the image Amanpuri is known by and it has not changed since 1988. There is a 15-metre lap pool at the Pool Terrace for anyone who wants to swim lengths, and a shallow third for children at the Eco-Beach Discovery Centre.
The Fleet
Amanpuri keeps its own boats and uses them properly. An MTI speedboat puts Phang Nga Bay's limestone stacks, Koh Wa, Phi Phi and — at a stretch — the Similans within a morning; a 26-metre Riva Domino does the same thing slowly and with lunch. Charters run overnight with a full crew for island-hopping, and deep-sea fishing and dive itineraries are built to order. The Andaman Sunset Cruise is the short version: down the west coast, snorkelling off Koh Wa, canapés and champagne as the sun goes.

Good to know

Amanpuri is closed from 15 May and reopens on 14 September 2026. Ask the concierge about dates either side of it.
Two of the restaurants keep their own seasons — Nura opens in December and the Beach Terrace in November.
A gala dinner is compulsory on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, billed on top of the rate. Ask the concierge for the price before you book those dates.

The rooms

The room is the same. The outside is not.

Every 1-bedroom pavilion at Amanpuri has the same 50 square metres inside, whichever grade you take. The teak, the platform bed, the lattice, the twin vanities and the deep tub are identical throughout. What changes is outside — 65 to 97 square metres of it: a sundeck and a lounging sala at the base, a private pool from Garden Pool Pavilion upward, and then which way it faces.

Garden, partial ocean, or ocean: the real difference

These 5 pool pavilions differ by outlook.

Garden Pool Pavilion looks into planting, with no sea in it at all.

Partial Ocean Pool Pavilion has a wedge of bay between the palms — a glimpse, not a panorama.

Ocean Pool Pavilion looks down at the water.

Deluxe Ocean Pool Pavilion sits highest on the hillside and sees furthest.

Premium Ocean Pool Pavilion is the only one with the open horizon. There is 1 Deluxe and 1 Premium on the whole property, so ask for them by name.

A villa is a compound, not a bigger room

Each of the 13 villa grades sits on 3,000 square metres or more, with free-standing bedroom pavilions round a pool, living and dining rooms indoors and out, a kitchen, and a housekeeper and Thai chef who live in and cook what you ask for when you ask for it. They run from 3 bedrooms to 9. Ocean villas sit at the tip of the peninsula, with sweeping sea.

Garden villas sit back among the coconut palms, closer to the resort, and cost less. No two villas within a grade are quite alike — some have a gym, a massage room, a steam room or a cinema — so the sizes below are ranges, and the concierge should confirm which one you are getting.

A single enormous tree spreading over the beach with dining tables and canvas parasols set out beneath it and the sea a few paces away.

Tables laid on the sand under cream parasols, granite boulders on one side and the surf running up the beach on the other.

Everything here is a roof, a floor, and the distance between them.

The particulars

Arrive: From 2 PM
Depart: By noon

Where it is

Amanpuri, Pansea Beach
Cherngtalay, Thalang District
Phuket, Phuket 83110
Thailand

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The small print

What our rate includes: The figure we quote is the room and every tax on it. Nothing more is collected on departure except what you choose to spend while you are here.
Pavilions and villas are two different holidays: A pavilion is one room for two people with a deck outside it, on the resort's own hillside, reached by the walkways — the classic Amanpuri and the reason the place exists. A villa is a private compound of free-standing bedroom pavilions round a pool, with a live-in housekeeper and its own Thai chef, set apart from the resort at the tip of the peninsula or back among the palms. One is not a larger version of the other. Read both before you choose, and note that a villa rate carries 3 things a pavilion rate does not: the chef and the villa host, fast-track arrival, and the children's centre daily.
How many people a pavilion takes, and how many a villa: A pavilion takes 3 in any combination — 3 adults, or 2 adults and a child. Not a fourth of any age. The Two-Bedroom Pool Pavilion takes 4. Villas run to 3 a bedroom, up to a ceiling of 19 guests however many bedrooms there are above 6. A party of more than 3 is choosing between a villa and two pavilions, and the concierge should confirm the arrangement before you commit.

Room	Size	Sleeps	View	Outdoor
Pavilion	115 m²	3	The plantation and gardens	A sundeck and a lounging sala
Garden Pavilion	115 m²	3	Its own tropical garden	A private sala and a sun deck
Garden Pool Pavilion	147 m²	3	Its own walled courtyard	A pool in a walled courtyard
Partial Ocean Pool Pavilion	147 m²	3	A wedge of the Andaman	A private pool and dining terrace
Two-Bedroom Pool Pavilion	262 m²	4	The Andaman, plantation behind	A private pool terrace, 2 salas
Three-Bedroom Ocean Villa	4,000 m²	9	The Andaman, over the pool	A central pool, living and dining salas
Four-Bedroom Garden Villa	3,200 m²	12	Its own pool and garden	A wide terrace, pool at its centre
Five-Bedroom Garden Villa	2,950 m²	15	Its own pool and garden	A large open terrace round the pool
Five-Bedroom Ocean Villa	3,600 m²	15	The Andaman, over the pool	A terrace built to extend indoors
Six-Bedroom Garden Villa	3,200 m²	18	Its own pool and garden	A sunken living sala, open roof
Six-Bedroom Ocean Villa	3,000 m²	18	The Andaman, from the headland	A long sun terrace, 2 salas
Seven-Bedroom Ocean Villa	3,000 m²	19	The Andaman, from the headland	A long sun terrace built for evenings
Eight-Bedroom Garden Villa	3,200 m²	19	Its own pool and garden	A pool with lounging and dining round it
Ocean Pool Pavilion	147 m²	3	The Andaman below	A reflective pool on a timber deck
Deluxe Ocean Pool Pavilion	147 m²	3	The Andaman, high on the hill	A pool on a wide hillside terrace
Premium Ocean Pool Pavilion	147 m²	3	The open horizon	A palm-shaded terrace and dining sala
Three-Bedroom Garden Villa	3,200 m²	9	Its own pool and garden	A rooftop lounge over the pool
Four-Bedroom Ocean Villa	3,500 m²	12	The Andaman, over the pool	A sunken living area by the pool
Seven-Bedroom Garden Villa	3,200 m²	19	Its own pool and garden	An open-plan compound round the pool
Eight-Bedroom Ocean Villa	3,200 m²	19	The Andaman, across the pool	A large pool, courtyard, open-air salas
Nine-Bedroom Ocean Villa	6,300 m²	19	The Andaman, from its own headland	A private cinema room and a gym

Amanpuri

Amanpuri — the portrait

The house

Arva

Akari

Buabok

Nura

The Sunset Terrace

The Beach Terrace

What is here

The Holistic Wellness Centre

The Spa House

Tennis, Padel and the Muay Thai Ring

The Water, and Everything on It

The Steps, and Pansea Beach

The Black Pool

The Fleet

Good to know

The rooms

Understanding the room types

The particulars

Where it is

The small print

Side by side

The rooms themselves