Renting a Car in Phuket in December
December is the top of the high season: dry, bright and very crowded. The weather creates no problems at all for a driver this month. Everything difficult about December is other people — the traffic, the car parks, and the fact that the good cars are already booked.
Updated 13 September 2026
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December: the weather rests, the road works
Dry tarmac, even light, no squall halfway through a journey. From a purely driving point of view this is the easiest month of the year on the island: grip is predictable, visibility is good, and nothing about the surface catches you out.
What replaces the weather is volume. Every road that matters carries more traffic than at any other time, and the coastal route between Patong, Kamala and Bang Tao becomes a queue in both morning and evening. The distances have not changed; the times have, sometimes by a factor of two.
The other December characteristic is that the traffic is largely made up of visitors. That means more hesitation at junctions, more sudden stops for a photograph, more cars in the wrong lane at a roundabout, and a lot of scooters ridden by people who took delivery of one the same morning. Leave more space than you would at home.
What it means for the car
In a month of traffic jams, the load falls on the cooling system and on your patience. Air conditioning that only works properly at speed is genuinely miserable in a December queue, so test it at idle at handover rather than on the road. It is the single most useful check of the month.
Engine temperature is worth a glance in slow traffic too, particularly in an older car on a hot afternoon. Nothing dramatic usually happens, but a gauge climbing towards the top in a stationary queue is information you want before it becomes a problem on the pass.
Otherwise December is kind to cars. The roads are clean and dry, there is no salt spray from wet tarmac, and the wear is entirely in the clutch and the brakes of stop-start traffic. An automatic is worth more in this month than in any other.
Parking at the peak
The arithmetic is simple: there are fewer spaces than cars. Nothing clever gets round that, and the only thing that works is planning. Arrive at a beach before mid-morning or after mid-afternoon, eat early or late rather than at the peak, and accept a five-minute walk instead of circling for twenty.
Covered car parks at the shopping centres are the reliable fallback in the busy districts, and they stay usable when the street parking has been full since breakfast. In Patong particularly, parking in a garage and walking is far quicker than the alternative.
Do not be tempted by the improvised options when everything is full. A car left blocking a private entrance or on a red-and-white kerb gets clamped or moved in December just as it does in June, and finding it has been moved on a busy evening is a genuinely bad end to a day.
TipIn December, plan the day around the parking rather than the driving. Decide where the car will sit before you set off, arrive outside the peak hours, and pick a shopping centre garage over a beachfront street whenever the two are close together. It reliably saves more time than any route choice.
December routes
Dry weather opens everything: the full loop of the island, the north, the mainland, and the unsurfaced tracks that hold water for half the year. This is the month when a trip to a remote beach or a viewpoint down a dirt road is straightforward rather than a gamble.
The only real constraint is the crowd, and the answer to it is timing. Start early. A viewpoint at eight in the morning is a different place from the same viewpoint at four in the afternoon, and the drive there is a different drive. By mid-morning the coach tours are moving and the roads reflect it.
Mainland trips work well this month for the same reason the island is busy — the weather is reliable. Khao Lak, Phang Nga and Krabi are all comfortable day trips in December, and the highway north is the fastest road in the region. Just allow for the return leg landing in the evening traffic on the island.
Renting in December
The rule of the month is to arrange things in advance. As the holiday weeks approach there are very few cars left unbooked, and the ones that remain are rarely the class anyone wanted. Automatics and larger vehicles go first, and they go early.
Book the collection arrangements as carefully as the car. Airport handovers are busy in December, delivery slots fill up, and a vague plan to sort it out on arrival is how people end up in a taxi queue with luggage. Give the flight number and the hotel when you book.
The same applies at the end. Returns in the last week of the month are heavily booked, and the run to the airport carries holiday traffic on top of everything else. Message us on WhatsApp with your dates as soon as they are fixed — Telegram works too — and we will hold the class you actually need rather than the one that happens to be left.
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Common questions
What is driving like in Phuket in December?
Mechanically it is the easiest month, because the tarmac is dry and the light is good. The difficulty is entirely traffic: the coastal roads queue in both peaks and the car parks fill early.
How far ahead should I book a car in December?
As early as your dates are fixed, particularly for an automatic or anything larger than a compact. Close to the holiday weeks there is very little left unbooked, and what remains is rarely the right class.
Is parking difficult in high season?
Yes, in the busy districts there are simply fewer spaces than cars. Arriving outside the peak hours and using shopping centre garages instead of beachfront streets is the only thing that reliably works.
Can I do mainland trips in December?
Easily, and the weather makes it the best month for them. Allow for the return leg arriving in the island's evening traffic, which adds more time than the mainland part of the drive does.
Is an automatic worth it in December?
More than in any other month. Much of your driving will be stop-start on the coastal roads, and that is exactly the situation where a manual gearbox stops being enjoyable.
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