Phuket Airport to Cherngtalay by Car

How long is the drive from the airport to Cherngtalay?

Allow 20 to 25 minutes when the road is quiet. Short, by Phuket standards.

You leave the airport loop, join Thepkrasattri southbound and stay on it until the turn for Cherngtalay. Then the road swings west, the shops start, and a few minutes later you are at the Laguna gates or on the beach road at Bang Tao. No passes. No hairpins either (the south of the island has plenty of both). We hand over a lot of cars to people landing after midnight, and this is the side of the island where that first drive stays boring, which is exactly what you want after a long flight.

Cherngtalay, Laguna or the beach?

Guests often write the address three different ways. Cherngtalay is the town and the subdistrict, Laguna is the gated resort area beyond it, and Bang Tao is the long beach at the end. Send us the exact pin, not the area name, because a villa on a back lane of Cherngtalay and a hotel inside Laguna look close on the map and are a lot further apart by the time you have found the right gate.

If you are landing at Phuket Airport and heading to Cherngtalay, we can have the car waiting at arrivals: automatic, first-class commercial insurance, a refundable deposit from 5,000–30,000 ฿, depending on the model, the total for your dates fixed in chat. Send the flight number and the address in the chat, or use the booking form.

What that means for the car

Almost any class does this drive well. The highway is wide, the turn is easy to spot, and the town is flat, so you are not paying for power or ground clearance you will never use.

What does matter is width. Some villa lanes behind the main road are narrow, walled on both sides, with scooters coming the other way, and a compact car turns into them without a three-point shuffle. A family with four suitcases is the exception: take a crossover or a minivan and give the lanes more care. An economy car carries two suitcases in the boot, and we have watched plenty of couples fit a pram in as well.

Rain changes little on this road. The highway drains well and the town is flat, so the one adjustment is speed on the Thepkrasattri stretch, where spray from lorries cuts visibility for a second or two at a time.

Where to park in Cherngtalay

Parking is the easy part of living on this side. In our experience the shopping centres on the way to Bang Tao have free parking, Boat Avenue and Porto de Phuket are close enough to walk between once the car is parked, and most villas come with their own space.

Inside Laguna and the gated estates the rule is simple: the guard at the post needs to know you are expected. Put the car registration in your booking, or tell the villa manager before you arrive. A late delivery goes through the same post, so the name on the list matters more than the hour.

What to do in the first hour after landing

Why does the first hour matter so much? Because it is the only stretch of the trip on a fast road, done straight off a long flight, on the left.

The handover at the terminal car park usually takes about fifteen minutes: we inspect the car together, sign, photograph the body and check the fuel level. After that, drive the airport loop slowly and let the first two junctions come to you. By the time you reach the Cherngtalay turn, keeping left has stopped feeling strange, and the town traffic is slow enough to give you time to think.

• Send the flight number, not only the time — we track delays and wait
• Pin the villa, not the area — Cherngtalay, Laguna and Bang Tao are different gates
• Buy water and groceries in Cherngtalay — the shops are on the way, not a detour
• Take the side lanes slowly after dark — scooters pull out of every gate

The drive back for your flight

Going back is the same road in reverse, and it is short enough that people cut it too fine.

Add twenty minutes to the drive time for the return itself. There is one petrol station before the airport, and in the morning a queue of departing travellers builds up at it, so fill the tank in Cherngtalay the evening before. For an early flight we can collect the car at the villa instead, and a taxi takes you the rest of the way. The same logic works for Phuket Airport to Laguna by car, and for Phuket Airport to Bang Tao by car if your address is right on the beach.

Renting a car for this drive

What a car costs for this trip depends on the class and on how long you keep it: see the price per day in Phuket, and the search gives the total for your dates. We deliver the car to your hotel or villa at any hour, and a refundable deposit is taken at handover, its size depending on the model. First-class commercial insurance is included, and every car we deliver is an automatic, since manual cars are rare in Phuket. Booking, payment and return are explained in how renting a car with Kolesio works. Starting from Phuket Airport? See car rental at Phuket Airport.

Also useful before you book: can you rent without a deposit?.