Nights out

Phuket's nightlife has one world-famous street and a dozen quieter registers around it. The island serves every evening temperament — the trick is knowing which coast holds which.

The registers

• Bangla Road (Patong): Thailand's most concentrated party strip — neon canyons, bar-beer chaos, music spilling from every doorway. Go at least once as spectacle (it's genuinely one of a kind), guard your drink and wallet like a city person, and know it's an adult playground after dark — families drift out as the evening deepens;
• Beach clubs & sunset bars: the polished register — Bang Tao and Surin's beach clubs, cliff bars above Nai Harn and Promthep country, cocktails timed to the west-facing sunset the whole coast shares;
• Old Town evenings: the civilised register — shophouse bars, live-music cafés and craft beer under heritage facades (the town);
• Night markets: the family register — the weekend mega-markets and nightly food streets are legitimate evenings out, dinner and entertainment in one (eating);
• Cabaret: Phuket's famous ladyboy cabaret theatres stage genuinely professional song-and-feathers productions — book the real theatres, tip the performers properly for photos.

Night craft

• Agree tuk-tuk fares before boarding — night rates are theatre of their own; ride-hail apps keep it honest;
• Drink-safety basics apply as in any resort town: watch pours, pace the heat, hydrate;
• Jet-lagged early risers get the best of both: sunset bar, market dinner, dawn beach — the island's finest nightlife is arguably 6am.