Krabi with Kids – Thailand's Unforgettable Family Dream!

You don't go to Krabi for Krabi or Krabi Town. But it's an ideal starting point for breathtaking adventures in southern Thailand. We spent a few exciting days here with our two girls. Besides some excursions into the Thai jungle, we visited great islands off the coast of Ao Nang, swam in glowing plankton, and visited the Blue Pools in southern Krabi.

To give you some inspiration for your next trip to Thailand and Krabi, I've summarized our trip in my Krabi travel report for you. All the tours are suitable for families with children, both young and old. 🙂

Krabi Town – A modest town in southern Thailand

Krabi, with its capital Krabi Town, is located on the west coast of Thailand, in the far south of the country. It lies on the Andaman Sea, a part of the Indian Ocean, and is easily accessible from Phuket or Bangkok, and even from Samui with a nonstop flight. We chose the Samui-Krabi route. The flight takes 45 minutes.

In 2023, the province of Krabi is home to approximately 450,000 people, with 50,000 residing in the capital city. It's a small, not very idyllic town, but it becomes very lively in the evenings. Throughout the day, the air is filled with the scents of delicious Thai food. In the city, you'll find many small shops and restaurants, and night markets take place every evening. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, the large night market is held on Walking Street. Since we were there over the weekend, we visited it for three consecutive evenings. On the other evenings, there are two other markets located centrally that are also worth seeing.

Hotel recommendation Krabi Town

Since we were only in Krabi from Friday to Tuesday, we opted for the „The Brown Hotel“decided directly in Krabi Town. A stylishly furnished and centrally located hotel. Everything is within walking distance. You can easily visit the many night markets in Krabi Town and are only a few minutes away from the Krabi River, where you can start your first excursions.

The breakfast was very delicious and the staff super friendly and accommodating. The hotel even washed our laundry (or had it washed).

Transportation in Krabi

We exclusively used taxis/Grab in Krabi. Of course, there's the option to rent cars at Krabi International Airport. However, if you have the „Grab“ app installed, you can use it to travel from any point A to any point B. Taxis are available within minutes and will take you anywhere. From the airport to the city, in September 2023, it cost about 6 EUR.

The longest distance we traveled by taxi was to the Emerald Pools. A 3-hour drive (90 minutes each way), plus about 3 hours of waiting time for the driver on site, cost us a total of 50 EUR. We even picked out a restaurant on the way where he also waited for us.

More adventures include the longtail boats or speedboats that you can rent on the coast. But more on that later.

Discovery Trip in Krabi – The Four Best Excursions for Families

Krabi River, Fish Farm and Cave

This was a very spontaneous tour. We walked the five minutes from our hotel to the Krabi River and actually wanted to stroll along and see the area. A nice person with a longtail boat watched us and immediately struck up a conversation. Asked if we wanted to take a trip. Well, you shouldn't just get into strange boats when you're new to the area.

But it would only cost 12 EUR (500 Baht) for a good hour and he takes us to three stops. That sounds great, doesn't it? We follow him, get into his traditional Thai longtail boat, and let ourselves be surprised.

The first stop is already a huge highlight. We drive through a densely vegetated Mangrove forest, as is typical in Thailand. The trees, which practically grow out of the river, zoom past us very closely. We see small monkeys jumping around and otherwise hear nothing but the quiet hum of our boat's engine. The atmosphere here is truly both exciting and relaxing. Unfortunately, it's only about 5 minutes before we've already reached the other side of the forest. A fish farm that breeds fish is to be our second stop. After a few more minutes, we reach the Kanabnam View Seafood & Fish Farm.

We are the only guests here, as it's only 8:30 in the morning. This is a plus if you're visiting Krabi with kids. In return, they show us the catfish ponds and where they breed lobsters and crayfish. Everything here is just for their own consumption, as they run a large restaurant. However, it's still a bit too early for us for that. So, we look for our boatman and hope he hasn't taken off 😀 Ahh, he had parked around the corner. Perfect!

Afterwards, we drive along what feels like the entire river. It's a river delta here, by the way. The Ba Kan River flows into the Krabi River here, which is why everything is very expansive and scenically beautiful. When rocks stretch into the sky here, they are always green, due to the many trees and shrubs. Our third and final stop is the cave Khao Khanap Nam. Here too, we are the first and only visitors at the moment. That's great, because the place is quite eerie. The skeletons scattered on the floor don't really make it any better.

Our youngest is absolutely thrilled with the place and the cave. Daddy, let's walk deep inside. Sure, while Mommy and the oldest wait at the cave entrance, we'll explore this beautiful and large cave. Suddenly, we walk slightly downhill and it gets a bit darker. When I suddenly looked up, I noticed hundreds of bats hanging right above us. Ooh, that was creepy and we then continued walking very slowly and quietly, whispering. Thank God the bats didn't wake up. Lucky us! And the little one was sooo proud afterward. What an adventure.

7 Islands Sunset Tour with BBQ Dinner

What a highlight that was! The 7-island tour in Krabi. We were picked up from our hotel around 1 p.m. and a taxi took us to Ao Nang. Ao Nang is a small town right on the coast. We waited for our departure to the seven picturesque islands while having a coffee at Nopparat Thara Pier.

Here's an overview of the 7 islands off the coast of Krabi:

1. Koh Thap (Tup Islands)
2. Mor Island
3. Koh Kai (Chicken Island)
4. Koh Khom
5. Koh Ya Wa Sam
6. Koh Ma Tang Ming
7. Koh Poda

We set off in the speedboat to the first two islands. At low tide, they are connected by a sandbar, and if you're lucky, even Chicken Island is connected. I almost wrote „we were unlucky“ just now, but talking about bad luck in such a place would be anything but fitting 😀. It's paradise here. The beaches are Caribbean White, The water is turquoise and crystal clear. Also, it wasn't even that crowded. We were even able to take some photos all by ourselves. It's surely different in high season, so please keep in mind when looking at the pictures: We were here in September, during the rainy season.

Afterwards, we went to Chicken Island, where we went snorkeling. There are some beautiful coral reefs here, and we saw numerous colorful fish. An eel also briefly appeared. After about 30 minutes of snorkeling, we continued to the next two islands. There was a delicious BBQ there. Thai cuisine is the best and most diverse cuisine in the world, no matter where you are in Thailand. They maintain this standard even on the smallest islands.

The sunset itself wasn't that beautiful, but the atmosphere was great. On the horizon, there were dark rain clouds mixed with sunbeams and even rain in between. However, that was also far away.

My personal highlight, however, was still to come on the way back in the dark. Swimming in luminous plankton. I was the only one who jumped into the sea in complete darkness (Superman!!!). 😀 Everyone else watched from the boat. When irritated, meaning when you move in the water, the plankton lights up along your body. Such a cool feeling. In Krabi, the plankton glows green, and in some other areas, it even glows blue. Unfortunately, there are no photos because the glow is too weak for that. You can basically only see it underwater with goggles.

It's really storming and raining now. The 30-minute drive home was accordingly exciting. The captain really hit the gas anyway and we flew over the waves. 25% of our family would have given a „like“ for that 😀.

All this action, including food and taxi rides from and back to the hotel, cost us 105 EUR for 4 people. My family loved it. My comment as a Saarlander was „105 EUR for 7 hours of adventure: You can't complain about that!“Heh

Catfish Farm & The Tree House Café

Here's a tip for a trip in Krabi. We discovered the Catfish Farm and Treehouse Café, located right next to each other in the Thai jungle, by chance on an English-language blog. We called a taxi, and a Thai couple drove us there in their car. It took 30 minutes from Krabi Town and cost 5 EUR. There were four of us in the back, so we couldn't really buckle up, which you don't have to do in Thailand anyway. Thankfully, we're used to that from Malta, so it worked out great.

Catfish Farm

Nina, the owner, is an artist and has created her own jungle kingdom. For 1.50 EUR per person, you can spend the whole day here. We were greeted by her little monkey, Aston, who was just 6 months old. The mother died during childbirth, and Aston has already lived with Nina for 14 years. Consequently, the monkey is tame and lets us pet him.

We're taking a photo of the self-painted map of the garden, or rather the farm. It's an adventurous jungle walk, which would be a better word for the farm. The most exciting thing here is that a cobra or water snake could pop out from around any corner. Otherwise, you walk through the jungle here and occasionally see some artworks in the woods, and finally a lake with actual giant catfish.

Exciting are the numerous bridges between the individual stations. You repeatedly cross a river or small lakes, or tributaries. That's action, especially since it started raining really hard halfway through. Nina ran after us with an umbrella. But we had already found shelter in a small hut.

Mom suddenly says, „Ooh, did you see that behind you?“ ... No??? What? TELL US ALREADY!!! We're in the jungle, after all. ... „There's a... umm... elephant!“ We all slowly turn around, and sure enough. Thank goodness, on the other side of the river, stands an elephant looking at us in bewilderment. But we're the ones who are surprised.

Here's a request: We're not sure if it was a wild elephant or if elephant riding is offered nearby. That's super popular in Thailand, but it's also animal cruelty! Please never book an elephant tour through the jungle. The animals hate it. We prepared food for elephants in Samui and fed it to them. These elephants were rescued from such operators. That way, you do something good for the animals and are still very close to them.

And now, moving on, because we were already wet to our underwear. It is warm rain here. Besides the catfish, which look really healthy and okay, there is a crocodile and turtles. However, these are kept in a dismal concrete enclosure. Not very nice and natural.

Since it was raining heavily, the path was already a few centimeters underwater. We didn't know until then that snakes also come out because of darkness. Fortunately, we didn't encounter any. Nevertheless, the tour is of course much safer in sunshine. However, there was still a moment of fright on the way back. I was, of course, the jungle guide, and so I ran ahead and around a corner when my heart really sank into my shoes.

A giant crocodile on the loose!!!!!

First, I noticed a huge crocodile right in front of me on the path. 😳 Oh my God!!! I immediately took a few slow steps back and held the girls back. Okay, actually I just wanted my wife's umbrella. Umbrella as a weapon, why not.

But the supposed crocodile was just as scared as I was and disappeared into the jungle just as quickly. I managed to take a video of it from behind, and it turned out to be an Asian water monitor. Those things can be up to 3 meters long! Here's a typical photo of what an Asian water monitor usually does in Thailand.

But we survived and it was simply exciting. Right next to the catfish farm is Baan Ton Mai Cafe – Treehouse Cafe. A beautifully idyllic place in the middle of the jungle. This time, it was perfect for relaxing and we enjoyed a delicious lunch there. It was also the perfect place for us to dry off again. If you come by here, be sure to check out the whole café. It's really big and spread out over a large part of the jungle.

Emerald Pool Krabi – Blue Pool Krabi

If you're traveling in Thailand and Krabi as a family, this excursion is perfect for you. Therefore, it must not be missing from my Krabi travel report 2023. About a 90-minute drive away is Thung Teao Forest National Park, which features three breathtakingly beautiful pools. It's a wonderful national park, ideal for experiencing Krabi with kids.

A taxi will take us to the main entrance, from which you still have about a kilometer to walk. You can do this either relaxed along the forest path or via a jungle walk. The latter is a narrow wooden boardwalk through the jungle. I think you already know which path we chose.

The weather today is great, so we're enjoying our walk along small rivers and streams, as well as numerous small lakes along the way. In the forest, we discover big colorful butterflies and hand-sized spiders that have spun impressive webs. After about 30 minutes, we arrive at the Crystal Pool, the first of three pools. You're not allowed to swim here, but we're taking advantage of the great weather and taking some beautiful photos.

The second pool is finally the Emerald Pool, where you are allowed to swim. There are some tourists here, but the big rush hasn't happened today yet. So we enjoy a cool dip and savor the natural water here. The pool or lake has two inlets, one cold and one about 30 degrees Celsius warm. However, the cold water predominates, so you can take a refreshing bath here.

Our kids find the fish funny, swimming past them again and again. The lake is only about 1.20 m deep, so you can stand everywhere as an adult. Even funnier for the kids is seeing two adult Chinese people swim past us with arm floaties. „Look, Daddy, we're so much smaller and can already swim, and they can't yet.“ Erm, yeah, but that actually happens quite often, and we think it's pretty cool that these two adults still dare to go into the pool! 😁

After cooling off, we continue through the jungle and reach the Blue Pool after about 20 minutes. It lives up to its name more than deserved. The lake has a fantastic turquoise-blue color, almost glowing and almost unreal. You are not allowed to swim here because the water gets up to 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

The feeling here is indescribable. There's also nothing going on, and we can enjoy the peace of the jungle. A very beautiful place and an absolute recommendation.

Conclusion Krabi with Kids

It's actually indescribable, but I'll try anyway. 😉 In retrospect, we really liked Krabi Town, even though at first we had to get used to the very traditional Thailand. Besides the Buddhist temple in the city, we also visited the many night markets. There's one every evening, and from Friday to Sunday there's the big night market on Walking Street with live music and countless food stalls. We all really enjoyed that.

The excursions around Krabi Town were superb and they were the reason for our trip to Krabi. We flew for only 45 minutes from Samui. A truly worthwhile trip. My highlights in Krabi were the jungle walks, swimming in the bioluminescent plankton, the Emerald Pool, and finally my happy family, who discovered something new at every turn. Our kids were so active for four days with all the new animals, stories, and plants that we returned to Samui to rest.

But it's precisely these experiences and adventures that make life for us. Therefore, I also wish you an unforgettable trip to Krabi and lots of fun with the following pictures, which at least give a glimpse of how many adventures we've had.

Impressions of Krabi with Family