Krabi to Koh Lanta

The road route heads south out of Krabi Town for about 40 minutes to Ban Hua Hin pier, where the whole van drives onto a car ferry for the short hop to Koh Lanta Noi. That crossing takes 10 to 15 minutes. What it doesn't have is a schedule: the ferries run continuously from roughly 06:00 to 22:00 and leave when they're full, so you turn up, join the queue, and go. In quiet months you're aboard almost immediately. In December and January the queue can add 20 to 40 minutes, and on a bad afternoon considerably more — the boats simply cannot clear the cars fast enough.

That queue is the entire difference between the two-hour version of this trip and the four-hour one. Nothing else on the route varies much. If you have any flexibility, travel in the morning: the ferry backlog builds through the day and peaks with the afternoon arrivals.

Once on Koh Lanta Noi it's about nine kilometres across the island to the Siri Lanta bridge, which has connected Lanta Noi to Lanta Yai since 2016. Guides and forum posts describing two separate car-ferry crossings are describing a Koh Lanta that stopped existing a decade ago — there is one boat and one bridge. Most minivans then run down Lanta Yai's west coast dropping passengers at their hotels, which is worth knowing if you're staying south: you get delivered to the door rather than left at a pier.

From November to April, passenger ferries cross from Klong Jilad pier just south of Krabi Town to Saladan at Koh Lanta's northern tip — three or four sailings a day across several operators, typically starting around 10:30 or 11:00. The fast boats, Ao Nang Princess and Andaman Wave among them, do it in about 90 minutes in calm seas. The Lanta Naga, an older wooden ferry, takes closer to two hours and costs roughly a quarter less, which is a fair trade if you're not in a hurry and would rather be on a boat than in a van.

Outside that window the picture changes sharply. A mid-morning sailing runs year-round in principle, weather permitting, but the afternoon departures are November-to-April only and rough-sea days cancel boats at short notice through the southwest monsoon. This is the trap on this route: plenty of schedules online list the full high-season timetable with no seasonal note attached, so a May traveller books a 13:30 ferry that hasn't sailed in six weeks. If you're travelling between May and October, plan on the minivan and treat any boat as a bonus.

When the ferry is running, book ahead for December through February — the operators run limited sailings and they fill. Note also where it leaves you: Saladan is the northern village, which is convenient if you're staying at Long Beach or Klong Dao and a further 30 to 45 minutes and ฿300–600 by songthaew if you're down at Kantiang Bay.

There is a long-running plan to connect Koh Lanta to the mainland with a road bridge, linking Nua Khlong district in Krabi to Koh Lanta Noi and removing the car ferry entirely. The contract is in place and completion is targeted for 2029. If you're reading a hopeful blog post about the bridge that's about to change everything, this is the one — and it is still several years out.

Two practical consequences. First, budget for the ferry queue on every trip you plan before then; the crossing is the only genuinely unpredictable part of the journey. Second, when the bridge does open it will change what Koh Lanta is: a two-hour drive with no boat makes an island that has stayed noticeably quieter than Phi Phi or Krabi's beach strips considerably easier to reach. Whether that's an argument for going now is a matter of taste, but it is the reason Lanta still feels the way it does.