The short answer
Yes, Maya Bay is the beach from The Beach (2000), directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, based on Alex Garland's novel. It was filmed in 1999 on Koh Phi Phi Leh, the wild island of the Phi Phi archipelago.
The film made it world famous; the crowds that followed damaged the reef, and the bay was closed from June 2018 to January 2022. It is open again under strict rules, and closes every year from 1 August to 30 September.
The filming and the controversy
For the shoot, the production reshaped part of the beach (dunes flattened, coconut palms planted). The work sparked protests and a lawsuit from Thai environmental groups, and turned Maya Bay into a symbol of what mass tourism can cost a place.
From film set to mass tourism
After the release, Maya Bay went from quiet cove to the must-stop of every island tour: thousands of visitors a day, dozens of boats anchored in the bay, anchors and propellers on the coral. Within about fifteen years most of the bay's reef was gone.
The 2018 to 2022 closure
Thailand's national parks closed the bay in June 2018, first for a few months, then until January 2022. Coral was replanted, and blacktip reef sharks came back in numbers to the shallows, now one of the best sights in the bay.
Maya Bay today: the rules
- Boats no longer enter the bay: they dock at a pier in Loh Samah Bay, behind the cliffs, and you walk to the beach on a boardwalk.
- No swimming from the beach: you can wade at the water's edge. Snorkeling happens at Loh Samah or at Pileh Lagoon.
- Visits are capped in numbers and time.
- National park fee: 400 THB per adult, 200 THB per child.
- Yearly closure from 1 August to 30 September.
All the up-to-date details are on our Maya Bay page and in the reopening guide.
See it like in the film
The secret is timing. From late morning, boats from Phuket and Krabi arrive one after another. At sunrise the beach is almost empty and the light looks like the film. Because we are based on Koh Phi Phi, 20 to 30 minutes away by boat, our sunrise tour gets there before the crowds. For your own pace, a private longtail works very well too.
