North coast
Bophut
A working fishing village, still lived in.
Bophut grew as a Chinese-Thai trading and fishing settlement, and its old shophouse quarter — known today as Fisherman's Village — still functions as a real street rather than a recreation of one. A Friday night market, a working pier, restaurants set into buildings that predate the island's tourism economy.
It's the calmest of Samui's established addresses to actually live in day to day: walkable, socially continuous, close to the airport and to Choeng Mon and Plai Laem without sharing their more resort-scaled development.
