Golden hour, west coast
Slide the sun through the year: when it sets, when the golden hour starts and where on the horizon it goes down, seen from the seven west-coast beaches that face it.
January This month
18:18sunset
21° south of due west: face the sea and look well to the left. It goes down over the open gulf.
February This month
18:29sunset
13° south of due west: face the sea and look a little to the left.
March This month
18:31sunset
Almost due west: straight out to sea. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
April This month
18:30sunset
10° north of due west: face the sea and look a little to the right. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
May This month
18:33sunset
19° north of due west: face the sea and look well to the right. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
June This month
18:40sunset
24° north of due west: face the sea and look well to the right. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
July This month
18:45sunset
22° north of due west: face the sea and look well to the right. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
August This month
18:38sunset
14° north of due west: face the sea and look a little to the right. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
September This month
18:21sunset
Almost due west: straight out to sea. The sun drops toward the Ang Thong islands.
October This month
18:03sunset
8° south of due west: face the sea and look a little to the left.
November This month
17:56sunset
19° south of due west: face the sea and look well to the left. It goes down over the open gulf.
December This month
18:03sunset
23° south of due west: face the sea and look well to the left. It goes down over the open gulf.
Computed, not observed: a solar-position model run for the island, accurate to about a minute. The horizon is drawn as seen from the west coast.
The west coast
The sun does not set due west most of the year. It swings south of west around the December solstice and north of it around June, toward the Ang Thong islands. Pick a month above and the lines swing with it.
Where the sun goes down lines point at the sunset
Open the full mapAng Thong islands, off the map
Seven beaches
These are every beach on this coastline that actually faces the sunset, run north to south. A calm sea and an open horizon do the rest; none of them needs a bar or a viewing deck to work at dusk.
A small bay closed in by low headlands on both sides, quiet enough that the sunset over the water is mostly yours.
A working shore lined with anchored longtail boats and fishermen's houses rather than sunbeds, so the sunset falls behind boat masts and drying nets instead of an empty view.
The island's ferry town, where the piers that carry all its traffic to the mainland double as the best vantage point once the boats stop running for the evening and the working waterfront empties out.
A quieter, less built-up stretch where a shallow reef sits just offshore, so the same low light that colours the sky also catches the water over it at low tide.
A long beach that shelves out so gradually it draws families for the swimming by day, then empties enough by evening that the sunset over its flat water goes largely unwatched.
Its name translates from Thai as beautiful cliff, for the rocky headlands that frame the water here and turn the sunset into a view rather than just a light show.
A quiet, coarse-sand beach with no beach road of bars behind it, where wading birds work the tide flats and the sunset closes out an already slow stretch of coast.
Watch it with a drink from a west-facing bar, or from the deck of a boat out in the gulf.
Year of light
Sunset moves by almost an hour across the year, from 17:56 in November to 18:45 in July. Each bar is one evening: golden hour, the sunset dot, then the last light before dark.
FAQ
No. They come from a solar-position approximation, accurate to about a minute at this latitude, not from an observation on the beach. Close enough to plan an evening by, not to bet on the exact instant.
The sun's setting point swings along the horizon across the year rather than staying fixed due west. It reaches its southern and northern extremes around the two solstices and only crosses due west near the equinoxes.
Yes. They are pulled from our own beach survey by the same west-facing orientation, not chosen for having a bar or a view deck, so a beach with neither can still be on the list.
No. A few, like the ferry town waterfront and the working fishing shore, are not swimming beaches at all. Others shelve gently and suit an evening swim; check the beach's own page before you go.
It shifts through the year. This page computes the time from a solar-position model, accurate to about a minute, so check the month row for your travel date rather than relying on one fixed time.
Tonight, Saturday 31 October
14° south of due west: face the sea and look a little to the left.
Tonight's pick: Taling Ngam Beach. Of the seven, it faces closest to where the sun goes down tonight, with no headland in the way.
This week it sets at 17:56-17:58 every evening.