Koh Yung

Ko Yung, a small island just north of Phi Phi Don, is currently closed to all tourism — no landing, snorkeling, diving or boat mooring is permitted on its north and west shores. The closure is a marine conservation measure inside Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, not a seasonal restriction, and it has no announced end date.

The reef around Ko Yung was damaged by rising sea temperatures, coral bleaching and years of heavy tour-boat and snorkeling traffic before the park designated it a no-entry restoration zone. The results have been genuine: surveys after roughly four years of closure found coral cover recovered to over 80% with no active bleaching, and fish behaviour reverting to natural patterns rather than the crowd-conditioned feeding seen at busier sites. Rather than reopen once the numbers looked good, the park has kept the closure in place — rangers were still running underwater clean-up and restoration work around the island as recently as June 2026 — treating full ecological stability as the bar, not a recovery milestone.

If your itinerary or a tour operator lists Ko Yung as a stop, that’s worth questioning directly: legitimate operators know it’s off-limits, and any promise of landing there or snorkeling its reefs should be treated as a sign the trip isn’t following park rules. Some transit routes between Phi Phi and the Krabi mainland pass within sight of the island, so you may see it from the boat, but that’s the extent of legal access right now.

Watch out: Do not let a longtail or speedboat operator take you ashore at Ko Yung even if they offer it — landing in the restricted zone carries real penalties under national park law, and it undoes the conservation work the closure exists to protect.

For an open alternative with a similar clear-water, limestone-island feel, book a trip to Ko Mai Phai or the snorkel sites around Ko Phi Phi Le instead — both are standard stops on Phi Phi day-trip itineraries and don’t carry the legal and ecological problems of an unauthorised Ko Yung landing.