Pattaya is considered Thailand’s resort capital largely due to the huge number of entertainments and attractions available from this city. As for the sea, it’s not the best quality here, but you can still relax on the shore. In this article, we’ll talk about which of Pattaya’s beaches are truly the best, and which ones you shouldn’t swim at at all. But let’s go in order…
Quick Answer: Pattaya’s top five beaches are often listed as Wongamat Beach (relatively cleaner water), Cosy Beach (a quieter atmosphere), Dongtan Beach (lively vibe), Jomtien Beach (long stretch of shoreline), and Central Pattaya Beach (very convenient location). Below, you’ll find detailed descriptions of each spot, along with pros, cons, and tips for travelers.
Beaches of Pattaya
Because of the huge influx of tourists, Pattaya has turned its best beaches into a rather unseemly state, joking aside—when in an already murky sea you see plastic bags and other trash floating, you really don’t even want to talk about what’s in that water.
If you’re aiming for a seaside vacation, we recommend considering a trip to Koh Lan Island, the Military Beach or the Beach of the Dancing Girl, especially if you’re traveling with a child. Even so, you can’t say that there’s no beach vacation in Pattaya at all, so we’ve compiled a small ranking of local beaches that we invite you to check out. The beaches are listed from the worst to the best:
- Central (Pattaya Beach).
- Jomtien (Jomtien Beach).
- Dongtan (Dong Tarn Beach).
- Cosy (Cosy Beach).
- Wongamat (Wongamat Beach).
Central Beach
Beach information
Length (m): 1500 
Cover Type: Sand 
Water Temp (°C): 28 
Cleanliness (1-10): 6 
Crowdedness (1-10): 7 
Infrastructure: Good infrastructure 
Best Season: Nov–Март 
Waves Level: Moderate 
Lifeguards Available? yes 
Children Friendly? no
Reviews
Photos
Everything worst you can imagine is concentrated on this stretch of Pattaya’s coastline, and I’m talking about water cleanliness here. It’s not just dirty—it’s excessively dirty. On the shoreline itself, it’s not that bad: a standard beach with loungers (chairs) and sunbathing tourists.
The national mix of vacationers is enormous. You’ll find Asians, Indians, many Europeans, and so on. As for “exotic,” there are quite a few trans people, sex workers, and also elderly European “machos” who pay for companionship for the entire trip. You’ll recognize them immediately… Younger people also love to stroll in this area, though more toward the evening.
The main plus is its location. Being close to the center means you can walk to any café or massage parlor deeper in the city on foot, since here on the waterfront everything is more expensive.
For reference, on some beaches you’d have to take transportation to get to cheaper amenities—because of the distance—or do a long walk.
The cons here are far greater. In addition to dirty water, they include:
- Huge crowds of people (especially noticeable on the promenade, since it runs right along the beach. Tourists are constantly roaming in both directions, and the beach itself is no better);
- Pushy vendors (besides food, they constantly offer various tours, tattoos, cold drinks, etc.);
- An enormous amount of watercraft (jet skis back and forth, boats docking, and tourists loading and unloading);
- It’s very noisy (the crowds create an indescribable cacophony, which after a while you stop noticing as much);
- Smells (there’s a barrage of different smells; how can one place both smell fragrant and stink at the same time? I can’t say there’s a perpetual stench on the central beach, but there are definitely spots that are unpleasant to the nose).
As for the beach itself, here you have the usual yellow sand typical of Pattaya, a bit coarse. Low tide is very noticeable, happening pretty much every day in summer from morning until evening.
And the biggest minus is the road that runs along the beach. It’s loud and dirty…
If you’re staying nearby, the only thing I’d recommend is to sunbathe here, but by no means spend your entire vacation on this beach, because there are far more interesting, picturesque, and cleaner places.
Jomtien Beach
Beach information
Length (m): 2000
Cover Type: Sand
Water Temp (°C): 28
Cleanliness (1-10): 7
Crowdedness (1-10): 6
Infrastructure: Good infrastructure
Best Season: Nov–Март
Waves Level: Moderate
Lifeguards Available? yes
Children Friendly? yes
Reviews
Photos
Jomtien Beach isn’t much better than the first option. It’s a huge, elongated beach divided into three parts based on location:
- Northern.
- Central.
- Southern.
The water, whether in the north or the south, is consistently dirty. In the water, you can find trash (not only seaweed, but also human waste products like plastic bags or bottles). Sometimes there’s an invasion of jellyfish, and it’s not clear whether it’s plastic or jellyfish. Brr…
If you look closely, you can see what color the sand is
Jomtien also experiences low tides, same as the central beach.
The coastline differs as well. The sand is the same as everywhere else, but the northern part is wider than the south (in some places in the south, the water comes right up to the sidewalk). Consequently, more people gather in the north than in the south. You’ll see a variety of visitors here. If you don’t want to see exotic characters, move closer to the center, because they all flock to the north.
There are enough cafés, street food carts (makashnits), and souvenir shops; prices are lower than in the center but higher than deeper in Pattaya. There’s also a fruit market here.
For 10 baht you can ride a tuk-tuk to the center.
Jomtien Beach has a decent landscape for taking photos against the distant view of Koh Lan or shooting videos.
A wide promenade runs along the beach, lined with palm trees in places, vaguely reminiscent of Miami—though very vaguely, but still.
There are loungers on the beach, and in the evening it’s important to grab those in the first row because, despite the downsides, the evening view is mesmerizing.
At Jomtien, you won’t encounter the unpleasant smells you get in the center, because the authorities have tried to move the trash away from the water.
Dongtan Beach
Beach information
Length (m): 1000
Cover Type: Sand
Water Temp (°C): 28
Cleanliness (1-10): 6
Crowdedness (1-10): 5
Infrastructure: Basic amenities
Best Season: Nov–Март
Waves Level: Moderate
Lifeguards Available? no
Children Friendly? yes
Reviews
Photos
Dongtan Beach is a “blue lagoon,” not because of clean water, but because of the large number of people with non-traditional sexual orientations who gather here. For some reason, this is where there are a lot of them, so homophobes might want to skip this section altogether—they likely wouldn’t enjoy it much anyway.
Overall, by Thai standards, Dongtan Beach is quite good, and, according to some reviews, it has the cleanest water during high season.
The sand is the same as everywhere else, and the low tides are as well.
A wide pedestrian path runs near the beach, perfect for an evening stroll. The beach is located in the Pratumnak area, considered the most luxurious neighborhood in the city. That status does affect prices, which are somewhat inflated, but let’s face it—they aren’t that high, especially compared to Phuket.
Just like anywhere else, from July to October it’s unpleasant to swim here because there are many jellyfish during that period (they seem to be in season).
Cosy Beach
Beach information
Length (m): 500
Cover Type: Sand
Water Temp (°C): 28
Cleanliness (1-10): 6
Crowdedness (1-10): 4
Infrastructure: Basic amenities
Best Season: Nov–Март
Waves Level: Calm
Lifeguards Available? no
Children Friendly? yes
Reviews
Photos
Cosy Beach is already considered quite a decent place compared to the previously mentioned ones. You could rank it alongside Pattaya’s best beaches with hotels, since right on the shore there’s the Cosy Beach hotel, which often gets fully booked about two months before the planned arrival date.
What can be said about the beach itself? It’s not crowded, so there isn’t a huge mass of people, largely thanks to the difficult climb you have to make when returning from the shore. There are no shops here; they’re all up the stairs.
The loungers aren’t the standard kind you find on other Pattaya beaches—instead, they’re actual recliners on which you can truly lie down, not just half-sit like everywhere else.
The shore is the same as everywhere else—yellow sand with some washed-up trash (we suspect it’s carried here from other beaches, since it’s all the same sea).
Low tides happen quite often, but during high season, the water can come right up to the loungers.
The seabed is silty and not very pleasant to walk on, especially at low tide, and the water itself is dirty—you can find jellyfish. One plus: water that dirty means no sharks…
Getting to Cosy Beach isn’t very convenient, as tuk-tuks don’t run in this area, so you’ll have to pay for a taxi or go on foot. Below is a map—figure it out, the beach is right in front of the marked hotel.
Wongamat Beach
Beach information
Length (m): 900
Cover Type: Sand
Water Temp (°C): 28
Cleanliness (1-10): 7
Crowdedness (1-10): 5
Infrastructure: Good infrastructure
Best Season: Nov–Март
Waves Level: Calm
Lifeguards Available? no
Children Friendly? yes
Reviews
Photos
Finally, the beach best suited for a true beach holiday is Wongamat. The surroundings of Wongamat are lined with many hotels (ranging from one to five stars) and condominiums, so the main downside is the lack of nearby infrastructure. To get to a more or less affordable shop, you have to leave the beach, and to catch a tuk-tuk, you have to walk uphill (it’s not a hard climb, roughly like going uphill by Pattaya Park in Pratumnak).
Otherwise, the beach is quite decent. Compared to other places, the water is more or less clean (though still murky), and this might be the only spot we’d risk swimming in if we didn’t have the option of Pattaya or the islands.
The sand here appears somewhat white, and perhaps the credit goes to the waterfront hotels that want their frontage to look good and attract guests.
Hotels with Beaches
For those who prefer to stay in a hotel that has its own beach, we’ve compiled a small selection. So here are Pattaya’s best hotels with their own beach:
We won’t go far from Wongamat Beach, where the Centara Grand Mirage Beach Hotel is located.
This five-star wonder not only has its own beach but also an enormous water park, so you’ll definitely have room to roam. There are several accommodation options, but alas, they aren’t budget-friendly.
Another five-star hotel is the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel, also located at Wongamat.
Comparing these two hotels, the difference is that the second doesn’t have a water park. Otherwise, it’s the same story: multiple restaurants, pools, a spa, a magnificent sea view, and, of course, high prices.
One step down in price is the Adriatic Palace Hotel Pattaya.
This hotel is located on Jomtien, and even though it has its own beach, we recommend swimming in the pool, designed in a European style—just like everything else in the hotel.
A bit farther away is the Ambassador City Jomtien.
You can get there by taking the road from the center. The beautifully decorated grounds won’t leave any tourist indifferent, and the service is definitely top priority here as well.
On Cosy Beach there’s the three-star Cosy Beach Hotel.
Despite having only three stars, it boasts its own beach, which is quite rare for hotels in this category. You can read more below.
Finally, probably one of the most visited hotels in Pattaya is on Wongprachan Beach: Garden Sea View Resort. It also carries a three-star rating and decent tourist reviews.
So, Pattaya does have beaches, and not all of them are as trashed as you might think at first glance. Compare them, choose your favorite, and share your impressions in the comments.
