Want to island hop from Malaysia to Thailand or vice versa? This is entirely possible and quite straightforward. We’ll show you exactly how to go from Langkawi to Koh Lipe in this detailed guide of the exact steps.
After taking this journey ourselves and meticulously researching ferry schedules, speedboat services and insider travel tips, we’ve created these instructions so you can feel confident in heading to Koh Lipe from Langkawi.
Koh Lipe in Thailand and Langkawi in Malaysia are both beautiful island destinations and both are worth having on your itinerary. Taking the ferry Koh Lipe Langkawi only takes an hour and a half and is very easy – during the dry season from around mid-October to mid-June when direct boat services run. So it is easy to take a side trip between the countries. You can even day trip between the two.
During the monsoon months from around mid-June to mid-October, there is no direct ferry to Koh Lipe from Langkawi, but there are still options to travel between these two islands.
Below, I break down exactly how to go to Koh Lipe from Langkawi so you know exactly what you need to do, when. This way, you will be in paradise as quick as possible!
I also describe the reverse journey on the Koh Lipe to Langkawi ferry.
There are a few steps at each end so it can seem a little complicated and it definitely helps to understand the process. It can all take quite awhile and get a little frustrating in the heat so take something distracting to do and move quickly to grab patches of shade when waiting.
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Contents
Map: Koh Lipe From Langkawi
The direct Langkawi to Koh Lipe distance is approximately 60 kilometres.
The Langkawi to Koh Lipe ferry duration is approximately 1.5 hours by ferry during dry season. In the middle of the year during the monsoon season, this can take much longer since you have to take three forms of transport.
Note that it takes more time on top of this to deal with check-in, immigration, getting on and off, etc. Expect it to take more like 3.5 hours. Longer if you aren’t good at getting off the ferry first or are unlucky with when they announce your name at Koh Lipe (this will make more sense if you keep reading!).
BEST OPTION: How To Go From Langkawi To Koh Lipe
The quickest and best option is to take the direct Koh Lipe ferry from Langkawi. This only runs from mid-October to mid-June.
At other times of the year, you can take a ferry from Langkawi to Satun in Thailand and then on to Koh Lipe.
Here’s a summary of your options:
| Time of year | Duration | Overview | Book |
| mid October – mid June | 1.5 hours | Take a direct ferry from Kuah or Telaga Harbour to Koh Lipe | Book here |
| mid June – mid October | 6+ hours | Take a ferry to Satun in Thailand from Kuah. From here, take a van/taxi ride to Pak Bara Pier for your second ferry to Koh Lipe | Book here |
You can only get to Koh Lipe via ferry so flying, driving, bussing, etc is not an option on this route.
Note that regardless of what time of year you travel, there are extra fees on arrival in Koh Lipe which are not covered in your ferry ticket. You’ll need to pay a THB200 national park fee. I also read about a THB20 entry fee, but saw no evidence of this.
You can pay this in Malaysian Ringgit (RM35), but you’ll get a better exchange rate if you change some money before leaving Malaysia. You can’t access an ATM or money changers before paying this on arrival.
October To June: Koh Lipe Ferry From Langkawi
There are two choices of where you can catch the Langkawi ferry to Koh Lipe from – Kuah Jetty or Telaga Harbour Marina. It doesn’t matter too much so I’d pick the departure point which is closest to your accommodation in Langkawi or has the departure time you’d prefer.
It can cost RM5-10 more to take the ferry from Kuah, and it is slightly longer. The Kuah departure point is often shown as “Jetty Langkawi” when booking. The Telaga Harbour Langkawi to Koh Lipe ferry can be the easiest one if you are staying in the western part of Langkawi, such as in Pantai Cenang.
The downside of Telaga is that it is very small and there is not much shaded waiting space. I highly recommend the first morning ferry if you travel from here so you don’t sweat to death 🙂 Kuah is a big terminal with more around so waiting can be more pleasant when it’s hot.
At either place, you need to pass through immigration so it’s recommended you arrive two hours early by the operators. However in practice, the check-in desk is often not open until an hour beforehand. Besides which, an hour beforehand is plenty in my experience. You could get away with less time than this even.
You can buy your ticket on arrival if there are still seats available. It can be popular so I highly recommend you book your ticket in advance here.
You can show them your electronic ticket and will be given a boarding pass or a sticker. There is no need to print your booking.
At Telaga, you need to enter the terminal and go straight ahead to the outdoor waiting area. You can leave your bags and some of your group here while one person takes the passports and the tickets (it’s fine to have it on your phone) to the ticket counter.
The ticket counter is to the left before you walk down the stairs to the waiting area and then turn left again at the coffee stand. This line was quite long and slow when I was here.
This photo illustrates where to find the ticket line and then the immigration line when they are ready for boarding.
When you check-in for the ferry and get your boarding pass, you’ll be given Thailand immigration forms too. Fill these in now as you’ll need them completed before you can board.
When the ferry is ready to board, you’ll be called forward for the immigration counters. This is straight ahead at the coffee stall, like indicated on the photo above. Boarding took place 30 minutes beforehand when I took the ferry.
If you are here in the heat, I recommend you get in this line a little early so you get on the boat quickly. It took 40 minutes for everyone to board my ferry and it was only about half full. The benefit of getting on early is that the ferry is air-conditioned.
After the immigration counter, they’ll take your passport and Thai entry forms and you’ll get them back in Koh Lipe.
The Langkawi to Koh Lipe ferry time is about 90 minutes. Ferries are comfortable enough and nothing special. There are two sections for seating. One upper and lower. They are much the same so it doesn’t matter which one you sit in.
The ferry companies that run this route are Bundhaya Speed Boat and Satun Pakbara Speed Boat Club. They are quite similar so I would pick the most convenient time and departure point.
On arrival in Koh Lipe, your Langkawi Koh Lipe ferry will stop away from the shore at Pattaya Beach. They can’t go right into the shore. Here, longtail boats will take you to the a floating jetty by the beach. We did not have to walk through any water.
I had read that these longtail boats cost an extra THB50, but we did not have to pay for this.
You’ll then be directed to the immigration office on the beach. It’s just a short walk.
Once you hit the beach, head quickly to the immigration office as there are not enough seats in the shade for everyone. Here, take a seat and wait for them to call out your name. You then collect your passport and take it to the immigration counter for processing.
This can take quite awhile. They didn’t start processing arrivals until everyone was processed for the ferry ride back to Langkawi. We were lucky and our names were called out quite early but it was still about a 40 minute wait all up.
After this, you need to head to a different counter to pay the national park entry fee of THB200 for adults and 100 for kids. This is right next to the chairs you see in the photo above. They tell you to keep this on you at all times. No one ever asked to see ours.
In this time, hopefully your luggage has appeared on the beach and you can collect it.
Then you can start your fabulous time on Koh Lipe.
Click here to see the prices for your dates.
Langkawi To Koh Lipe Ferry Schedule 2024
The Langkawi Koh Lipe ferry schedule can vary, and ferry times do book out. Generally, there are ferries from Langkawi to Koh Lipe departing from Telaga Harbour in Langkawi at 9:30am and 2:30pm.
From Kuah Jetty, there are ferries at 10am and 2pm.
This is the current schedule during peak time. You can expect less ferries running as it gets closer to the monsoon shut-down period.
Malaysia is one hour ahead of Thailand as they are in different timezones so take this into account when calculating your arrival time.
You can check the latest schedules for your dates here.
Ferry From Langkawi To Koh Lipe Price
The Langkawi to Koh Lipe ferry price varies but generally costs RM160 to 170 depending on your ferry company, departure point and departure time.
Click here to see the latest prices.
June To October: Koh Lipe Ferry From Langkawi
Unfortunately, travel from Langkawi to Koh Lipe is not as straightforward in the low, monsoon season. You’ll need to take two ferries + van/taxi ride in Thailand between two jetties.
Services are also less frequent. It is possible to get stuck overnight in Satun in Thailand, especially when making the journey in reverse.
Your first step is to take a ferry from Kuah in Langkawi to Satun’s Tammalang Pier. Currently, this runs only once a day. You can find more details here. It does not seem possible to book this online.
At the time of publishing, this runs at 9:30am and takes about 75 minutes. The price is RM45 for adults. You can find more information here.
Tammalang Pier is in Thailand so you will be passing through immigration at both ends of this boat journey. Thailand is an hour behind Malaysia so take this into account when looking at ferry schedules.
Once you are here, you need to transfer to Pak Bara Pier. Pak Bara Pier is about 1.25 hours drive from Tammalang Pier.
Minivans run this route but take at least two hours. There are public buses too which can be even slower.
From Pak Bara Pier, there are a few ferry services to Koh Lipe. However, they only depart from 9:30am to 1:30pm currently. This means to make this journey in the one day, you may need to get a taxi driver to take you between the piers to ensure you don’t miss the last boat for the day.
Click here to see the latest timetable.
The ferry to Koh Lipe from Pak Bara Pier takes 1.25 – 1.5 hours and currently costs THB600.
On arrival at Koh Lipe, you may need to get a longtail boat to the shore from the floating pontoon where you will be dropped off. This costs THB50.
Click here to see the latest timetables and prices now.
Ferry From Koh Lipe To Langkawi
If you are travelling the opposite way and want a ferry Koh Lipe to Langkawi instead, you basically reverse the instructions above, although the process does differ a little.
Ideally, you’ll want to travel from mid-October to mid-June when you can catch the direct ferry. You have the same choices as above in regards to where you arrive in Langkawi. Again, I recommend you pick the arrival point in Langkawi closest to your accommodation.
Currently, ferries depart Koh Lipe between 10:30am and 4pm. They take about 90 minutes and cost RM160-170 each way.
Click here for the latest schedules and prices.
My ticket said to arrive at the check-in counter 2.5 hours beforehand, but this is definitely not necessary. We arrived 45 minutes before and really, we could have arrived a lot later. They only give 30 minutes between the ferry arriving from Langkawi and departing again which is not enough time to get everyone and luggage off and on, at least not at busy times like in January when we did it.
So expect delays. Our ferry left about 35 minutes late.
The line to check-in wasn’t that long when we arrived but it took over 30 minutes in itself. You check in for the Satun ferry to Telaga Harbour at a counter next to the immigration office and shaded area. You only need one person in your group to do this part.
Once you are checked in, go to the immigration counter and get stamped out. They will keep your passport, and you’ll get it back onboard. The photo above shows you all these places.
About half an hour before our ferry to Langkawi, they got everyone who had checked in to go to a different (much smaller) waiting area as pictured above.
This is a much smaller area near the end of the floating jetty. This is tiny without much shade so I would stay in the main waiting area by the immigration office until you see them actually start boarding people. This will be crowded too though with people who just got off the boat!
Once the longtails were ready to take us out, they called up people by a number we were given on check-in in order. We had quite awhile to wait for ours, but it was all very smooth so I’m glad they did it that way. At least it gave us a little longer in the shade!
Onboard, the most annoying thing was getting a seat as the earlier people had spread out, and there were three of us. At least it was air-conditioned though! The ferry seats are narrow and not nearly as comfortable when they are all full which this ferry was.
During the journey, they handed our passports back by calling out nationalities.
If I have one HUGE piece of advice for this journey, it’s this. Just before you get to Telaga, stand up near the luggage and exit doors and don’t sit down when they ask you too. Keep out of the way of the luggage though as they remove this before passengers at this end. Ideally, sit in the bottom section so you can’t go back to your seat when they ask.
This is because you line up individually to enter Malaysia and you don’t want to be at the back of this line in the hot, hot sun for I don’t even want to know how long!
Also make sure you have already filled in the online form for your Malaysia arrival card or you won’t be able to enter Malaysia. You can’t use a paper form.
It’s smooth sailing if you do these things. There were plenty of taxis waiting on our arrival and we got a Grab for cheap.
Click here for the latest schedules and prices.
Note that if you are considering a Langkawi to Koh Lipe day trip, this is possible by taking the first ferry over in the morning and then the 4pm ferry back. But it is only possible at this time of year when the direct ferry Langkawi Koh Lipe runs.
If you are travelling from mid-June to mid-October when there is no direct Langkawi Koh Lipe speedboat, you’ll need to reverse the directions above and go via Pak Bara Pier and Tammalang Pier.
Your first step is to take the boat from Koh Lipe to Pak Bara Pier. Currently, these depart from 9:30am to 4pm and take around 90 minutes. They cost THB600 at the time of publishing.
Click here to see the latest prices and timetables.
Once you arrive at Pak Bara Pier, you need to take a taxi/minivan/bus to Tammalang Pier. This takes 1.25 hours for a taxi, longer for other options.
The problem here is that there is only one ferry a day from Tammalang Pier to Langkawi and it departs at 11:30am. So you cannot make this ferry in one day.
Click here to see the latest timetables and prices. Hopefully, there is a later ferry when you are reading this.
The easiest thing to do is to stay overnight in Satun and take the ferry the next morning. Or you could travel by minivan to Padang Besar instead and then get transport to Kuala Kedah or Kuala Perlis in Malaysia. From these places, there are ferries multiple times a day to Langkawi.
It is easier to just spend the night in Satun.
Final Words
Travelling from Langkawi to Koh Lipe is straightforward enough and easy during the peak dry season. Simply follow the directions above and take the direct boat from Langkawi to Koh Lipe. Expect to have some delays and wait time, but it’s still very doable.
Unfortunately, during the off-peak travel months, this direct ferry is not an option. Consequently, you must prepare to navigate a more complex route with two ferries and a land component. It’ll be worth it though!
I hope you found this guide to how to take the Langkawi to Koh Lipe boat useful. Read our guide to where to stay in Koh Lipe here and the top things to do in Koh Lipe here. You can find our complete travel guide to Langkawi here or read about how to get to Langkawi from other places here.
Planning a trip to Malaysia? Have any questions? Join our Malaysia Travel Planning Facebook group here now! It’s the perfect place to ask any questions and to be inspired!
