Where to stay for EDC Thailand

Phuket International is about 17km from the venue, roughly 22 minutes on a clear road. A taxi costs around US$17–21 equivalent for a metered or agreed taxi. There's also a scheduled public bus: Phuket Smart Bus runs hourly from the airport to Cherngthalay Wittayakom School, about 49 minutes, for a few dollars.

It's the easiest of Thailand's December festivals to reach — an international airport twenty minutes away, with a public bus running past. Getting to Phuket isn't the problem; the last two kilometres at two in the morning are.

Ordered by how confident we are in each. There's no price column, because we haven't been able to verify nightly prices for Phuket in peak season. The map above shows live prices for the right nights.

Arrive the day before and leave the day after. The last night is a Sunday, and Phuket's airport road is at its worst on a December Monday morning — so don't plan to check out straight from the festival.

What matters here is which side of the estate gate you're on, not the distance. Rhythm Park is inside Laguna Phuket, so the first five below are in the same complex as the venue and the rest are just outside it.

We don't list nightly rates here: prices for these dates change too quickly, so the link shows live prices instead. "Unchecked" means we couldn't confirm the reception hours — ask the property before you book if you'll be back late. Reception hours come from each property's own listing, checked on the date at the bottom of the page. They can change, so confirm with the property if you'll arrive late.

Some accommodation guides claim that hotels in Patong face two-hour traffic jams getting to the venue. The source we traced it to is a hotel inside the same estate as the venue, about a kilometre from the gate.

That doesn't make it untrue. Phuket's west coast road is slow, the Patong hill is a bottleneck, and fifty thousand people leaving one place at once will cause a jam. But a two-hour figure from someone selling the alternative isn't a measurement, so we're not repeating it as fact.

Our view: Patong is a real journey and will be slow at closing time. But it has the most hotels on the island, which matters in the third week of December. It works if you book a car in advance instead of hoping to find one at 2am — just don't treat it as a quick fifteen-minute ride.

There's no camping — the organisers say so and point people to hotels instead. So all fifty-odd thousand people a night stay somewhere else and travel in.

That means six journeys, not two: there and back on each of three nights. Whatever you arrange has to work six times, including the last trip on the final night, when everyone wants a car at once.

The age limit is 20 and over — older than most festivals, and older than Thailand's drinking age. It catches people out.

Where to stay for Big Mountain Village — six days earlier in Khao Yai, where the road narrows to two lanes at the site.

Where to stay for Tomorrowland Thailand — the previous weekend in Chonburi, where nobody agrees exactly where the venue is.

Wonderfruit and Tomorrowland as one trip — the Chonburi part of a December with four festivals across three provinces.