Sairee Beach at sunset

Sairee, on the west coast, is Koh Tao's long sandy beach and faces the sunset: the island's evening. It is also the busiest beach, so the session works the quieter end and frames out to sea rather than back towards the buildings. Start about an hour before the sun touches the horizon; the light worth having comes in the second half of that hour and the first minutes after it, when the water and the wet sand turn the same colour.

The gentle end of Sairee, when the sun is low, is the easiest family session on the island — flat sand, shallow water, nothing to climb. The longtails to Koh Nang Yuan leave from this beach too, which makes a morning there and an evening here the natural two-part plan. Ceremonies on the sand are arranged by the venues, so check before you go.

In the calm months the water is clear enough to end with a swim, and in places the reef grows close to shore, so walk in over sand. Koh Tao has no airport — boats run from Samui, about an hour and a half away, and from Chumphon on the mainland — and from about October to December rough seas can cancel them, so don't put the session on the evening before an onward flight.