Khem Beach Phu Quoc Review: Paradise or Overrated?

Until around 2009, Bãi Khem was military land and nobody on holiday got near it. Then Sun Group arrived. JW Marriott opened on the sand at the end of 2016, Premier Residences two years later, and the crescent of beach on Phu Quoc’s southeast corner became Emerald Bay, a resort coast with a beach in front of it.

I used Khem from Sunset Town in the last stretch of my month, and I’ve called it the best sand on the island elsewhere on this site. I’d still say that. The water is shallow, warm and clear on a good day, and for an hour of actual swimming I’d pick it over anything on the west coast.

Whether Khem Beach Phu Quoc is paradise or overrated depends on three things the photos never show: the month, which stretch of sand you end up on, and whether you’re sleeping there or just coming for the day.

• Quick Answer: Khem Beach (Bãi Khem) in the south of Phu Quoc has the island’s finest sand and its calmest, shallowest swimming water, and it’s free to walk onto. It lives up to the photos from about March to May and on clear mornings, and it disappoints straight after the rains, when water hyacinth and rubbish wash in, as they did in January 2026, and in the crowded weeks of January and February. Resorts front most of the beach, so visitors use the strip of bars in the middle, where a lounger costs about 150,000 VND. It’s 5km from Sunset Town and 2km from Sao Beach, and I’d visit it for a day before I’d base a week there.
• The verdict: the best sand and swimming on Phu Quoc. Overrated as a base for a whole trip, and in the wrong month.
• Where it is:
  • Southeast coast, An Thới, about 2km south of Sao Beach.
  • 5km and 15 minutes from Sunset Town and the Hòn Thơm cable car.
• Getting there:
  • Taxi from Duong Dong 300,000 to 400,000 VND, xe ôm about 100,000.
  • Xe ôm from Sao Beach about 30,000 VND, ten minutes.
  • No public bus. The free VinBus doesn’t come this far.
• On the sand:
  • Free entry. The public strip is in the middle, between the resorts.
  • Lounger about 150,000 VND, sometimes free if you eat. Coconut about 50,000.
  • Lifeguards, showers and changing rooms on the main stretch.
• When to go:
  • Best: March to May, before 10am.
  • Busiest: January and February.
  • Rubbish risk: after heavy rain, worst in December and January.
  • May to October: usually calmer than the west coast.
• Where to eat: Thanh Nga at the end of the beach for local seafood, Herring Bar and Ann Seafood on the sand, Bánh Xèo Giòn up the hill for the cheapest good meal nearby.
• Khem vs Sao: Khem for swimming, Sao for a longer, livelier beach. Easy to do both in a day.
• No sunset: Khem faces east. The sunsets are on the west coast.

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Khem Beach Review: Paradise or Overrated?

Both, on different days, and I think the photos are the problem. Every picture of Khem is taken on a still morning in the dry season, on a resort’s raked stretch, with nobody in it.

That beach exists. It’s also what people expect to find at two in the afternoon in February, when the water is choppy, the loungers are taken and a line of weed sits at the tide mark.

The case for paradise is the water. Khem curves between two green headlands and faces southeast, so it’s sheltered from the southwest monsoon that roughs up Long Beach for half the year.

The bottom is soft sand all the way out, and an adult can walk about 100 metres before the water reaches their chest, which is why I’d send a family with small children here before anywhere else on the island. The sand is the finest on Phu Quoc, pale enough that one story of the name says it comes from kem, the Vietnamese for cream.

The case for overrated is everything around the water. Resorts take up most of the beach, the south of the island is a building site in the run-up to the APEC summit in November 2027, Duong Dong and most of the restaurants are 40 minutes away, and when the rubbish comes in, each resort cleans its own frontage first.

Someone who flies in expecting an empty paradise and spends a week here without a scooter is the person who goes home calling it overrated.

So my answer is paradise for a morning, at the right time of year, and a beach I wouldn’t build a whole trip around unless the resort is the point.

Is Khem Beach Public?

Yes. Bãi Khem is free to walk onto, and nobody charges for the sand. What you pay for is a lounger, a towel and whatever you drink.

The catch is how little of the beachfront isn’t a resort. From one end to the other you pass JW Marriott Emerald Bay, the Premier Residences towers and New World’s villas, each with its own loungers, umbrellas and staff, and in the middle is the strip that serves everyone else: a row of beach bars and seafood places with loungers out front at around 150,000 VND each, some of them charged by the four-hour block. A few bars let you use their loungers if you order food, so I’d ask before sitting down.

The palms along the back of the beach give enough shade to lay a towel for free, and plenty of people come down from elsewhere on the island with their own water and snacks and do exactly that.

You can walk the whole length along the waterline. Where the resort sunbeds start you’re walking past paid space, and resort staff will steer non-guests off their loungers, which is fair enough. The wet sand is the same for everyone. Past the bars at the northern end there’s a small fishing hamlet, scruffier, quieter and free.

The middle strip has lifeguards, freshwater showers and changing rooms, and the bars rent towels, kayaks and paddleboards, the boards at 100,000 to 250,000 VND an hour. There’s no coral to speak of here. For that it’s a boat from An Thới, which I’ve written up in snorkelling in Phu Quoc.

The Rubbish, and When It Washes In

This is the part the hotel blogs leave out.

In the first days of January 2026, Khem and Sao, the two most famous beaches on the island, were covered in water hyacinth and household rubbish washed in on the tide. People staying near Khem went ten days without swimming. The resorts cleaned the stretch in front of their own properties and left much of the rest, until Sun Group and the Khem resorts put a crew of around a hundred on it, working from 4am to 11pm, and collected nearly two tonnes on New Year’s Day alone. By the 3rd it was much better, and people were still wary of the water.

The island’s environment department called it a yearly event. After heavy rain, the water hyacinth and the rubbish wash out of the rivers and canals, and the tide and currents push them back onto the beaches nearest the river mouths.

The worst of it comes in December and January, at the end of the rainy season, which is also the start of the high season. It isn’t only then, either: there were days in July and in October this year when people walked down to the water, saw what was floating in it and stayed on the sand.

On a normal day the beach is raked every morning and staff walk it with baskets, and the middle is clean. The rubbish that’s left tends to collect at the quieter ends. I wouldn’t book a beach-front room at Khem for late December or January on the strength of the beach alone, and from wherever I was staying, I’d look at photos from the last few days before riding down.

Best Time to Visit Khem Beach

My pick is March to May. The rains are long gone, the high-season crowd has left, and most days the sea is flat. In April the water at low tide is shallow and glassy, and the beach is noticeably emptier than in the weeks before. It’s hot, so the hours to be there are early: the beach faces east and the light is at its best before about 8:30. May starts to turn, with short showers, more cloud and some chop, and still very few people.

January and February are the busy months. The loungers go early, and the sea isn’t always as calm as the pictures, with a northeasterly that can set up small waves and bring weed and bits of plastic onto the sand.

In the wet season, May to October, Khem is usually calmer than the west coast because the southwest monsoon hits the other side of the island, and people there found the water calm and clear. Usually isn’t always. Some days there’s weed and chop on this coast too, and September, the wettest month, tends to leave seaweed on the sand.

Whatever the month, mornings are better. Sao Beach fills from about 10am when the hotel shuttles arrive, and Khem holds up better through the day, partly because so much of it sits behind resorts, but by midday the sun is fierce and there’s not much shade on the open sand.

Getting to Khem Beach (Bai Khem)

Khem Beach is in An Thới ward on the southeast coast, about 2km south of Sao Beach and 5km, or 15 minutes, from Sunset Town and the cable car station. From Sunset Town it’s a short Grab or scooter ride.

From Duong Dong it’s 40 to 50 minutes. A taxi runs 300,000 to 400,000 VND and a xe ôm about 100,000. From Ông Lang, plan on around 600,000 VND for a taxi there and back. By scooter it’s ĐT46, Nguyễn Văn Cừ, south past the old Coconut Tree Prison, then the turn east toward the beach.

There’s no public bus to this end of the island, and the free VinBus doesn’t come down here. The Khem resorts run a free shuttle to Sunset Town that stops by the Vietnam Select supermarket, the one I’d use for supplies down here, which is in where to shop in Phu Quoc.

From Sao Beach a xe ôm is about 30,000 VND and ten minutes.

Where to Eat at Khem Beach

Prices on the sand follow the resorts. A smoothie that costs 30,000 VND on the road costs 70,000 on the beach, lunch for two runs 200,000 to 500,000, and seafood is sold by weight, so I’d watch it go on the scale.

Thanh Nga, at the far end of the beach, is the one I’d walk to. It’s a very basic local seafood place, reached along the sand or by a dirt track off the main road near the old prison, with grilled crab and clams at local prices. There are flies, there are dogs, and the toilet is as simple as they come.

Herring Bar, named after the raw herring salad the island makes, does oysters and Vietnamese dishes on the sand and rents towels.

Ann Seafood does mantis shrimp in tamarind, fish braised in a clay pot and crab fried rice.

Istanbul Bai Kem is a Turkish beach club with halal food, and diners get its loungers, showers and changing room.

In the shophouses behind the beach, Com Tho Tay Cam opposite New World does clay-pot rice and fish soup at more normal prices, and there’s Italian at Jo’s Cucina and burgers at The Deck, open 9am to 9pm.

The cheapest good meal anywhere near Khem is up the hill at Bánh Xèo Giòn, 363 Nguyễn Văn Cừ, bánh xèo and bánh canh ghẹ for under 200,000 VND for two. It’s in my places to eat in Phu Quoc for exactly that reason: the south has the worst food-to-price ratio on the island, and this is the exception.

Khem Beach vs Sao Beach

They’re ten minutes apart, and anyone planning a beach day in the south ends up weighing Phu Quoc Khem Beach against Sao.

Sao Beach is longer, better known and busier, with jet skis, kayaks and boats, loungers from 50,000 VND or free if you eat behind them, and a crowd from mid-morning. I’ve called it the best beach on Phu Quoc that anyone can walk onto, and I’d stand by that. Khem is open too, but most of its sand comes with a resort in front of it.

Khem is the better beach for swimming. It’s shallower and more sheltered, and the water is usually calmer. It’s also more polished and more built up, and on a busy day it feels like a resort pool with a sea attached.

Doing both in one day is easy: Sao before 9:30, before the shuttles, and Khem for the rest of the day. Neither has a sunset over the water, since both face east. For that it’s the west coast, Ong Lang or Long Beach, or Sunset Town if you’re staying in the south.

Khem Beach Phu Quoc for Families

For small children it’s the best beach on the island, and the reasons are practical. The water stays shallow a long way out over a soft sand bottom with no rocks or coral underfoot, the sea is usually calm, there are lifeguards on the main stretch, and there are showers and changing rooms when the swimming’s done.

The palms give shade at the back of the beach, and it’s the shade I’d plan the day around, since the open sand gets very hot by late morning and there’s no cover once you’re past the trees.

Two of the resorts are built for families. New World has a kids club, a water park and a villa layout where every room faces its own pool, and Premier Residences has a big pool complex with slides and a street of restaurants beside it, which matters more than it sounds when the alternative is eating at the resort every night. JW Marriott is the most photographed hotel on the beach and a couples’ place at heart.

The things I’d bring for a day with children are the things the beach makes expensive: water, snacks and a towel each. Sand flies on Phu Quoc bite harder than people expect and the bites itch for days, so repellent goes in the bag as well.

Should You Stay at Khem Beach Phu Quoc?

For a resort holiday where the resort is the point, yes. The far south is built for guests who don’t plan to leave the property, which is how I described it in where to stay in Phu Quoc, and New World’s villas and kids club make it one of the better places on the island for a family that wants exactly that. Evenings are quiet. Long Beach and Duong Dong are where things happen after dark, and that’s a 40-minute ride.

For anyone who wants to see the rest of the island and get through the things to do in Phu Quoc, I’d stay somewhere more central and come to Khem for a day, or split the trip and finish with two or three nights down here, when the cable car, the boats from An Thới and Sunset Town are all close. JM Boutique Hotel, five minutes’ walk from the sand, is the cheap way to do that, at around $61 a night.

The building work is the other thing to weigh. Bãi Đất Đỏ, a separate beach in the same southern corner, is where Sun Group is putting up 17 towers and more than 7,000 rooms beside the APEC convention centre, with five Marriott hotels due to open there in 2027. It isn’t Khem, but the noise and the trucks are part of this end of the island until the summit is over, and some visitors have already heard construction from the sand.

The month I’m least sure about is February. Some people describe the sea at Khem then as flat and clear, others as choppy and full of weed. If you’ve swum there in February and think I’ve got it wrong, the comments are where to tell me, and I’d soon fix this page.

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