Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

For such a small island, Koh Phi Phi offers quite a bit. For starters, it's easily one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It's one of three places on the planet that have amazing rock formations that rise up out of the water as if they were fingers. The accommodation options on the island range from basic guesthouses that run for about US$20 per night to luxury resorts which can cost in the hundreds. There are no publicly available motorized vehicles on the island, the only ones I saw belong to the guys who haul out the rubbish each evening. 

You can snorkel, dive, wakeboard, banana boat, hike, or just laze on the beach. Oh and you can party like a rockstar every night. There are nightly fireshows on the beach and as the fireshows come to a close the party gets started with free buckets and hordes of bucket-loving party goers. Being able to party on the beach nightly is awesome! There are loads of tattoo parlors where you can get traditional bamboo needle tattoos lining the road to the beach so it's very easy to wake up with a tattoo in the morning. 

We were lucky enough to have enough people to hire our own boat for a tour of the Phi Phi Islands at a cost of about US$20 per person and there were about 15 of us. We went to all the usual stops like Mosquito Island but on our own schedule which was really nice. Although we did have some mechanical issues at one point which led to the boat almost drifting into a limestone karst and me almost drowning cause the boat kept slowing drifting away from me but thankfully my mates helped me get back onto the boat. All in all, it was an amazing day capped off with a spectacular sunset; easily one of the most memorable days I've had while traveling. 

To get to Koh Phi Phi, you can take a ferry from Phuket, Krabi, or Koh Lanta. The ferry is about 1 to 1.5 hours from any of those places. There's an airport in Phuket and in Krabi; in both cases the ferry terminal is not too far away. Oh, and if you've ever seen the movie "The Beach", this is where it was shot.