Twenty-one years ago, a young British mother stepped off a longtail boat onto Thong Nai Pan beach on Koh Phangan's northeast coast, her six-year-old son in tow and no fixed plan beyond finding somewhere quieter to live. Today, Nicola Bunchuay owns the island's first licensed international school, and her story has helped pave the way for other international families settling here long-term. Koh Phangan covers just 57 square miles in the Gulf of Thailand, with an official population of around 10,094 (closer to 16,000 once you include subdistricts and migrant workers). Roughly half a million visitors pass through each year, a legacy of its 1990s Full Moon party reputation. You can now reach it by a 45-minute catamaran, a 25-minute speedboat from Koh Samui, or a two-hour car ferry from Surat Thani, a shift from the days when backpackers arrived via overnight trains from Bangkok. If The Beach captured one generation's hunt for untouched paradise, The White Lotus, filmed on neighbouring Koh Samui, captures something different: islands people don't just visit anymore, but move to and invest in. Photo via Placed of Juma The parties haven't gone, but the population has become far less transient, helped along by newer visa options that make longer stays workable. A suitcase, a longtail boat, and no real planBunchuay's arrival wasn't the smooth version of island life you'd see now. She'd heard about Thailand from a friend and booked a three-week holiday. Struggling with a giant suitcase off a longtail boat, she was helped by a local man to a beachfront guesthouse, where she sat down at a table for a cold drink, not realising it belonged to Wijetson "Meo" Bunchuay, whose relatives owned the resort. They talked for the rest of her trip. She went home, sold up with her father's blessing, and returned. A year later they were married. Life on the island back then meant regular visa runs and long journeys to the border. Marrying Meo eased that considerably. Her son, now in his late 20s, was formally adopted by his Thai stepfather in 2019, one of the first known cases of a Thai man adopting a British adult son; the process was deliberately delayed until he was 20, so he could decide for himself. From selling cakes on trust to running a schoolAs Si Ri Panya International School nears its 13th year, Bunchuay traces her interest in education back to her son Carl's own schooling. Back then, the village school in Thong Nai Pan mostly served resort-owning families; Thai families with other options often chose bilingual schools on the mainland instead, and Bunchuay noticed many foreign families felt they had to leave once their kids reached school age. Her own route into education wasn't direct. She sold baked goods on trust, handed out flyers on the beach, nannied, then took over a small homeschool that had lost its families to relocation. After a spell back in the UK teaching Maths and English, she returned to found her first education business, opening with just 70,000 baht left and three confirmed families. "It was scary not knowing if I could get to the end of the month without borrowing money," she said. Her son, meanwhile, had been sent to boarding school in Surat Thani so his education could continue. "There were many challenges before we built the school. The school helped transform what was possible for families on Koh Phangan." An island rebuilding itself around long-term lifeKoh Phangan's first government hospital only opened in 1987, a reminder of how young its infrastructure still is. As the island shifted from backpacker stopover to long-term home, demand for proper education grew alongside it. Si Ri Panya became the first licensed international school here, now teaching students from 28 nationalities under the UK National Curriculum at Primary and Cambridge at Secondary. Families no longer have to split up so their children can access decent schooling. Some newer residents come from Israel, Russia and Ukraine, many having found stability here that was harder to come by elsewhere. Their presence, alongside other long-term foreign residents, has fed into property, retail, education and hospitality, bringing new opportunities alongside familiar questions about affordability and how the island keeps its character while it grows. Younger backpackers on tighter budgets still keep Thai-run guesthouses and food stalls ticking over month to month. The school currently teaches Year 1 through Year 11, with plans to add Early Years provision and a Sixth Form (A Levels) within two years, offering a full British-style pathway on the island. None of this comes without complications. With ongoing scrutiny of business compliance across Thailand, it's worth checking a school's licensing, curriculum, safeguarding and staffing before committing, especially somewhere this far from home. For Bunchuay, that trust is central to what she's built: Si Ri Panya is now a fully licensed, Thai-British-owned school offering a stable, long-term option on Koh Phangan. To learn more, you can visit the Si Ri Panya website. If you're weighing up a similar move, or you've already made one, what mattered most in your decision? Press Release
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