which beach?

Ko Samui/Ko Phangan/Ko Tao in the gulf.

Ditto. I'll be there from next week. I'm a weather nerd and this is my usual thingy on August:
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The southern Gulf islands (Samui, Phangan, Tao) are usually real good in August - still well short of their normal wet season of Oct into Jan. It does rain, but sunshine usually dominates.

Elsewhere is wet season, but travel is usually okay - we get plenty of posts saying people had a good holiday with the usual daily mixture of one or a few showers/storms and sunshine/scattered cloud, some days with no rain.
This has been the pattern in all my wet season visits. The latest, August 07, I was on Phi Phi and Phuket in what the newspapers called the wettest period for some years. In 15 days got 2 days virtually cloudless, about 2 where it rained more often than not (but these still had some sunny breaks and were not write-offs), and the rest were the normal mixture of one or a few showers, sun/scattered cloud. I had a great holiday. Check the uncredited shots on the 2 PP pages and 1 Phuket page in the link below, lots of sunshine in them. BTW, Phi Phi/Phuket and Krabi are within sight of each other, so weather patterns are similar.

The driest of the non-Southern Gulf islands tends to be Ko Samet near Bangkok. Most of Samet's beaches face east and are sheltered from the prevailing wet season winds which on the days when they get stronger can cause rough seas and blow a lot of flotsam and jetsom onto the beach.
The wettest are Big Ko Chang and neighbours + the Ranong area islands. Nevertheless I have seen plenty of posts from visitors to the former in the wet season saying they enjoyed themselves.

Tezza.On your recco,was in Phangan 2mths ago.Stay @ Green Papaya on Haad Salad was great.Superb time.Thanks.

Heading for Salad on this upcoming trip. Really looking forward to it.

Koh Samet is known as a dry island with very low rainfall.

Edited by: Andreas_at_LP

Agreed, head to the east at this time of year although Phuket is not always wet during the monsoon (have to be really unlucky for continuous rain!). But there are also other cool beaches further south if you are staying until later in the year. Trang and Satun have amazing beaches on some of the islands around there....check out www.thailandecoportal.com it has some interesting information on beaches.

I want to suggest one island which is not popular but worth to go. Sri Chang island that's it. It's match for traveller who like a quiet at night and not much people to annoy you. Get around by rent moto 300 bath a day. Accomodation, I advice to ride moto to find it. If you get from broker from the pier it's truely the cost'll plus. Easy to find any place because the island not so big.

This island located in Sri Racha before arrive Pattaya you must pass this distirct. Get the boat around 45 minutes.

If you like long beach, big island, much more traveller this island not match for you.

Lastly, thanks for travel in Thailand