The White Lotus season 3, which aired on HBO in 2025, was filmed almost entirely in Thailand, mostly on Koh Samui, with supporting scenes in Phuket and Bangkok. The fictional White Lotus resort is principally the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, with several other real hotels filling in for specific scenes across the season. Below is a location-by-location breakdown, what a stay or visit actually costs, and how to do a version of the same trip without the five-star bill.
Prices here are in Thai baht (THB) with US dollars in parentheses at ฿33 = US$1 (July 2026). Hotel rates change with season and demand, so treat every figure as a planning range rather than a quote.
White Lotus Thailand filming locations at a glance
| Location | What was filmed | Can you visit? | Cost reality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui | Main resort pool, restaurant, villas, Rick’s room, Ratliff family villa | Yes, bookable hotel | Villas from roughly ฿33,000-฿99,000+ (US$1,000-$3,000+)/night |
| Anantara Bophut Koh Samui | Resort lobby, driveway, security barrier, jewelry shop | Yes, bookable hotel | Standard 5-star Samui rates, well below Four Seasons |
| Anantara Lawana Koh Samui | Treehouse-style bar/lounge scenes | Yes, bookable hotel | Bar drinks accessible to non-guests |
| Rosewood Phuket (Ta Khai restaurant) | Dinner scenes | Yes, restaurant takes reservations | Fine-dining seafood pricing |
| Anantara Mai Khao Phuket | Spa scenes, Belinda’s room | Yes, bookable hotel + day spa | Spa treatments bookable without a room |
| Bangla Boxing Stadium, Phuket | Muay Thai match | Yes, public venue with regular fight nights | Standard stadium ticket prices |
| Mandarin Oriental Bangkok | Lobby, Bamboo Bar, Oriental Suite | Yes, bookable hotel; bar open to non-guests | Oriental Suite from ~฿46,200 (US$1,400)/night; bar drinks separate |
| Fisherman’s Village, Bophut (Koh Samui) | Full Moon Party episode street scenes | Yes, free public area | Free to walk; food and drink extra |
Compiled from HBO/Warner Bros. Discovery production coverage and hotel-industry reporting on season 3 (2025); confirm current rates directly with each property.
Where was The White Lotus season 3 filmed?
Production for season 3 ran from February through August 2024, based primarily on Koh Samui with additional shoots in Phuket and Bangkok. Series creator Mike White had originally scouted Japan, but chose Thailand partly for its production tax incentives, and has said the plot itself came together during a location-scouting trip to Chiang Mai, where he was hospitalized overnight with bronchitis. “I didn’t sleep for like two nights, and by the next morning I was like, ‘I think I have the plot,’” White told Time. “The season is pretty much what happened that night.”
The production took over the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui for the bulk of its shoot, supplementing it with several nearby resorts and a handful of Phuket and Bangkok locations for specific storylines.
What was filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui?
The Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, on the island’s quiet northwest coast, is the primary stand-in for the fictional White Lotus resort. Its beach, open-air villas with private plunge pools, and cliffside restaurant terraces appear throughout the season, including the breakfast and lunch scenes, Rick’s room, and the villa used by the stressed financier Timothy Ratliff’s family. The production reportedly took over the entire property during filming, with cast accommodated in the resort’s full-sized-pool villas.
It’s a real, bookable hotel today, not a closed set. See our things to do in Koh Samui guide for what’s on the island beyond the resort itself, and our where to stay in Koh Samui guide for how it compares with other options on the island.
What other Koh Samui hotels appear in the show?
Two more Samui properties filled in for specific scenes. Anantara Bophut Koh Samui supplied the resort’s Thai-style lobby, the driveway and security checkpoint, the employee parking lot, and the on-site jewelry shop, the connective-tissue shots that make the fictional resort feel lived-in. Anantara Lawana Koh Samui, on Chaweng Beach, provided a treehouse-style bar and lounge used for evening scenes. A pivotal scene, where Rick releases a dozen snakes and one bites Chelsea, was filmed at the real Samui Snake Farm.
The season’s Full Moon Party episode used Fisherman’s Village in Bophut, dressed with fake shopfronts, lanterns and closed streets, to stand in for Koh Phangan’s Haad Rin beach, alongside real footage shot at Haad Rin itself and at Café del Mar in Phuket. Fisherman’s Village is free to walk and a genuinely good spot for dinner; our Fisherman’s Village guide covers the Friday Walking Street market and beachfront bars there.
What was filmed in Phuket?
Phuket hosted several supporting storylines. Anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villas, on the island’s northwest coast, provided the spa scenes and the room used by visiting spa manager Belinda. Rosewood Phuket’s Ta Khai restaurant hosted a run of dinner scenes. A Muay Thai boxing match was filmed at Bangla Boxing Stadium, a real, still-operating fight venue. Yacht-harbor exterior shots used Phuket Yacht Haven Marina, and the opening boat-sequence footage was shot around Ya Nui Beach on Phuket’s south coast and Mu Ko Ang Thong Marine Park off Koh Samui.
If Phuket is on your list either way, our Phuket beaches and things to do in Phuket guides cover the island independent of the show, and Koh Samui vs Phuket is worth reading if you’re deciding which island to base yourself on.
What was filmed in Bangkok?
Bangkok’s role was smaller but notable: the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok, on the Chao Phraya river, is the season’s only featured Bangkok hotel, appearing in lobby scenes, at its historic Bamboo Bar, and in its 376-square-metre Oriental Suite, the same suite used for filming and now marketed to fans directly. The hotel later launched a “Lotus Unfolds” package built around the show, including a stay in a preferred room category, breakfast, a private tour of Bangkok’s old quarter, and a signature White Lotus cocktail at the Bamboo Bar.
Can you visit without staying overnight?
At most of these properties, yes, just not for free. The realistic options are a restaurant reservation, a spa booking, or a bar visit, all of which get you onto the grounds without the room rate. Guest reports since the show aired describe a real uptick in non-resort visitors at the Four Seasons Koh Samui specifically, to the point that staff now recommend booking a table in advance rather than assuming walk-in space, since outside demand has made tables harder to get. The Mandarin Oriental’s Bamboo Bar in Bangkok and the Anantara properties’ restaurants and lounges work the same way: bookable, open to non-guests, priced at standard fine-dining or bar rates rather than a resort day-pass fee.
How much does a night at the Four Seasons Koh Samui actually cost?
Be honest with yourself about the number. Villas at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, the ones used for the show’s pool and room scenes, typically run roughly ฿33,000-฿99,000+ (US$1,000-$3,000+) a night, varying by season, villa size and how far out you book. That’s well above what most travelers budget for a week anywhere in Thailand, let alone one night. The Mandarin Oriental’s filming-location Oriental Suite in Bangkok starts around ฿46,200 (US$1,400) a night, also for the specific room used on screen; the hotel’s standard rooms start lower, roughly ฿24,750+ (US$750+). If the room itself isn’t the point, a meal or spa visit gets you the same setting for a fraction of the cost.
The “White Lotus effect” on Koh Samui tourism
The show’s release triggered a measurable, attributed tourism spike, not just anecdotal buzz. Minor Hotels, which owns the Anantara properties used for filming, reported a 104% year-on-year increase in website traffic and a 41% year-on-year rise in direct online bookings across its three featured Anantara resorts in February 2025, according to Skift’s reporting on the company’s disclosed figures. Bloomberg reported that Koh Samui hotel bookings rose 65% year-on-year for the April 2025 Songkran holiday specifically, a jump widely attributed to the show’s premiere two months earlier. Search-interest data compiled by CNBC showed Hotels.com recording a 65% spike in searches for the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui by name, and a 40% rise in searches for the broader Koh Samui region, in the weeks after the season premiered. Some outlets also reported short-term rental bookings across Thailand rising close to 500% in the two days immediately following the premiere, though that figure is a short-window spike rather than a sustained trend.
The practical upshot: if you’re planning a Samui trip anywhere near the show’s popularity window or a Songkran visit, book earlier than you otherwise would, at both the featured resorts and comparable properties nearby, since local capacity got tighter.
Doing the itinerary on a normal budget
You don’t need the Four Seasons room rate to get most of the actual experience. Koh Samui’s north and northwest coasts, Bophut, Maenam, and the Fisherman’s Village stretch, offer beach days, boat trips to Ang Thong Marine Park, and the same warm Gulf-coast water at a fraction of the cost in mid-range hotels and guesthouses nearby. Our where to stay in Koh Samui guide breaks down real options by area and budget, and getting to Koh Samui covers flights and the ferry-and-bus routes that keep costs down further. If you’re combining the trip with a Phuket leg, Koh Samui vs Phuket helps decide which island fits your time and budget better, and couples chasing the show’s romantic-getaway feel without the five-star tab should check our honeymoon in Thailand guide for realistic mid-range alternatives.
When to go
November through March is the most reliable stretch for both Koh Samui and Phuket, cooler, drier weather that suits beach days and resort visits alike. Samui runs on its own monsoon calendar relative to the rest of the Gulf coast, with its wettest window typically October through December, so it’s worth checking seasonal patterns specifically for Samui rather than assuming Thailand-wide dry season dates apply. April brings Songkran and, as above, a documented post-White Lotus booking surge, so that month now needs earlier planning than it used to.
The show’s Thailand setting, briefly
Without spoiling the plot, season 3 leans into Thailand’s wellness and spirituality tourism, luxury resort culture, and the contrast between guests on a search for meaning and the staff and locals around them. It’s the same tension the show has mined in its Hawaii and Sicily seasons, transplanted to a real, specific set of Thai locations rather than a generic tropical backdrop, which is part of why so many of the filming locations are recognizable and visitable rather than built sets.
Sources
- CNN Travel: Want to create your own ‘White Lotus’ holiday in Thailand?
- Afar: The White Lotus Season 3 Was Filmed at These Thailand Resorts and Landmarks
- Time Out: Where is the third season of ‘The White Lotus’ filmed?
- Country & Town House: The White Lotus Season 3 Filming
- Matador Network: From a Snake Farm to Luxury Resorts, Every Filming Location in The White Lotus
- Time: Inside The White Lotus Season 3 (Mike White interview)
- Mandarin Oriental press release: The Only Bangkok Hotel Featured in The White Lotus Season 3
- Skift: The White Lotus Effect: Continued Boost for Thai Luxury Hotels (March 2025)
- Bloomberg: ‘White Lotus’ Craze Bolsters Thai Island’s April Hotel Bookings (March 2025)
- CNBC: Where is White Lotus filmed? Koh Samui, and searches and prices are up (March 2025)