Where to live in Chumphon.

Chumphon town sits in tambon Tha Taphao in Mueang Chumphon district, a few kilometres inland from the Gulf, and it is the only genuinely walkable, service-dense part of the province. Within a short radius are the provincial administration, Chumphon Khet Udomsakdi Hospital — the province's main public hospital, commonly listed at around 509 beds — the night market, the banks and the Chumphon railway station, a main station on the State Railway's Southern Line 485 kilometres south of Bangkok. The town is also the practical hinge of the whole province: almost everyone heading to the beaches, the Ko Tao ferry piers or the airport passes through it. Housing is rooms above shophouses, small owner-run apartment blocks and townhouses, with newer housing estates spreading along the bypass. It suits anyone who wants everyday services, the hospital and the train on their doorstep and is happy to drive twenty minutes for the sea.

East of the town the Mueang district runs down to the Gulf at Pak Nam Chumphon, a working fishing port, and to Hat Sai Ri in Na Cha-ang subdistrict — a fine white-sand beach that is also the province's most significant site. The shrine of Prince Abhakara Kiartivongse, the Prince of Chumphon, regarded as the father of the Royal Thai Navy, stands here, and beside it sits HTMS Chumphon, a preserved torpedo boat 68 metres long and 6.55 metres across. This stretch of coast is where the Ko Tao boats leave from: Thung Makham Noi pier, about fifteen kilometres south of the town centre, is the departure point for the high-speed catamarans that reach Mae Haad in roughly two hours. Housing is houses, bungalows and small owner-let blocks rather than an organised rental sector. It suits people who want to live on the water, be near the fishing port and the piers, and keep the town's hospital and station twenty minutes away.

Pathio district holds Chumphon's most developed coast. Hat Thung Wua Laen sits about sixteen kilometres northeast of downtown — twenty kilometres from the railway station and seventeen from the airport — and is the province's main resort beach, lined with small hotels, guesthouses and food stalls. Two kilometres further along, the crescent of Hat Saphli was ranked the cleanest beach in Thailand by the Pollution Control Department in 2017; the fishing village of Ban Tha Samet beside it is known across the region for its shrimp paste and fish sauce. Pathio also contains Chumphon Airport, in tambon Chum Kho about thirty kilometres north of the city, with daily direct flights to Bangkok's Don Mueang, and King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang's Prince of Chumphon Campus, opened by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in 1998 and renamed in 2013. Housing is bungalows, houses and small resort units let long-term out of season. It suits people who want the beach as their daily life and the airport ten minutes away.

The southern half of Chumphon was a separate province called Lang Suan until it was folded into Chumphon in 1932, and it still feels like its own place. Lang Suan town has town-municipality status alongside Chumphon itself, sits on the Lang Suan River — the province's main river, rising in Phato district — and holds the last stop of the Southern Line service that starts from Bangkok's Thon Buri station. It is best known nationally for its boat procession and long-boat races on the river. South of it, Sawi and Lamae are fruit country: Chumphon is Thailand's second-largest durian-growing province after Chanthaburi, with around 164,099 rai under durian on 2017 figures, and Lamae's golden cavendish bananas carry a GI registration and ship to Japan by the container-load. Housing is townhouses, shophouse rooms and houses let by their owners. It suits people who want a smaller, cheaper, distinctly local town and don't need the provincial capital's services.

Inland from the coast the province climbs west into the Phuket range and its northern continuation, the Tenasserim hills, along the Myanmar frontier with Tanintharyi. This is coffee country: the valley of Ban Panwal in Tha Sae district holds roughly 178,283 rai of robusta plantations, and Chumphon accounts for around sixty per cent of Thailand's coffee production, with local roasters such as Thamsing and ST Chumphon selling under their own names. Phato, the province's southwestern district and the source of the Lang Suan River, is the wettest and greenest corner — 928 km² of hills, waterfalls and rainforest, with river rafting and homestays rather than hotels. Forest still covers 1,288 km² of Chumphon, about 21.5 per cent of the province. Housing here means houses and farm compounds let directly by owners, in villages rather than estates. It suits people who genuinely want the hills, the plantations and the quiet, and who will drive an hour for anything serious.