Best Burger Winner, Property and Man o' War

1. Phuket’s Best Burger 2026: PAN Burger wins

Phuket’s Best Burger 2026 is done, and PAN Burger takes the win.

PAN Burger, Phuket's Best Burger 2026

A total of 692 votes were cast across the bracket. Congrats to PAN Burger, and congrats to the full top 10 for giving readers a strong island-wide shortlist.

Final top 10:

1. PAN Burger
2. EAT. Burgers & Beers
3. Millionaire Burger
4. NumNum Old Town
5. Burger Mania
6. Fira
7. Uncle Tomas
8. OOO Burger
9. Burger Records
10. Treasure Burger

If you missed the bracket, keep the list. It is a useful Phuket burger hit list on its own.

2. Phuket property in slow season: 7 facts that matter

1. Cherng Talay has the most sale inventory in Phuket. Thailand-Property showed 1,892 listings there when checked on May 30. C9 Hotelworks, via Thaiger, says the Cherng Talay submarket holds 54% of all active listings in Phuket. Cherng Talay alone has more listings than Rawai and Kamala combined. For readers not deep into west-side geography, this is the area around Laguna, Boat Avenue, Bang Tao, Surin side access, and the inland road network running up toward Si Sunthon and Thalang.
2. Rawai has the second-largest sale inventory in Phuket, and it is one of the island’s clearest full-time living markets. Thailand-Property showed 1,243 listings in Rawai. That is almost three times Kamala’s count. This is a bigger, more practical living market than many west-coast buyers expect, especially if you care more about daily life, space, and long-stay use than brand-new launch gloss.
3. Kamala is much smaller and much tighter. Thailand-Property showed 437 listings in Kamala. Phuket.net puts Kamala in the prime villa group that saw ~12% to 18% year-on-year price growth in 2025.
4. Resale condos are usually cheaper per square metre and often bigger in the ways buyers notice day to day. C21 Hero puts the gap at about ฿140,000 per sq m for new projects versus ฿100,000 per sq m for resale. Thaiger, citing FazWaz data, gives the same comparison for non-branded condos: about ฿139,000 per sq m in the primary market versus ฿100,000 per sq m in the secondary market. Thailand-Property’s current Phuket condo-for-sale index puts the average listing size at 105.8 sq m island-wide. In practice, that matters because older resale stock often gives buyers larger living rooms, bigger balconies, or a real second bedroom, while many new launches optimize for smaller investor-friendly layouts.

Featured listing

125 square meters in Rawai for 6.4M THB.

5. New and old stock carry different risks, so value depends on the job you want the property to do. New and off-plan units give you cleaner finishes, staged payment plans, and the best chance of selling a fresh story later. They also carry completion risk, delay risk, and less room to negotiate. Older resale units let you inspect the exact unit, start rental income faster, and negotiate harder, but you need to check maintenance quality, sinking fund health, common-area wear, and whether the layout still works for current tenant demand. If the job is immediate living space or rental cash flow, resale usually wins. If the job is payment-plan flexibility or a specific new project in a growth pocket, new can still make sense.
6. Prime west-coast prices are high. MORE Group says prime west-coast zones are roughly 23% to 29% above 2023 levels. Phuket.net says 2026 price growth should slow to ~2% to 7% overall, with Phuket still around ~5% to 10%. That means the easy run-up is behind buyers. Also, when agents talk about yields, they mean the rental return a property produces each year compared with what you paid for it.
7. This is a better market for negotiation than panic buying. Alestria says short-stay yields still run around 8% to 15%, while long-stay rentals are around 6% to 8%. Again, that means gross rental return relative to purchase price. But Alestria also says pricing now varies heavily by micro-location, branding, and management. So do not buy an area story on its own. Buy the exact unit, exact road, exact project, and exact resale reality.

If you are buying while the market is slower, the simplest rule is this: push harder on finished resale stock, be much more skeptical on off-plan marketing, and do not assume every west-coast listing deserves a premium just because it is near a beach.

3. Portuguese man o’ war at Patong: what to do if you get stung

The Phuket News reported a Patong beach warning after several Portuguese man o’ war washed ashore.

The MSD Manual says a sting can leave a painful, itchy rash, can turn into blisters, and can also trigger muscle pain, sweating, nausea, and chest pain in stronger reactions.

Best first actions:

• Rinse with saltwater, not fresh water
• Do not use vinegar on Portuguese man o’ war stings
• Remove tentacles carefully
• Use hot or warm water or a cold pack for pain
• Get medical help fast if there is breathing trouble or altered awareness

Also: do not touch one on the sand. A washed-up one can still sting.