A luxury 6-bedroomed villa on Natai Beach, with chic living and dining areas, a games and media room, wide lawns and a 25-metre pool, Villa Essenza is perfect for family holidays and weddings. The villa's contemporary design features floor-to-ceiling windows that bring the outside in, a canopied poolside barbecue area and a peaceful gazebo facing the beach. Staffed with a villa manager, housekeepers and a skilled private chef specialising in authentic Thai flavours and seafood, Villa Essenza is one of seven private luxury villas in the exclusive Sava Beach Villas estate, under half an hour's drive from Phuket airport.

On the south-west coast of Phang Nga province, just over the bridge from Phuket, Natai Beach is a sleepy stretch of powder-soft white sand that has been shaken awake in recent years by those seeking a luxurious yet peaceful escape. Lining the five-kilometre-long beach are some of Thailand's most exclusive private villas and resorts, yet interspersed with these luxury hideaways are rubber plantations, coconut groves and water buffalo fields, giving Natai a distinctive blend of rugged rural landscapes and cutting-edge holiday homes that somehow coexist without imposing on one another. The beach itself is happily free of the beach chairs and braying vendors that blight so many sandy shorelines in the Phuket region, and visitors here might walk for hundreds of metres without seeing another soul. Kokkloy, about five kilometres away, is a small but bustling town with banks, local shops, markets and a mid-size supermarket where provisions may be sourced. Those seeking nightlife excitement, shopping centres and a greater range of restaurants and activities will need to travel by car 20 to 40 kilometres south to Phuket.