WILD WOOD BEACH FITNESS: KO SAMUI AND KO TAO

I train clients in Christchurch and online across New Zealand, but I don't stop training myself when I'm travelling. On a recent trip through Ko Samui and Ko Tao I trained at Wild Wood Beach Fitness, an outdoor gym built almost entirely from hand-shaped timber. Here's the full rundown: what the training is actually like and how the two islands compare.

WHAT IS WILD WOOD BEACH FITNESS?

Wild Wood is an outdoor fitness concept built into resort beachfronts across Thailand's Gulf islands, with locations at Chaweng Buri Resort in Ko Samui and on Ko Tao. Instead of steel plates and machines, the equipment is carved from solid wood, with barrel-style dumbbells, log-loaded benches, and freestanding pull-up rigs set up directly on the sand under open-air, thatched-roof shelters a few metres from the water.

It sounds like a gimmick until you actually lift the equipment. The wooden dumbbells are genuinely loaded (20 to 30kg plus), the benches are sturdy, and the whole setup is designed for real strength training, not just a photo opportunity. Both locations run as day pass facilities, so you don't need to be a hotel guest to train there.

KO SAMUI: RAW HEAT, OPEN-AIR TRAINING

The Ko Samui gym sits right on the sand at Chaweng Buri Resort, looking straight out over Chaweng Beach. There's something completely different about training outdoors in the raw heat and humidity of Ko Samui compared to an air-conditioned gym back home. Every set feels harder, you sweat through a warm-up alone, and the ocean is right there the second you rack the weight.

The recovery area was still being finished when I visited, with the sauna and steam room mid-build, but the ice bath was already fully operational, and it did not disappoint. I finished my session with a 3 minute ice bath. Wild Wood Beach Fitness gives you the perfect opportunity to get in a productive workout while travelling, then spend the afternoon enjoying the beach. If you're heading to Ko Samui and want to keep your training on track without sacrificing a single day of the holiday, it's well worth checking out.

Ocean view bench press. The racks are lined with wooden dumbbells stacked straight on the sand.

A set of dips with Chaweng Beach as the backdrop, with a hydrofoiler cruising past in the background.

KO TAO: SMALLER ISLAND, SHARPER RECOVERY SETUP

Ko Tao is a much smaller, quieter island than Ko Samui, and the Wild Wood location there matches that laid-back energy. Same wooden-log equipment, same beachfront setup, but with one big advantage: the sauna and steam room were fully built and in great condition, unlike the still-under-construction recovery area in Ko Samui.

That gave me the full recovery loop in one session: lift, sweat it out in the steam room, then straight into the ice bath. Both islands share the same standout feature, which is that the ice baths are large, well-maintained, and properly cold. The staff top them up with big blocks of ice, and you can ask them to add more if you want it colder. They'll happily adjust it to what you need.

Log dumbbell curls under the shade shelter. The equipment is heavier than it looks.

PRICE AND WHAT'S INCLUDED

At both locations, a day pass runs around 15 NZD, and that single fee gets you full access for the entire day: the wooden-log gym, the ice bath, and at Ko Tao, the sauna and steam room too. There's no need to rush a session. You can train in the morning, come back for another round in the afternoon, and use the ice bath as many times as you like. For the standard of equipment and the setting, it's one of the best value training experiences I've come across anywhere.

Incline press with the wooden dumbbells.

THE EXPERIENCE

Weather-wise, you couldn't ask for better training conditions: warm, sunny, with a sea breeze rolling through the open-air shelters to take the edge off the heat. It makes the training harder in the best way. Your heart rate climbs faster, you're sweating within minutes, and every rep feels earned. Then you cool off ten metres away, either in the ocean or in the ice bath. If you're travelling through Ko Samui or Ko Tao and don't want to let your training slide, Wild Wood Beach Fitness solves that problem properly. It's not a resort gimmick bolted onto a hotel gym. It's a real strength training setup, with a recovery routine most gyms back home can't match, for the price of a couple of coffees.