Red lanterns hang along an ornate pedestrian bridge over the river in Hoi An's old town.

Vietnam · Quang Nam coast

Hoi An, and the hours that matter

A merchant port that stopped working in the nineteenth century and was therefore never rebuilt. About eleven hundred timber and brick buildings survive inside thirty hectares, which is why it is protected, and why it is busy.

Plan my trip See how a trip is priced

At a glance

RegionCentral Vietnam, Quang Nam province

Nights we suggest3, and the third one is not padding

Nearest airportDa Nang (DAD), 30 km, about 45 minutes

Best monthsFebruary to April; August for the beach

Hardest monthsOctober and November floods; June and July heat

Old town ticketVND 120,000, admits you to five of the heritage houses

What Hoi An actually is

Hoi An was an international port from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, trading with Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese merchants. Then the Thu Bon river silted up, the trade moved thirty kilometres north to Da Nang, and the town went quiet for two hundred years. That is the only reason it still exists: nobody had any money to knock it down. What survives is roughly eleven hundred structures inside a protected core of about thirty hectares, timber-framed, tile-roofed, most of them still narrow trading houses with a shop at the front and a river door at the back.

The town runs on a clock, and the clock is the single most useful thing to know about it. Between 06:00 and 08:30 the old town belongs to people who live there: the market is working, the streets are being washed, and you can photograph a two-hundred-year-old house without a stranger in it. Between 09:30 and 16:00 the coaches arrive from Da Nang and the cruise terminal and the lanes are full. From 17:00 the lanterns come on and it becomes a shopping and eating street, pretty and completely commercial, with a crowd density on the Japanese bridge that some people enjoy and some cannot stand.

The honest part: the old town has more than four hundred tailors, dozens of near-identical lantern shops and a river frontage of restaurants with laminated menus. Nobody lives on the ground floor of the main streets any more because the rent is worth more as retail. An Hoi island opposite is now almost entirely bars and a night market. If your picture of Hoi An is a sleepy fishing town, adjust it before you arrive rather than after.

What still holds up: the assembly halls of the Chinese congregations, which are working temples and not exhibits; the covered bridge itself, small and strange and worth ten quiet minutes at dawn; the food, which is genuinely regional and not available in the same form elsewhere in Vietnam; the rice fields and water-coconut channels five minutes out by bicycle; and An Bang beach, which is a real beach with real swimming from March to September.

How many nights, and why two breaks it

Three nights. The reason is the clock rather than the list of sights.

You need two mornings before 08:30, because that is the only time the old town is the place people came to see, and one morning is a coin flip against weather. You need one full day for what is outside the town: My Son, forty-five minutes west, or the beach, or the boat down to the river mouth. And you need one afternoon doing nothing, because the middle of the day here is either 34 degrees or raining, and a schedule that ignores that produces exhausted people.

Two nights gives you one early morning and no slack. If you are also having clothes made, two nights is not enough for anyone: a shirt needs one fitting and twenty-four hours, a jacket needs two fittings and at least forty-eight, and every rushed tailoring story starts with a two-night stay.

A fourth night is easy to justify if you want the beach properly, and unusual to regret. Past five nights, most people start taking day trips to Da Nang and Hue, at which point moving hotel makes more sense than commuting.

When to go

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1 = rain and flood risk · 2 = workable · 3 = the months we would pick

Months	Daytime range	Rain	What it is actually like
February to April	22 – 30 °C	30 – 60 mm/month	The best window: dry, warm, not yet hot, sea warming through April.
May to July	30 – 38 °C	60 – 110 mm/month	Hot. Beach and pool weather, old town unusable between 11:00 and 16:00.
August	29 – 35 °C	100 – 150 mm/month	Still good, with short heavy showers. Our other preferred month for the coast.
September	27 – 33 °C	250 – 350 mm/month	The rain arrives properly, and the first typhoons are possible.
October to November	23 – 30 °C	500 – 700 mm/month	Wettest months in Vietnam. The Thu Bon floods the old town most years.
December to January	20 – 25 °C	200 – 250 mm/month	Cool, grey, persistent drizzle. Quiet, cheap, and no swimming.

The flood nobody advertises

In most years the river comes over the quay into the old town at least once between early October and late November, sometimes by a metre or more. Shops move their stock upstairs, boats take people along Bach Dang street, and it is over in two or three days. It is not dangerous in the town centre and it is not a reason to cancel, but if your only three nights land in it you will spend them somewhere else, and you should know that before you book non-refundable flights.

Getting here

Hoi An has no airport and no railway station. Everything comes through Da Nang, thirty kilometres north, and the drive takes about forty-five minutes on a good road.

Route	Time	Rough cost
Da Nang airport to Hoi An, private car	45 min, 30 km	VND 350,000 – 450,000 (USD 14 – 18)
Hanoi to Da Nang by air	1 h 20	USD 35 – 95 one way
Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang by air	1 h 20	USD 35 – 95 one way
Bangkok, Singapore or Seoul to Da Nang by air	1 h 45 – 4 h 40	Direct services most days
Hue to Hoi An over the Hai Van pass	3 h 30 with stops, 130 km	USD 85 – 110, the car
Hue to Da Nang by train	2 h 30 – 3 h	USD 6 – 12, the best rail hour in the country
My Son sanctuary from Hoi An	45 min, 40 km	USD 45 – 60 return, the car
An Bang beach from the old town	15 min by bicycle	Bicycle hire USD 2 per day

Take the coast road over the Hai Van pass rather than the tunnel if the day is clear. It costs about forty minutes and it is the only part of the north to south drive that is worth doing for its own sake. In heavy rain the pass is cloud and nothing else, and the tunnel is the right choice.

What things cost on the ground

Item	Typical price	Note
Garden hotel near the old town, per night	USD 45 – 90	Most have a pool; the walk in is five to fifteen minutes
Riverside boutique, per night	USD 100 – 180	Closer, quieter rooms cost more for a reason
Beach resort at An Bang or Ha My, per night	USD 180 – 400	Fifteen minutes out, a different holiday
Cao lau, the local noodle	USD 1.50 – 2.50	Only made here, with water from a specific set of wells
Banh mi from a street counter	USD 1 – 1.60	The queue tells you which counter
Restaurant dinner, per person	USD 10 – 18	Riverfront costs a third more for the same food
Old town entrance ticket	VND 120,000 (USD 4.80)	Five heritage sites of your choice, valid several days
My Son sanctuary	VND 150,000 (USD 6)	Includes the shuttle and the dance performance
Cooking class, half day	USD 30 – 45	Market, boat and four dishes, in most versions
A tailored shirt	USD 30 – 60	Below that the cloth is the compromise
A tailored jacket	USD 120 – 300	Two fittings and forty-eight hours, or do not start

Hoi An in five frames

Red lanterns and Vietnamese signboards decorate old shophouses along a street in Hoi An.

A visitor stands atop the covered Japanese Bridge with its ornate tiled roof in Hoi An's old town.

A bowl of Hoi An cao lau noodles topped with sliced pork, crispy crackers, herbs, chili and lime.

Tourists paddle round bamboo basket boats along the palm-lined water coconut village near Hoi An.

Colorful lanterns hang above cyclos and pedestrians on a lively street in Hoi An Ancient Town at dusk.

Trips that stop here

Hoi An gets three nights on the Vietnam north to south route and three on the Classic Indochina route, in both cases arriving over the Hai Van pass from Hue rather than flying into Da Nang.

Families tend to want the beach half of the town rather than the museum half, and the eleven-day family route is built that way: old town early, pool in the middle of the day, basket boats and a cooking class instead of a second set of heritage houses.

Plan My Trip

Three nights here, in a twelve-day route

Hanoi, Lan Ha Bay, Hue, Hoi An and the Mekong delta, with the price table on the page.

See the route

When to skip Hoi An

Your dates are fixed in October or November and a flooded or rained-out town would ruin the trip. Move the nights to Da Nang or south to Nha Trang instead.
Crowds in a confined space are your limit. Between 10:00 and 16:00 in high season the main lanes are shoulder to shoulder, and no guide can route around it.
You want nightlife past midnight. The old town is quiet by 23:00 and the noise licence on An Hoi is enforced; Da Nang is where that evening exists.
You are coming only for the tailoring and have two nights. Buy nothing rather than buy something that needs a fitting you will not be there for.
You want an empty beach. An Bang is good and it is not remote, Cua Dai has lost most of its sand to erosion and is sandbagged in places, and the quiet coast is another two hours south.

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Should I stay in the old town itself?

Only a handful of small hotels are inside the protected core, and they are quiet at night but hemmed in by day. Most people do better five to fifteen minutes out, where there is a pool and a garden, and walk or cycle in twice a day.

Is the old town ticket compulsory?

You buy it to enter the heritage houses, assembly halls and the covered bridge. Walking the streets, eating and shopping do not require it in practice, though ticket desks are placed at the main entrances and you will be asked. It is under five dollars and the money goes to the conservation fund.

Can I combine Hoi An with Hue in one stay?

You can day-trip between them in three and a half hours each way, but it wastes the best part of both. Two nights in Hue and three in Hoi An, with the pass drive as the transfer, gives you the same ground for the same money and no repeated journeys.

Is My Son worth half a day?

If you have not seen Cham or Khmer architecture before, yes, and it is the best surviving Cham site in Vietnam. If Angkor is later in your trip, My Son will look modest afterwards, so see it first or not at all. Go at 06:30 or after 15:00; the bowl it sits in is airless at midday.