Kayakers in life jackets paddle yellow kayaks on Tuyen Lam Lake with pine-covered hills in Da Lat behind them.

Southern Vietnam

Where the south goes to cool down

A French hill station at 1,500 metres, six hours from Saigon and two from the coast. Pine forest, greenhouses, coffee farms and genuinely cool evenings.

Plan my trip

Orientation

What Da Lat is

The French built Da Lat as a place to escape the heat, and that is still its entire proposition. At 1,500 metres the temperature sits between 15 and 24 degrees all year, which after a week in the delta feels like a different country. The town is a mixture of villas, a lake, a great deal of new construction and a surrounding landscape of pine forest, vegetable greenhouses and coffee.

Vietnamese visitors love it and it is a honeymoon destination, which explains the swan pedalos and the heart-shaped photo spots. Foreign visitors either find it charming or find it kitsch; both reactions are fair. What is not in dispute is the countryside around it and the coffee.

Nights: 2
From Saigon: 6h road, 50 min flight
From Mui Ne: 4 hours by road
Temperature: 15-24C year round
Best months: November to March

What to do

What is worth doing

A coffee farm morning — the central highlands grow most of Vietnam’s coffee, and the good small farms around Da Lat will show you the whole process and let you taste properly. This is the best thing here.
Canyoning at Datanla — abseiling down waterfalls, genuinely fun, and it needs an operator with real safety standards. We use one; there have been serious accidents here with cheap operators.
The old railway station and the short heritage train to Trai Mat — half an hour each way, pretty, undemanding.
The Crazy House, which is a surrealist guesthouse and unlike anything else in Vietnam. Twenty minutes, and worth it.
Cycling or motorbiking the pass roads — the countryside starts immediately outside town and is the reason to stay a second night.

Two women sit on paddleboards taking a selfie on a calm misty lake surrounded by forested hills in Da Lat.

A smiling couple lean in to admire ripe coffee cherries on a plant during a coffee farm visit near Da Lat.

Rows of colorful potted flowers, including cyclamen and gloxinia, displayed on shelves at a Da Lat flower market.

Riders coast down a mountain alpine coaster through green forest at Datanla Waterfall in Dalat.

Practical

Getting there, and when

Route	Time	Note
Flight from Saigon	50 min	Airport is 30 km from town
Road from Saigon	6-7h	Long, and the last hour is switchbacks
Road from Mui Ne	4h	The classic pairing: coast then hills
Road from Nha Trang	4h	Spectacular in clear weather

November to March is dry and cool, with cold nights in December and January. April and May are warm and clear. June to October is the wet season, with heavy afternoon rain and mist that can sit on the town for days — which some people find atmospheric and others find claustrophobic.

Not for everyone

Who should skip Da Lat

On a first two-week Vietnam trip, Da Lat is the place we most often suggest cutting. It is six hours from Saigon and four from the coast, and the thing it offers — cool air and countryside — is not what most people come to Vietnam for. It earns its two nights if you are travelling in the hot months, if you care about coffee, or if you want a break from heat in the middle of a long trip.

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Is Da Lat worth two nights?

Two, yes, if you are in the south during the hot months or you want the coffee country. One night is mostly travel. Three is only for people who are cycling or canyoning.

How cold does it get?

Nights in December and January drop to around 10 degrees and hotels rarely have heating. Bring a jumper; you will need it.

Is canyoning safe here?

With a properly equipped operator, yes. With the cheapest one you can find, no — there have been fatalities. We book one operator and we do not shop around on price for this.

Da Lat or Sapa for mountains?

Different things. Da Lat is pine forest, farms and comfort at altitude. Sapa is terraced valleys, ethnic minority villages and walking. If you can only do one and you want scenery, Sapa.