Wooden birdcages hang along a narrow alley wall leading to a decorative rooftop gate in Hoi An.

Central Vietnam

Beautiful, crowded, and best before eight

The most photographed town in Vietnam, and still worth three nights if you get the hours right: the old town is a different place before the coaches arrive.

Plan my trip

Orientation

What Hoi An is

A trading port that stopped trading. Hoi An silted up in the nineteenth century, the commerce moved to Da Nang, and the town was left with its Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese merchant houses intact because nobody had the money to knock them down. That accident of economics is why it looks the way it does today.

The old town is small — you can walk it end to end in twenty minutes — and it carries an enormous number of visitors. This is the central fact of a Hoi An trip and the thing that decides whether you enjoy it. The answer is hours, not avoidance: at seven in the morning the same streets are near empty, the light is good and the town belongs to the people who live in it. By ten it is a market. After six it is beautiful and extremely busy.

Nights: 3 to 4
Airport: Da Nang, 45 minutes
Best months: February to August
Flood risk: October and November
Where to stay: Old town edge, An Bang beach, or the rice fields between

Where to stay

Where to stay, and the trade-off

Area	Who it suits	Trade-off
Old town edge	First visit, walking everywhere, evenings	Noise and crowds until late
An Bang / Ha My beach	Families, longer stays, swimming	15 minutes by bike or taxi to town
Cam Thanh / rice fields	Quiet, cycling, good value	Need a bike or a taxi for everything
Cam Nam island	Local streets, cheap food, five minutes over the bridge	Little atmosphere in the evening

Our default for three nights is the rice fields or the beach with a bicycle, not the old town itself. You get the mornings by riding in at half past six, you get the evenings by riding in again, and in between you are somewhere quiet rather than somewhere being photographed.

What to do

What is worth doing

The old town before eight, twice — once for the streets and once for the market and the river.
A cooking class that starts at the market and uses a real kitchen. Half a day, and the best value activity in town.
Tailoring, if you want it: two fittings minimum, so start on your first morning and collect on day three. Good shops exist and so do bad ones; the difference is fabric and the number of fittings, not price.
An Bang beach in the afternoon, or Ha My if you want fewer people.
Tra Que herb village and the rice fields by bicycle — flat, shaded in parts, and the most pleasant two hours here.
My Son at opening time as a half-day trip, which is the only sensible hour for it.

A street artisan in Hoi An weaves palm leaf toys for a tourist beside old yellow walls at night.

Colorful lanterns decorate wooden boats moored on the river at dusk in Hoi An.

Wooden loungers line a resort swimming pool framed by palm trees near the beach in Hoi An.

Tourists in red chef hats and aprons pose with knives beside fresh herbs at a Tra Que cooking class

Timing

The flood season, stated plainly

Hoi An sits on a river at sea level and it floods. In October and November, after heavy rain upstream, the old town can take ankle-deep water for a day or waist-deep water for two or three. Shops board up, boats replace bicycles on the main streets and the town carries on, because this has happened every year for centuries. It is not dangerous and it is disruptive.

If your dates fall in October or November

We book flexible rates in Hoi An, keep the beach nights short, and put more of the trip inland at Hue and Phong Nha. We will not sell you four beach nights here in late October and call it bad luck afterwards.

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● ideal · ◐ workable · ○ poor. Sea is warm and good from April; October and November carry storm and flood risk.

Not for everyone

Who should skip it

Nobody on a first Vietnam trip should skip Hoi An, but two kinds of traveller should adjust it. If crowds genuinely spoil a place for you, give it two nights and stay at the beach. And if you are coming in late October or November with a beach holiday in mind, move those nights south to Phu Quoc and keep Hoi An for the town.

Common questions