1. How many days Hoi An needs

Two days covers the Old Town and the countryside. Three days lets you give a whole day to either My Son or Cu Lao Cham. With only one day, keep everything inside the Old Town. The walkable part of Hoi An is small, and putting two districts into one day means spending the day in transit.

The distances explain the split. The Old Town fits everything worth seeing into 400 metres north to south. Tra Que, An Bang and Cam Thanh are scattered around it, all about fifteen minutes away by bicycle. My Son is an hour by car and Cu Lao Cham twenty minutes by boat. The first two groups fit into one day together. The last two each take a day of their own.

Hoi An comes in four pieces

The Old Town measures about 400 metres north to south and a little over a kilometre east to west. A slow lap takes an hour. The time you set aside for it is therefore not walking time. It is time spent inside buildings, at tables and sitting down out of the heat.

Why two days rather than one

The buildings you need a ticket for close at 17:00. The lanterns come on between 17:30 and 18:00. Daytime Hoi An and evening Hoi An are separated by the clock, so a single day always leaves one of them thin.

Going out to the countryside on the second day rescues the morning. Both the field work at Tra Que and the basket boats at Cam Thanh are best early, and at that hour the Old Town has not opened yet.

2. The hours that are already fixed

Write down the things with a fixed hour first, then fill the gaps, and a Hoi An day rarely goes wrong. Here is that list. Everything else can happen when you are hungry or when it gets too hot to stand outside.

The road shuts at nine

From 09:00 no car or motorbike enters the Old Town. If you are arriving with luggage that day, either get there before nine or plan to be dropped at the edge and walk in. Check-out works the same way.

Five in the afternoon comes early

The old houses and assembly halls shut at around 17:00. Buying a ticket at 16:30 and getting round three of them is not possible. If you intend to use a ticket, use it in the morning or the early afternoon.

The crowd changes by the hour

Summer and winter hours

The car-free hours are set separately for summer and winter. The difference is only thirty minutes, but if you are planning night photographs it is worth knowing that in winter things change at 21:00. In central Vietnam the dry stretch runs February to August and the wet one September to January.

Hoi An Old Town on the map📍Map

3. Reading the map

The Old Town is a long strip along the river, and three streets running parallel to the water carry almost everything worth seeing. Learn those three and you can stop looking at your phone.

Two bridges

The Japanese Covered Bridge sits at the western end, a roofed bridge over a narrow canal that once linked the Japanese quarter to the Chinese one. The bridge across the river itself is An Hoi, and crossing it brings you to the night market.

So the shape of a day is this: buildings on this side of the water during daylight, across the bridge for the night market in the evening, and back again. The two bridges are ten minutes apart on foot.

The central market

At the eastern end, where Tran Phu runs out. Vegetables and fish in the morning, and a food court at the back where you can eat noodles and rice. Quan Cong temple faces it across the street.

Hoi An central market on the map📍Map

4. The Old Town ticket, and what changed in 2026

Hoi An changed how it charges in 2026. The rate the city now sets is 20,000d per site, and Vietnamese and foreign visitors pay the same. The old split by nationality is gone.

The booths sell bundles. There are two, and both of them include walking the streets of the Old Town.

The ticket is not a day pass

It is valid for up to three days of your stay. See two places on your first day, keep the rest, and use them on day three. Just hang on to the stubs.

Who goes free

Under-16s and students are free. Over-60s, people with disabilities and cultural-policy beneficiaries go free if they are Vietnamese nationals. Diplomats are free. A family therefore buys tickets for the adults only.

The booths are on every approach

They open at 07:30 and close at 21:30, and there is one at each main entrance to the Old Town, so there is no hunting involved. Since 2026 tickets are checked by QR code, which has taken most of the queueing out of it.

Where the money goes

The resolution setting the fee says the revenue funds restoration and conservation work, cultural events and the running of the site. The old houses are still lived-in timber buildings that need work every year, and the clean-up after each flood comes out of the same pot.

5. What the ticket gets you into

There are around twenty-two ticketed sites, split between old houses, assembly halls, museums, temples and a grave. A bundle lets you pick three or five of them.

If you only pick three

Do not pick three of the same kind. One assembly hall, one old house and one museum means you do not see the same thing three times. Fujian is the biggest hall, Tan Ky is the house nearest the river, and the museums are the coolest place to be at midday.

What needs no ticket at all

Walking the streets, looking at lanterns and passing through the market cost nothing. Riverfront photographs are free and so is the night market. The stub only gets torn when you step inside a building.

People still live in the old houses

Descendants still live in houses like Tan Ky and Phung Hung and open the front rooms. The marks on the columns record which flood reached which height. It is closer to being let into somebody’s home than to visiting a museum, so it is worth not wandering into the living quarters at the back.

Japanese Covered Bridge on the map📍Map Fujian Assembly Hall on the map📍Map Tan Ky House on the map📍Map

6. The question everyone asks about the ticket

English-language forums have argued for years about whether the Old Town ticket is compulsory, whether it is a tourist tax in disguise, and whether anyone actually checks. The 2026 rules make the answer clearer than it used to be.

What the ticket legally is

Since February 2026 the charge is a fee set by the city council, not a price set by an operator. That is why the amount is now identical for Vietnamese and foreign visitors, why the exemptions are written into the resolution, and why the revenue is earmarked for conservation. In August 2026 the per-site figure was fixed at 20,000d.

Do you get stopped

Checking happens at the doors of the ticketed buildings, reliably. Checking at the entrances to the streets themselves is inconsistent and always has been. The official notice asks visitors to keep their stubs so that moving in and out of the Old Town is easier, which tells you what the street-level checks are for.

When you genuinely do not need one

If your plan is to arrive at five, walk the lanes, watch the lanterns, take a boat and eat at the night market, no part of that requires a ticket, because the ticketed buildings have shut. Many people spend a very good half-day exactly that way.

When it is clearly worth buying

If you want to go inside anything. Three sites for 80,000d works out at less than a bowl of cao lau each. The Japanese Covered Bridge is the exception to the daylight rule and stays open until 21:30, so if you want to walk through the bridge rather than photograph it from outside, you need a ticket even in the evening.

7. One day in Hoi An

A one-day plan should stay inside the Old Town. Add a beach or My Son and two hours vanish into transit, and you end up somewhere else when the lanterns come on.

What this day leaves out

An Bang, Tra Que, the Cam Thanh basket boats and any cooking class, all of it. My Son and Cu Lao Cham too, obviously. Trying to squeeze those in means losing the Old Town.

If you only have half a day

An evening needs no ticket at all. Arrive around four, walk the lanes while it is still light, watch the 17:30 lighting, take a boat at 18:30 and eat at the night market. The ticketed buildings have closed anyway, so nothing is lost.

Coming from Da Nang for the day

Leave Da Nang at eight and you are in the Old Town before nine. The return is the awkward part: around ten at night everybody orders a car at once, prices climb and the wait gets long. Leaving at 21:30, or staying until eleven, is easier than either.

The mistake people make on a one-day visit

Buying the ticket in the afternoon. At three you have two hours to see three sites, and each one takes twenty to thirty minutes, so you end up rushing. If you arrive in the afternoon, buy the ticket the following morning instead.

Getting between Da Nang and Hoi An is covered separately.

8. Two days in Hoi An

Two days is the length that asks least of you. The Old Town on day one, countryside and beach on day two, so nothing doubles back and both mornings get used.

Day one: the Old Town

Day two: Tra Que, Cam Thanh, An Bang

What happens if you reverse the order

Starting day two in the afternoon puts the basket boats in the noisiest window there is. Cam Thanh fills with coach groups and sound systems between 11:00 and 15:00. Same money, entirely different hour on the water.

Swapping day two out in the rain

Day two is a cycling day, so rain breaks it. A cooking class is the substitute: you get wet at the morning market and everything after that is under a roof, and once lunch is done the whole afternoon is still free.

Two museums back to back also works. Coupons already bought cost nothing extra, and the Museum of Trade Ceramics and the Museum of Folk Culture are five minutes apart.

How far you actually cycle

That is about an hour and ten minutes in the saddle. Riding all of it through the middle of the day is punishing, so the version that works is a long stop at An Bang and a ride home once the sun drops.

9. Three days in Hoi An

Three days adds one day out on the end of the two-day plan. You are choosing between My Son and Cu Lao Cham, and they are nothing like each other, starting with what time you have to leave.

Day three at My Son

Day three at Cu Lao Cham

If you want to choose your own return time, take My Son. If you want to be in the water, take Cu Lao Cham, bearing in mind that from October the sea stops the boats often.

Putting Hue on day three instead

Some people do. It is two and a half hours by car, further than My Son, and the Citadel plus a royal tomb is already a tight day before you add the Hai Van Pass. A Hue day trip from Hoi An means five hours in a vehicle, so it belongs on trips with two spare days rather than one.

Hue itself is in the Hue travel guide, and the day-trip mechanics are in the Hue day trip guide.

Leaving day three empty

Staying put is a real option. Two or more garments means two fittings, and there is a case for a massage and an afternoon sitting still. Three consecutive days of moving leaves you too tired for the last evening, which is the one you came for.

10. Four days and longer

People staying four days or more are usually having several things made, giving Da Nang a day, or travelling with children and doing exactly one thing per day. Here is what there is to add, in the order the clock allows.

VinWonders Nam Hoi An

Sixteen kilometres south of the Old Town, twenty-five minutes by car. Monday to Friday 09:00 to 18:00, Saturday and Sunday until 19:00. Admission is 650,000d for adults and 450,000d for children and over-65s, free under 100 cm tall. There is a cheaper ticket for entry after 14:00.

The Hoi An Memories show

An outdoor theatre at Cam Nam, dark on Tuesdays. The park opens at 17:00, smaller performances run from 17:30 to 19:00, and the main show starts at 20:00 and lasts a little over an hour. On a show night you give up the Old Town lanterns, so it is better to split them across two evenings.

Lantern making

Bending bamboo into a frame and stretching silk over it. One to two hours, roughly ten to twenty US dollars including materials. Most workshops will collapse the finished lantern flat so it travels. A good thing to have in reserve for a wet afternoon.

VinWonders Nam Hoi An on the map📍Map

11. The Old Town after dark

Evening is the busiest part of the Hoi An day, and the list of things to do in it is short: walk the lantern streets, take a boat, float a paper lantern, eat at the night market.

When to take the boat

Most boats are out between 18:30 and 20:00, which is also when the river is so full that every photograph has somebody else’s boat in it. For open water, go after 20:30.

Floating a lantern, step by step

What the night market is for

Half food stalls, half lantern shops. Skewers, banh xeo and sweet che along one side, silk lanterns mixed in among them. Buy the collapsible lanterns if you want them to survive the flight home.

Many stalls have no prices displayed, so ask before you order. The same item gets quoted differently from stall to stall.

Nguyen Hoang night market on the map📍Map

12. The 14th night of the lunar month

On the 14th of the lunar month, the night before the full moon, Hoi An switches off the electric lights and leaves only lanterns. The crowd is different from a normal evening and boat prices go up. Worth checking whether the date falls inside your trip.

The biggest night of 2026

Mid-Autumn in 2026 falls on Friday 25 September. That is the 15th of the eighth lunar month, so the lantern night is the evening before, 24 September. Lion dances and star-shaped children’s lanterns come out, and the atmosphere is not the usual one.

Working out the date

The full moon comes once a lunar month and the lantern night is the evening before it. In the Gregorian calendar the date moves every month, which makes it awkward to work out yourself. Start from Mid-Autumn 2026, which is 25 September: that is the 15th of the eighth lunar month, so 24 September is the lantern night for that month.

Other months land roughly 29 or 30 days either side. Confirm the exact date once your travel dates are fixed.

How the evening runs

The lanterns come on at dusk as they always do. What is different is that shops and street lights are switched off, so the lanes are darker than usual and only lantern light remains. Bai choi, a traditional call-and-response game, is set up on the riverbank, along with folk singing.

The dates and the running order are in the Hoi An lantern festival guide, and the festival itself in Mid-Autumn in Vietnam.

13. Tra Que vegetable village

Tra Que is three kilometres north of the Old Town, fifteen minutes by bicycle. It is a four-hundred-year-old organic market garden, and in 2024 UN Tourism named it one of its Best Tourism Villages. The village ticket is 35,000d per person and includes the field work.

Why it has to be a morning

The farming happens before the sun gets up. Leave the Old Town at 07:30 and you are standing in the beds by eight, which is when the watering and cutting actually happen. After ten it is too hot and the session shortens.

What you can attach to it

Getting there

North out of the Old Town, flat the whole way alongside paddies and the river, so a bicycle is no effort. Eight to ten minutes on a scooter, about ten in a car or a ride-hail.

The village runs to about forty hectares, with a hundred or so households growing more than forty herbs. They fertilise with weed dredged from the river, a method that has been going for over four centuries and is the reason for the 2024 listing.

What the field work involves

Hoeing the beds flat, sowing, carrying two watering cans on a shoulder pole, and cutting what is ready. The growers stand alongside and correct your grip. It runs thirty minutes to an hour, and if you have booked a cooking class the herbs you cut become the ingredients.

Tra Que on the map📍Map

14. Basket boats at Cam Thanh

The Bay Mau water coconut palms at Cam Thanh sit three to five kilometres east of the Old Town, fifteen to twenty minutes by bicycle. You ride a round bamboo basket boat through narrow channels, and you are on the water for forty-five to sixty minutes.

Know the going rate before you arrive

At the jetty it is 80,000 to 100,000d per person, including entry to the palms. Touts on the road, and some hotels, will quote 150,000 to 400,000d. Same boat, same channels.

Choosing the hour matters more than the price

From 07:00 to 09:00 the water is still and no boat has a sound system running. Between 11:00 and 15:00 the coaches arrive and the channels fill with speakers. Late afternoon goes quiet again. Operating hours are 07:00 to 18:00 and the last boat is at 17:00.

What happens on the water

The boatman drives the boat with a single oar in a figure of eight. The practised ones can spin the boat on the spot, which is the act everyone photographs. The performer and the boatman both expect a tip, so have 20,000 to 50,000d ready.

Along the way they fold rings and grasshoppers from palm leaf, and let you try crab traps and cast nets. All of that only happens if you arrive before about 16:30.

Bay Mau coconut palms on the map📍Map

15. An Bang beach

An Bang is four kilometres from the Old Town, fifteen minutes by bicycle, and in practice it is the only beach at Hoi An you would swim at. Cua Dai has been eroding since the 2010s and there is not much sand left.

What a sunbed costs

Order a drink or a meal at one of the beach cafes and most will let you use a bed for nothing. Otherwise it is around 50,000d, umbrella included.

When to go

Within the day, early morning is emptiest and after 16:00 is next. At midday there is not enough shade.

Why Cua Dai dropped off the list

Cua Dai lies five kilometres east of the Old Town and used to be the beach people went to. Erosion took most of the sand through the 2010s, and long stretches are now sea wall and sandbags. For swimming, go to An Bang.

Flags and currents

An Bang gets surf on plenty of days. Read the lifeguards’ flags before you go in. In October and November the swell strips sand from the beach bars, which are rebuilt before each season.

Eating on the beach

The beach cafes serve seafood and drinks. Since ordering there is what makes the sunbed free, the arrangement is really that you pay for your spot in food. Prices sit a little above the Old Town.

The differences between the beaches and the safety notes are in the Hoi An beach guide.

An Bang beach on the map📍Map

16. Cooking classes

A Hoi An cooking class almost always starts at the morning market. You pick ingredients across the river, transfer by boat or road to Cam Thanh or Tra Que, cook, and eat what you made for lunch. Half a day, door to door.

What you cook

Fresh spring rolls, banh xeo and green papaya salad are the standards, and some classes add cao lau or white rose dumplings. White rose is fiddly enough that the dough is said to come from a single family in town, so a class where you fold them yourself takes some looking for.

How to choose one

Morning classes and afternoon classes

A morning class starts while the market is alive and finishes with lunch. An afternoon class finishes with dinner, which makes getting out for the lanterns that evening difficult. On a two-day trip, take the morning one.

More options are in the Hoi An cooking class guide and things worth booking in Hoi An.

17. Having clothes made

Having something made in Hoi An does not fit into one day. There are three visits, an order, a fitting and a collection, and there are usually one or two fittings.

Order on the day you arrive

On a two-day trip that means ordering on the first morning, fitting on the second afternoon and collecting that evening. Order on the first evening instead and day two disappears into trips back and forth to the shop.

What to look at

The fabric decides the result far more than the name over the door. Within one shop the price can multiply several times over depending on the cloth. Try the finished garment, check the shoulders and the sleeve length, and pay after that.

Most shops will copy from a photograph. The most reliable method of all is to bring a garment that already fits and ask them to take the pattern from it.

How to choose a shop and what commonly goes wrong is in the Hoi An tailoring guide.

18. My Son

My Son is forty kilometres west of Hoi An, an hour by road. It is a complex of red brick Cham temples built between the fourth and thirteenth centuries, open from 06:00 to 17:00.

The entry fee changed in 2026

The rate now set is 40,000d per person, the same for Vietnamese and foreign visitors, in force since 21 February 2026. The management board’s own website still carries the 2019 schedule of 150,000d for foreigners and 100,000d for Vietnamese, so you may well see both figures.

Performance times

Why the early start

There is almost no shade on the site and the coaches arrive after nine. The two kilometres from the gate to the temples is covered by electric shuttle. Arrive at 06:30 and you have two and a half hours with the towers to yourself before the first performance.

My Son received 431,538 visitors in 2025, of whom 392,461 were international. With foreign visitors outnumbering domestic ones roughly ten to one, the coach timetable is the crowd timetable.

The groups are lettered

A French survey team labelled the temple groups A to L in the early twentieth century and the labels stuck. Performances happen at Groups G and H. Groups B, C and D are the best preserved and the ones in most photographs. Group A was badly damaged during the Vietnam War.

How much walking

You walk between the groups once the shuttle drops you. The paths are part earth, part stone, with little shade. Covering the whole site takes an hour and a half to two hours, so bring water and a hat. In the wet season the ground turns to mud, so consider your shoes.

My Son on the map📍Map

There is more in the My Son guide.

19. Cu Lao Cham

Cu Lao Cham is a group of eight islands fifteen kilometres off Hoi An, a UNESCO biosphere reserve, twenty minutes by speedboat from Cua Dai port.

One boat, in the morning

The speedboat generally leaves at 08:30 and returns in the afternoon. Miss it and you are not going that day. This is not an itinerary that survives a lie-in.

Rules on the island

As a biosphere reserve it bans plastic bags, and they are sometimes checked at the port, so take them out of your day bag first. Standing on coral or taking any is also prohibited.

Day trip or overnight

Almost everybody goes for the day. There are guesthouses on the island, but with one boat a day an overnight locks two days of your trip together. On a three-day trip the day version is the one that fits.

Cua Dai port on the map📍Map

What there is to do out there is in the Cu Lao Cham day trip guide.

20. Getting in and out from Da Nang

Hoi An has neither an airport nor a railway station. It is thirty kilometres from Da Nang, forty-five minutes by road. Quang Nam province was merged into Da Nang city on 1 July 2025, so Hoi An is now administratively part of Da Nang, but the distance has not moved.

The number 1 bus

It runs from 05:30 to 17:50 at twenty-minute intervals and costs 18,000d for the full route. The Hoi An bus station is on Nguyen Tat Thanh in Cam Pho, a kilometre short of the Old Town. There is no bus after 18:00, so an evening of lanterns followed by a bus home is not a plan that exists.

Coast road or inland road

Drivers sometimes ask which you want. The coastal route runs Vo Nguyen Giap into Lac Long Quan, takes forty-five to fifty minutes and passes the Marble Mountains and the beach resorts. The inland route takes Highway 1 through Dien Ban in forty to forty-five minutes. On a first visit the coast road is worth the extra few minutes.

Coming straight from the airport

Da Nang International is about the same thirty kilometres and forty-five minutes away. On a late arrival, book the car in advance. Arrive very early and vehicles can still drive into the Old Town, so you get dropped at the door.

If you have a lot of luggage

Arriving during car-free hours at a hotel inside the Old Town means dragging cases from the main road, over paving that catches wheels. If you land at midday, leaving bags at the hotel and walking in later is an option.

Leaving day

If checkout leaves a gap before your flight, store the bags and do one more lap of the Old Town. Allow forty-five minutes to the airport and leave Hoi An three hours before departure.

Hoi An bus station on the map📍Map

The options are compared in the Da Nang to Hoi An guide, and what happens on arrival is in the Da Nang airport guide. Hiring a car with a driver for a day is covered in private car charter in Da Nang.

21. Pairing Hoi An with Da Nang

Very few people see only Hoi An. The airport is in Da Nang, so the two normally get combined, and where you sleep changes the shape of each day.

A day in Da Nang

The Marble Mountains are twenty minutes from Hoi An and My Khe beach is thirty. Climbing the Marble Mountains in the morning, the beach in the afternoon and the Dragon Bridge fire show in the evening before heading back fits comfortably. The fire show runs on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays at 21:00.

Splitting four days

With the airport in Da Nang, spending the last night there makes the final morning easier. The reverse means a forty-five minute drive at dawn.

Adding Ba Na Hills

Ba Na Hills is west of Da Nang, so from Hoi An it is over ninety minutes each way. Basing yourself in Hoi An and going there loses a full day to the road. If it is on your list, attach it to a Da Nang night instead.

Prices and cable car times are in the Ba Na Hills and Golden Bridge guide.

The city as a whole is in the Da Nang travel guide, what to do there is in things to do in Da Nang, a longer stay is in the Da Nang three-night itinerary, and the caves are in the Marble Mountains guide.

22. Where to stay

Hoi An accommodation divides into three areas, and which one you pick changes whether you make an extra return trip every evening.

Staying inside the Old Town has one restriction

No vehicles between 09:00 and 21:30. Check in or out during those hours and you are walking your luggage from the main road. If your case is large, check this before booking.

Staying at the beach

From An Bang you come into town and back every evening. It is fifteen minutes by bicycle, but some stretches have very little street lighting after dark. Most hotels run an evening shuttle, so ask for the times before you book.

When to book

Normally a few days ahead is enough. The 14th night of the lunar month, Mid-Autumn and the Tet holiday need booking early. February to April is the most settled weather of the year and fills up quickly too.

What hotels lend you

Free bicycles, in a lot of cases. If you are at An Bang, whether there is an evening shuttle and what time it runs will shape your evenings more than anything else about the room.

The areas are compared in the Hoi An accommodation guide, and luggage storage is in storing bags in Hoi An and Da Nang.

23. Getting around town

Inside the Old Town you walk. The lanes are one bicycle wide, taxis cannot get in, and during car-free hours motorbikes cannot either.

Bicycles

Many hotels lend them free and hire is about 25,000d a day. Tra Que, Cam Thanh and An Bang are all within cycling distance, so on a two-day trip one bicycle solves most of the transport question.

Ride-hail and taxis

They come to the edge of the Old Town and no further. Set a destination inside it and the driver will drop you on the main road. Around ten at night everybody leaves at once, cars get scarce and prices rise.

Parking a motorbike

Motorbikes go in paid parking outside the Old Town, 5,000 to 10,000d. Park and walk in; there is no other arrangement.

Cycling at night

Some of the paddy lanes are narrow with no barrier, and street lighting is sparse, so getting back before dark is the sensible version. Lock the bicycle when you leave it.

Renting a scooter

Some people ride down from Da Nang. Since you have to park it anyway, a bicycle covers everything if you are staying inside Hoi An. Rental and licence rules are in the scooter rental guide.

More is in getting around Hoi An and ride-hailing apps in Vietnam.

An Hoi bridge on the map📍Map

24. October and November

The Thu Bon river floods Hoi An in October and November. It happens every year, and in a bad one the riverside streets of the Old Town go under. Visiting then means ordering the trip differently.

The order the water arrives in

Bach Dang on the riverbank goes first, then Nguyen Thai Hoc, working inward one row at a time. Some old houses have the height of past floods marked on the columns, so you can see which year reached where.

When the water is up

Riverside shops shut and boats ferry people along the streets. It looks like a spectacle, but the water is dirty and you cannot see the bottom, so wading in is a bad idea. A hotel two rows back from the river is usually unaffected.

The water normally drains within one to three days, after which shops clean out and reopen. Watching the forecast and shifting a day or two often saves the whole itinerary.

What is good about this season

Fewer people and lower room rates. On an evening after the rain stops, lantern light on wet paving photographs better than it ever does in the dry. Go expecting rain and you get a quiet Hoi An.

How the water rises and how long it takes to drain is in the Hoi An flooding guide. The Da Nang typhoon season is in Da Nang’s rainy and typhoon season, and wet weather alternatives are in what to do in Da Nang when it rains.

25. Where the meals go

A handful of dishes exist only here. Two meals a day across two days covers most of them.

Take lunch indoors

Midday to three is the hottest stretch. Spending it in a noodle shop or an air-conditioned museum makes the rest of the afternoon workable. Pushing your outdoor hours into the morning and the evening is simply how Hoi An works.

Breakfast

Even with breakfast included at the hotel, eat out once. The noodles and banh mi at the morning market are the freshest thing going. Seven to eight is when the market is alive, and at that hour the Old Town lanes are still quiet.

Why cao lau exists only here

The noodles are said to require water from particular wells and lye from wood ash, which is why places elsewhere sell the name but not the texture. Thick, chewy noodles under pork, greens and crisp squares of fried dough.

Food tours

If you would rather not spend the evening choosing between shops, an evening food tour handles it. Three or four stops with a little at each avoids the problem of filling up at the first one.

What to eat and where is in the Hoi An food guide.

26. What it costs

Take accommodation out and Hoi An is inexpensive. Tickets, transport and meals make up most of it, and only the day-trip days move the total.

Totals by trip length

Booking a tour bundles the transport, entry and lunch, which makes the arithmetic simple. Arranging your own car comes out a little cheaper and takes more of your time.

Budgets covering Da Nang as well are in Da Nang and Hoi An trip costs, and money and payment in changing money and paying in Vietnam.

27. Where the price arguments happen

Disagreements about money in Hoi An happen in a small number of predictable places. Knowing them in advance removes most of the problem.

Cash and change

Stalls and the boat jetty mostly take cash only. Handing over a 500,000d note often produces no change, so keep a mix of 100,000 and below. The notes are similar in colour and 20,000 and 500,000 are easy to confuse.

Tipping

Tipping is not expected in Vietnam. The exceptions in practice are the basket boat spinning act and massages, where 20,000 to 50,000d has become customary. Restaurants do not need it.

Common schemes and how to handle them are in what to watch for in Vietnam, and tipping and etiquette in Vietnamese etiquette and tipping.

28. With children and with older parents

Hoi An is small enough that neither is difficult. Plan around the midday heat and the surface of the lanes.

With children

Under-16s are free in the Old Town. The basket boats and An Bang get the best reactions, and some cooking schools run a version for children. Going out before 19:00 keeps you out of the worst of the evening crush.

With older parents

The lanes are uneven and have thresholds and steps. With a pushchair or a wheelchair, the wider riverside streets are the ones to use. The over-60 exemption applies to Vietnamese nationals only, so buy tickets for everyone.

Pushchairs and wheelchairs

The lanes are broadly flat but the pavements are narrow and shops put stock outside. Bach Dang along the river and Nguyen Thai Hoc are the easier ones. The old houses and assembly halls have high thresholds and steps, so getting inside is often not practical.

What children actually enjoy

Basket boats first, then An Bang, then floating a paper lantern. Keep assembly halls and museums to one, and keep it short. The night market is crowded enough that going before 19:00 makes keeping hold of a small hand much easier.

More on travelling with children is in Da Nang and Hoi An with kids, and on travelling with parents in Da Nang with elderly parents.

29. Before you go

Very little about a Hoi An trip needs deciding in advance. Most of it can wait until the morning.

Cash and cards

Old Town tickets, the night market and the basket boat jetty are easiest in cash. Tailors and restaurants generally take cards.

Data

You will have a map open constantly in the lanes, so mobile data is worth having. An eSIM installed before you fly means no queue at the airport counter.

Entry and packing

Entry paperwork is in Vietnam visas and e-visas. The sun is strong, so a hat and sunscreen earn their space, and a light rain layer in the wet season. You will be walking on uneven paving, so bring shoes you have already broken in.

When to come is in the best time to visit Da Nang and Hoi An, the wider picture is in the Hoi An travel guide, and the sights themselves are in things to do in Hoi An.

Frequently asked questions

Read the full Hoi An travel guide

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