What your money is worth today, how the Old Town ticket and walking hours work, and when the river floods. Then the cao lầu and white rose kitchens locals actually queue at, thirteen places to eat without meat, the snacks you'll dare each other to try, twenty check-in spots, the workshops worth a morning, and six mini maps to walk or ride.
Put together by the team behind our Hoi An food tours. Checked 10 October 2026.
Four things every guest asks us in the first five minutes: what's the rate, do I need a ticket, how far is it, and will it rain.
Vietnam runs on the dong (VND), and the numbers get big fast. These are Vietcombank's counter rates, the benchmark that banks and exchange shops price against.
| 1 unit of | Bank buys your cash | Bank sells |
|---|---|---|
| USDUS dollar | 25,660 | 26,070 |
| EUREuro | 28,332 | 29,826 |
| GBPBritish pound | 33,403 | 34,822 |
| AUDAustralian dollar | 17,609 | 18,357 |
| CADCanadian dollar | 17,753 | 18,507 |
| SGDSingapore dollar | 19,702 | 20,579 |
| JPYJapanese yen | 157.62 | 168.47 |
| KRWSouth Korean won | 16.69 | 20.12 |
| CNYChinese yuan | 3,767 | 3,927 |
| HKDHong Kong dollar | 3,205 | 3,361 |
| THBThai baht | 680.92 | 788.68 |
| CHFSwiss franc | 30,400 | 31,691 |
Vietcombank, updated 9 Oct 2026, 23:00 (Vietnam time), in VND. “Bank buys” is what the bank pays for your foreign notes, and that is the number that matters to you. US dollars and euros are the easiest to change. Rates move every day: check today's Vietcombank table.
The Vietcombank rate is for clean, crisp notes. Exchange counters and gold shops look at every bill before they quote, and they pay less, or hand it back, if a note is:
So bring recent, large, unmarked notes. Ask for the final rate for your notes before you hand them over, and count your dong at the counter.
Typical 2026 prices. The quick trick: drop three zeros and divide by 26 to get US dollars.
Hoi An has no airport, so most people change their first million dong at Da Nang airport. In town, banks and ATMs line Trần Hưng Đạo and Hai Bà Trưng streets, a few minutes north of the Old Town: weekdays only, bring your passport. Licensed gold and jewellery shops around the market keep longer hours; look for the sign “Đại lý thu đổi ngoại tệ” and a rate board at the door.
Hotels, tailors and the bigger Old Town restaurants take cards, often with a 3% fee. Market stalls, street food, boats, village tickets and parking are cash only. ATMs give 2–5 million VND per withdrawal and add a fee on top of your own bank's. If the screen offers to charge you in your home currency, decline and pay in dong.
Two pairs of notes fool everyone once: 500,000 and 20,000 are both blue, 200,000 and 10,000 are both brownish-red. Check before you pay, especially on a lantern-lit street at night. The 20,000 note is the one with Hoi An's Japanese Bridge on the back.
Hoi An's centre is a UNESCO-listed trading port, small enough to cross on foot in fifteen minutes. Four things are worth knowing before you step in.
One ticket covers the Old Town and five heritage sites of your choice: the Japanese Covered Bridge or Quan Công Temple, one museum, and three more from the old houses and assembly halls. It is valid for your whole stay, up to three days, so keep the stub. Children under 16 go free.
Every day the Old Town closes to cars and motorbikes from 9:00 until 21:30 in summer, or 21:00 in winter. Bicycles are fine. Phan Châu Trinh Street joins in from 17:30.
After heavy rain upstream the Thu Bồn rises into the lowest streets, Bạch Đằng and Nguyễn Thái Học, usually for a day or two. Shops carry their stock upstairs, boats replace bicycles, and everything reopens when the water drops.
The assembly halls and family chapels are working temples and people's homes. Cover shoulders and knees to go inside, take your hat off, and ask before photographing anyone at an altar.
On the 14th day of every lunar month, the eve of the full moon, the Old Town switches off most of its electric light at dusk. Shops hang silk lanterns, families set out offerings, and the river fills with candle boats. The river is lit every other night of the year too, so you won't miss out if your dates don't match.
Since 1 July 2025 Hoi An is officially part of Da Nang City: the old Quang Nam province was merged in, and the town became the wards of Hội An, Hội An Đông and Hội An Tây. Older maps, blogs and booking sites still say Quang Nam. Same streets.
Hoi An has no airport and no railway station. Everything long-distance arrives through Da Nang, 30 km up the coast, and that shapes every plan you make.
You land at Da Nang (DAD), 30 km north: about 45 minutes by car. A Grab or a pre-booked car runs roughly 300,000–400,000 VND, and most hotels will send a driver if you ask.
The Reunification line stops at Da Nang station, 31 km away. From there it is the same 45-minute drive. The ride between Da Nang and Hue, along the foot of the Hai Van Pass, is the best stretch of track in Vietnam.
City bus 02 links Da Nang's central bus station with Hoi An and Cửa Đại for up to 30,000 VND. It takes about 90 minutes, stops running around 6 pm, and serves neither the airport nor the Old Town itself. Sleeper buses from Hue, Nha Trang and beyond drop you on the edge of town.
Over the footbridge from the Old Town.
West along the river.
North on Hai Bà Trưng, the road to the beach.
By scooter or bicycle over the Cẩm Kim bridge. Cars take the long way, 6.5 km.
Flat road through the rice fields. An easy bicycle ride.
East towards the river mouth.
Then 20 minutes by speedboat.
Theme park and river safari, south over the Cửa Đại bridge.
On the coast road to Da Nang.
The fire show is at 9 pm, Friday to Sunday.
Allow an hour at rush hour, 5–6 pm.
Trains north to Hue and Hanoi, south to Nha Trang and Saigon.
South-west through rice country. The gate opens at 6:00.
Then 20 minutes by cable car up to the Golden Bridge.
A painted fishing village on the coast near Tam Kỳ.
Motorbikes go over the pass, not through the tunnel.
By road through the tunnel, or by train from Da Nang.
Measured by road on OpenStreetMap from the Japanese Covered Bridge. Times are for a normal day by car or scooter; the coast road to Da Nang slows down between 5 and 6 pm.
| To | Best way | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Tam Kỳ47 km by road | Car or bus | 1 hr |
| Lý Sơn Island119 km by road | Car to Sa Kỳ port, then speedboat | 2.5 hrs + 35 min at sea |
| Quy Nhơn290 km by road | Train from Da Nang to Diêu Trì, or car | 5.5–6 hrs |
| Nha Trang484 km by road | Train from Da Nang, or flight to Cam Ranh | 9–10 hrs by train · 1 hr 10 by air |
| Da Lat609 km by road | Flight from Da Nang | 1 hr 15 |
| Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)850 km by road | Flight from Da Nang | 1 hr 30 · 16–18 hrs by train |
Landing in Saigon next? That's our home turf. Read the Saigon guide
| To | Best way | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Hue122 km by road | Car, or the coast train from Da Nang | 2.5–3 hrs |
| Phong Nha caves338 km by road | Car, or train to Đồng Hới | 6–7 hrs |
| Hanoi796 km by road | Flight from Da Nang | 1 hr 20 |
A night or two in Da Nang on the way? Read the Da Nang guide
Central Vietnam follows neither the north nor the south. It is dry from February to August and wet from September to December, with typhoons possible from September to November. Here is what that means place by place.
19–25°C, grey mornings and light drizzle. Too cool for the beach, perfect for walking, eating and tailors. Tết (Lunar New Year) falls on 6 February 2027: the town is hung with lanterns and flowers, but for about five days many family kitchens and workshops close.
24–33°C and dry, with a calm sea and rice turning from green to gold. Old Town, beach, islands and My Son all work. It gets busy around the 30 April–1 May holiday.
28–37°C and strong sun. Do what locals do: out at dawn, indoors at midday, back out after 4 pm. The sea is at its calmest for the Cham Islands, and Vietnamese summer holidays fill the town at weekends.
Rain peaks in October and November, with a few typhoons between September and November. The sea is rough, the Cham Islands boats stop, and the river visits the lower streets. The upside: low prices, empty lanes and proper noodle weather.
No hotel buffets, no laminated tourist menus. These 36 kitchens, counters and alley stalls are the ones Hoi An people argue about, and most cost a dollar or three a plate. Thirteen of them are vegetarian or vegan. And phở? That is Hanoi's noodle. Here it's cao lầu.
The noodle that never left town. Thick and chewy, the colour of weak tea, under slices of five-spice pork, a fistful of herbs and squares of the same dough fried to a crunch. There is barely a spoonful of broth at the bottom. By tradition the dough is made with water from the old Bá Lễ well and lye from wood ash, which is the reason people give for why it tastes wrong anywhere else.
How to eat it: Dig to the bottom and toss everything before the first bite, so the sauce coats the noodles. Then add a little of the sweet chilli jam from the jar.
A family front room on a quiet street north of the Old Town, a handful of low tables, one thing to order. For most locals this is the benchmark bowl.
Down the alley that leads to the Bá Lễ well, the one the noodle story is about. A bigger room, longer hours, and fried wontons if someone at the table wants a second dish.
A plain room a few doors along the same alley, cooking the bowl the way neighbourhood kitchens do: firm noodles, plenty of greens, croutons that stay crisp. Lunch to early evening.
The convenient one: two minutes from the Japanese Covered Bridge, with chicken rice and white rose on the same menu for tables that can't agree.
Bánh bao bánh vạc, nicknamed white rose: translucent rice-flour dumplings pinched around a dab of shrimp, or pork and mushroom, steamed and showered with crisp fried shallots. One family workshop makes them for most of the restaurants in town. Their other dish is hoành thánh chiên, a fried wonton the size of your palm under a sweet-and-sour salsa of shrimp, tomato and pineapple.
How to eat it: Dip, don't drown. The sauce is sweetened fish sauce with lime and chilli, and one corner of the dumpling is enough.
The workshop itself. The family folds dumplings by hand at the front tables while you eat, and the menu is two dishes long.
The neighbourhood wonton-noodle shop, around the corner from the White Rose workshop. Boiled wontons in broth or over egg noodles, the way the town's Chinese families cooked them. Gone by noon.
Rice cooked in chicken stock with turmeric until it turns gold, topped with hand-torn chicken tossed with onion, lime and rau răm, the peppery Vietnamese coriander. A small bowl of broth and a saucer of pickled papaya come alongside. It looks plain. It is the plate Hoi An people miss most when they move away.
How to eat it: Stir in a little chilli jam, alternate with the pickles, and sip the broth between bites.
The famous name, a Hoi An institution since the 1950s, and the plate every Vietnamese visitor comes for. Opinions are split these days and the service is brisk, but for the history it is the one to try first.
A home kitchen down an alley off Hai Bà Trưng, a minute from the Bà Mụ gate. Short menu, family at the stove, no queue.
Tables along a quiet lane in the middle of the Old Town. The one for dinner time, after the older shops have sold out.
Hoi An's version is the one that made the sandwich famous abroad: a short, crackly baguette, house pâté and mayonnaise, pork three ways, herbs, pickles and a sauce each shop keeps to itself. The two best-known counters are ten minutes' walk apart. Eat at both and pick a side. Everyone here has.
The queue that Anthony Bourdain started on television. It looks long and moves fast, and there are tables upstairs.
Smaller, calmer, and the one many regulars quietly prefer. The bread comes warm, the sauces are made in the back, and there is a vegetarian version.
Mì Quảng is the everyday noodle of the countryside around Hoi An: wide rice noodles tinted with turmeric, a ladle of strong broth, shrimp and pork, peanuts and a sesame cracker to break over the top. Then come the dishes you build at the table: grilled pork skewers, crisp bánh xèo pancakes and steamed pork, each rolled in rice paper with a handful of herbs.
How to eat it: Rice paper, greens, the grilled thing. Roll it tight, then dip. Whoever serves you will make the first one to show you.
A plain shop east of the market that does the classic version: shrimp, pork, a quail egg, peanuts and a cracker.
North of the Old Town, near Madam Khánh. Known for mì Quảng cá lóc, made with snakehead fish from the rice fields: the version farmers eat.
No menu. Every table gets the same spread: charcoal-grilled pork skewers, bánh xèo, fried spring rolls, rice paper and a hill of herbs. You roll until you give up.
A family kitchen in an alley on the west side of the Old Town. The full name is the menu: bánh xèo, thịt nướng (grilled pork), nem lụi (skewers).
Thin slices of steamed pork, a basket of herbs and green banana, and rice paper to wrap them in. The dip is mắm nêm, fermented anchovy: this is the friendly place to meet it.
An afternoon stall for bánh ướt thịt nướng: lemongrass pork grilled on bamboo sticks, wrapped in a soft steamed rice sheet with herbs. Hoi An's after-school snack.
What the town eats between meals, mostly on stools no higher than your shin. Cẩm Nam, the islet across the bridge from the market, has its own trio: smashed rice crackers, baby clams and sweet corn soup.
Over the bridge on Cẩm Nam. Bánh đập is a crisp rice cracker pressed onto a soft steamed one: you smash it with your palm and dip the pieces. Order the baby clams and the corn soup while you're there.
A lunch-to-teatime stall inside the Old Town. Bánh bèo are small steamed rice cakes under a shrimp-and-pork sauce with crisp crumbs, eaten by the plateful.
Black sesame sweet soup from the family of Ngô Thiểu, who carried it through these streets on a shoulder pole for more than seventy years. They serve it at home now, in the alley by the Bá Lễ well.
A cold herbal tea of lemongrass, lime and a handful of other herbs, handed over with a lotus petal in the cup. Half the people on Trần Phú Street are carrying one.
Tea and coffee served in near silence by staff who are deaf or hard of hearing. You order with small wooden blocks, and the noise of the street stops at the door.
A leafy courtyard at the end of a long alley, named after the small metal filter that Vietnamese coffee drips through. Quiet enough for a second cup.
Hoi An may be the easiest town in Vietnam to eat without meat. Buddhist families go vegetarian on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month, so every neighbourhood has a quán chay, a vegetarian kitchen, and a wave of vegan cafés has grown up around them. Better still, several cook the town's own dishes meat-free: cao lầu, white rose, mì Quảng, even bánh mì.
Say it: Outside vegetarian kitchens the catch is fish sauce and shrimp paste. Say “Tôi ăn chay, không nước mắm” (toy an chai, khom nook mum): I'm vegetarian, no fish sauce.
The Old Town's vegetarian canteen, thirty metres down an alley. Point at the trays: braised tofu, mushrooms, greens, pickles, all piled over rice. A cheap, good lunch inside the walking streets.
The long-standing choice for Hoi An dishes without the meat: vegetarian cao lầu, white rose and mì Quảng, on a quiet lane north of the Old Town.
On one of the Old Town's main streets, which is rare for a vegan kitchen. Vegan cao lầu, wonton soup, bánh mì and curries.
Three things on the menu, all of them meat-free: phở, a rice plate and cao lầu. A few tables, a family, and a lunch break in the middle of the afternoon.
A stall by the market that sells one thing: a fully vegan bánh mì, with soy milk to wash it down. Phượng's queue is around the corner. This one has no queue and no meat.
A small vegan Vietnamese kitchen down an alley on the west side of the Old Town: rice pancakes, noodle salads and mock-fish dishes. They teach cooking classes too.
Ten minutes west of the bridge and priced for the neighbourhood, not for visitors. A long menu of Vietnamese plates and meat-free Hoi An specialities.
A Buddhist buffet canteen for locals: mock meats, tofu, steamed and fried vegetables, with a bowl of soup thrown in. Go at lunch, when the trays are full.
A bright vegan restaurant in the residential streets north-west of the Old Town, open from breakfast to late.
Brunch bowls, vegan cakes and iced coconut coffee on the main road north of the Old Town. Busy with long-stay travellers, for good reason.
Out towards the coconut palms, on the road to Cẩm Thanh. Vietnamese home cooking, all of it vegan: an easy lunch stop on a countryside ride.
Vegan with your feet in the sand: smoothie bowls, hot pots, falafel and fresh juice. The reason to go to An Bàng even if you don't swim.
A garden restaurant in the fields north-west of town: rice-paper rolls, lotus salad, hot pots, and a few resident cats and dogs. Worth the ten-minute ride.
The MICHELIN Guide covers Da Nang but hasn't reached Hoi An's Old Town yet, so there are no stars or Bib Gourmands to follow here. Do what locals do instead: follow the queue, and go early. The best kitchens cook one pot a day and close when it is empty.
Our Hoi An food tours visit kitchens like these in three or four hours. You walk, or sit on the back; we handle the menu, the queue and the bill.
None of this is strange to us. It's a normal Tuesday. But these are the plates our guests photograph first and taste second. Dare levels are our own, one to five.
A duck egg incubated for about three weeks, then boiled. Yes, there is a duckling in there. In Hoi An it is an afternoon and evening snack, eaten on low stools, and locals swear it puts strength back in your legs.
How to eat it: Crack the wide end, sip the broth first, then spoon it out with rau răm (Vietnamese coriander), a pinch of salt and pepper, and lime.
Where: Trứng Vịt Lộn Na, 114 Trần Phú, inside the Old Town. Or Như Bình, 93 Nguyễn Trường Tộ, 14:00–22:00. Around 10,000–20,000 VND an egg.
A whole calf roasted over charcoal until the skin is gold and the meat is still pink, then sliced thin with the skin attached. It comes from Cầu Mống, a bridge on the highway west of town where a row of kitchens has cooked nothing else for generations.
How to eat it: Wrap a slice in rice paper with herbs, green banana and star fruit, and dip it in mắm cái: whole fermented anchovies mashed with chilli and garlic.
Where: In town, Bê Thui Hà, 115 Lý Thái Tổ, 6:30–21:00. At the source, Bê Thui Mười at Cầu Mống, 9 km west on the road to My Son, from 5 am.
Beef tripe, intestine and tendon simmered soft in coconut milk and five-spice. A southern street stew that Hoi An's students eat after class.
How to eat it: Dunk torn bánh mì into the broth, or have it over instant noodles, and dip the pieces in kumquat-and-chilli fish sauce.
Where: Tiệm Lẩu Bò Hai Mười, 11 Trần Cao Vân: a beef hot pot shop where phá lấu is the house special. 11:00–22:00.
The smell arrives before the plate does. Anchovies fermented for months, then loosened with pineapple, garlic and chilli. It is the soul of central Vietnamese cooking, and most guests are converted by the third dip.
How to eat it: Start with it on the side, next to something mild: steamed pork rolls, or the smashed rice crackers of Cẩm Nam.
Where: Bà Hiếu, 25 Đào Duy Từ, with the pork rolls. Or Bánh đập Bà Già, 34 Nguyễn Tri Phương, Cẩm Nam.
Small snails stir-fried with lemongrass, chilli and lime leaf. The tip of each shell is snipped off, so you put your lips to the opening and pull.
How to eat it: One sharp suck. It will be loud; that is the point. Mop up the sauce with a piece of grilled rice cracker.
Where: The evening stalls on 18 Tháng 8 street, ten minutes' walk west of the Japanese Bridge: Ốc Hút Điện Phương is at no. 20. Or the snail restaurants along Lý Thái Tổ.
The little bowl of broth that comes with chicken rice often has heart, liver and gizzard in it, and most shops sell a side plate of them tossed with onion and herbs. Sometimes it includes trứng non: soft, unlaid yolks.
How to eat it: Chilli jam, a squeeze of lime, and eat it with the rice like everyone else at the table.
Where: Any chicken rice shop. Ask for “một đĩa lòng gà” (a plate of giblets).
The gentle way in. An egg is emptied, beaten with pepper and seasoning, poured back into its own shell, steamed, then grilled on a stick. It tastes like a peppery omelette you eat with a skewer.
How to eat it: Peel, dip in chilli sauce, done in three bites.
Where: Như Bình, 93 Nguyễn Trường Tộ, the same stall that sells the balut.
Clams the size of a fingernail, raked from the riverbed around Cẩm Nam island and stir-fried with onion, herbs and peanuts. You get a few hundred to a plate.
How to eat it: Use a piece of sesame rice cracker as the spoon.
Where: Bánh đập Bà Già, 34 Nguyễn Tri Phương, Cẩm Nam.
A warm, jet-black soup of ground sesame, herbs and cane sugar that came to Hoi An with Chinese merchants. It looks like engine oil and tastes like a hug.
How to eat it: Stir, sip from the spoon, and don't wear white.
Where: Chè Xí Mà Phù, 45/17 Trần Hưng Đạo, 14:00–19:30.
The one we skip: tiết canh, raw blood pudding. It carries a real infection risk and no guide of ours will order it for you. Everything else on this list is cooked, cured or fermented the way it has been for generations.
On our street food tour by motorbike your guide orders, shows you how to eat it, and finishes whatever you can't.
Street food by motorbike · $45From a bridge that is on the banknote in your pocket to brick towers older than Angkor. For each one: when the light is right, what it costs, how to get there, and how to take the picture without two hundred strangers in it.
A roofed wooden bridge with a tiny temple built into one side, put up by the town's Japanese merchants around 1600 to link their quarter with the Chinese one. It reopened in August 2024 after a nineteen-month restoration, paler and tidier than the bridge in older photos.
Photo tip: The classic side-on view, with the arches doubled in the water, is from the little footbridge on the river side, just south. Hold up a 20,000 VND note and line the two up.
A pastel three-arched gate mirrored in a lotus pond: the surviving entrance of a 17th-century temple, restored in 2018. It is a three-minute walk from the Japanese Bridge, and most visitors never find it.
Photo tip: Stand on the far side of the pond and keep the camera low, so the whole gate doubles in the water. By 4 pm there is a queue for that exact spot.
The grandest of the five halls that Hoi An's Chinese communities built as meeting houses and temples. A pink triple gate, a courtyard of dragons and potted trees, and at the back a shrine to Thien Hau, the sea goddess who was thanked for bringing merchants home alive.
Photo tip: Look up. The red spirals hanging from the ceiling are incense coils that burn for weeks, each with a family's wish on a yellow tag.
A merchant's house more than two centuries old, still lived in by the family that built it. Dark wood, poems inlaid in mother-of-pearl, and a back door on the river, where goods once arrived by boat.
Photo tip: Find the flood marks on the wall near the back. Each line is a year the river came in, and some of them are above your head.
The photo you came for has no address. It is any stretch of ochre wall with a wooden shutter, a bougainvillea and a parked bicycle. The short lane of Hoang Van Thu, between Tran Phu Street and the river, has more of them per metre than anywhere else, and Nguyen Thai Hoc Street runs it close.
Photo tip: Locals give two reasons for the colour: it keeps the houses cool, and it hides the tide marks. Wear white, blue or red against it. Yellow disappears.
A few flights of narrow stairs lead to a terrace level with the rooftops: a sea of brown yin-yang tiles, a few palms, and hardly a modern building in sight. The entry fee is a drink.
Photo tip: Order downstairs and carry your number up. Everyone crowds the front rail; the back corner has the same roofs and nobody in the frame.
The town's working market: a food hall inside, herbs and vegetables along the lanes, and at the river end a quay where fishing boats unload from before dawn. By nine the best of it is over.
Photo tip: Shoot from the quay looking back at the market, with the boats in front. Ask before photographing a seller up close, and in the food hall check the price on the board before you sit.
French photographer Rehahn spent years photographing all 54 of Vietnam's ethnic groups, and shows the portraits here beside the traditional dress each community gave him. The street outside, Phan Boi Chau, is a row of yellow colonial villas that most visitors never walk.
Photo tip: Give the museum an hour, then walk the rest of the street for the facades. Hardly anyone else does.
The footbridge from the Old Town to An Hoi islet. As the light goes, the river below fills with wooden sampans, one lantern each, and paper candle-boats drifting between them. It is the picture on every Hoi An postcard, and from the bridge it is free.
Photo tip: Stand mid-bridge, brace the phone on the rail and use night mode. The moving boats blur into streaks and the lanterns stay sharp.
One street of stalls on An Hoi islet. The famous part is the row of lantern sellers near the bridge end: walls of silk lanterns in every colour, lit from inside.
Photo tip: Ask first and pay the fee with a smile. It is how the sellers put up with a thousand cameras a night. A small folding lantern costs a few dollars and fits in a suitcase.
Half bingo, half folk opera. Players sit in bamboo huts holding wooden cards while two singers draw a card and sing a verse about it. If it is yours, you shout. UNESCO listed the art as intangible heritage in 2017.
Photo tip: You don't need any Vietnamese. Buy a card, sit in a hut and watch your neighbours: they will tell you when you've won.
A theme park on its own islet, built around one enormous outdoor show: four hundred years of the trading port's story told by a cast of about five hundred, with the river and the night sky as the backdrop.
Photo tip: The stage is open-air. In the wet months bring a poncho, and check that day's show time before you set off.
Across the river on Cam Kim island: the village whose carpenters built and carved much of the Old Town. Workshops stand open to the lane, and boat builders still work on the riverbank.
Photo tip: The island beyond the village is the real prize: rice paddies, ducks and almost no traffic. Ride ten minutes further before you turn back.
A patchwork of herb beds between a river and a lagoon: mint, basil, perilla, lettuce and spring onion, fed with river weed instead of chemical fertiliser. The pile of greens next to your cao lau was grown here.
Photo tip: The picture is a farmer carrying two watering cans on a shoulder pole, with the low sun behind. Stay on the paths: the beds are someone's income.
Between the Old Town and the beach the road runs through open paddies, with water buffalo, egrets and farmers in conical hats. No ticket, no gate. Just pull over.
Photo tip: Buffalo owners near the road offer a ride or a pose for a tip. Agree the price first, or simply photograph from the verge.
Hoi An's beach: a long strip of pale sand, thatched umbrellas and seafood shacks, with the Cham Islands on the horizon. The stretch in front of the restaurants is busy. Walk ten minutes north and it is yours.
Photo tip: The round basket boats pulled up on the sand make the foreground. From October to January the surf is rough and swimming is often off.
A maze of water-coconut palms where the river meets the sea. You sit in a round bamboo basket boat while a boatman paddles you through channels barely wider than the boat.
Photo tip: By mid-morning it turns into a floating karaoke party, with boatmen spinning their baskets for tips. Fun once. For quiet water and soft light, be on the first boats.
A riverside village that has fired the bricks, roof tiles and jars of Hoi An since the 1500s. The potters still turn the wheel by foot: one person kicks while the other shapes.
Photo tip: Ask to try the wheel. Most houses will let you for a small fee, and you keep what you make. The rows of pots drying in the lanes photograph better than the showrooms.
Brick temple-towers raised by the kings of Champa between the 4th and 13th centuries, in a green valley ringed by hills. Bombed in 1969 and still half ruin, which is part of the pull. UNESCO listed it in 1999, the same year as Hoi An.
Photo tip: An electric shuttle covers the last 2 km from the ticket gate. Head straight for the main group of towers while the mist is still in the valley, and leave the museum by the gate for the way out.
Eight small islands in a marine reserve, a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2009: clear water, coral, one fishing village and a few short beaches.
Photo tip: The islands banned plastic bags in 2009, long before the mainland, so pack your snacks in something else. For underwater shots choose a tour that snorkels first and eats later: the morning sun lights the reef.
Our guides walk and ride these streets every day. They know which lane is empty at 4 pm, which rooftop has a free table, and where to stand for the shot.
Sorted the way we'd plan it for a friend: things you make with your own hands, things you can only do with a local, and classics that are easy to do on your own.
Whisk egg yolk and condensed milk into a custard foam and float it on strong robusta. It is harder than it looks, and you leave with the technique. We run our own workshop in Da Nang, an easy stop on the way to or from the airport.
45–60 min · classes in town from about US$13
Hoi An does this better than anywhere in Vietnam. Shop the market with the cook, sometimes arrive by boat, then make three or four dishes: fresh rolls, bánh xèo, a clay-pot something. You eat what you made.
3–5 hrs · group classes about 450,000–750,000 VND
Hoe a bed, plant a row, feed it with river weed and water it the old way, with two cans on a shoulder pole. Then cook lunch with the herbs you picked. Go at 8 am or 2 pm, never at midday.
Half a day · about US$35–60 with lunch
A shirt or a cotton dress takes a day. A suit needs two or three days and at least two fittings, so order on your first morning, not your last. Bring a photo, feel the cloth, and get the price, the fittings and the deadline in writing.
24–72 hrs · shirts from about US$25, suits US$150–300
In a leather workshop you cut, punch, stitch and burnish your own piece: a card holder or passport cover in two hours, a small bag in half a day. Your initials are stamped in at the end.
2–4 hrs · from about US$33
Bend the bamboo ribs, stretch the silk, glue, trim, add the tassel. The frame folds flat like an umbrella, so the lantern survives the flight home.
1–2.5 hrs · about US$8–13
Kick the wheel with one foot and pull up a bowl with both hands, coached by someone who has done it for fifty years. Yours will be wonky. Keep it anyway.
35,000 VND village entry · a turn at the wheel is a little extra
In the coconut-palm village east of town, a bamboo craftsman shows you how the stuff is split, bent and pegged, then helps you build something small enough to carry home.
2–3 hrs · from about US$40
Three to four hours on foot through the Old Town at an unhurried pace, stopping where the food is good rather than where the signs are in English: white rose dumplings, fried wontons and more, with the town's history between bites.
The same idea with an engine. You ride pillion to kitchens just outside the Old Town that a walking tour can't reach, then get off for a stroll and photos in the lantern-lit streets.
Rice paddies, the Trà Quế herb beds, a buffalo or two, the carpenters of Kim Bồng and the water-coconut palms of Cẩm Thanh, in one morning, on the back of a local rider's bike. No licence needed.
Half a day · we set it up around your dates
An áo dài in your size, a rider-guide who knows the light, and a route built around it: the Bà Mụ gate early, the yellow lanes, the river at dusk.
2–3 hrs · best at 6:30 am or 4 pm
Forty-five minutes up the coast: Han and Con markets with someone who shops there. Taste, bargain, and leave with souvenirs that weren't made for tourists.
The MICHELIN Guide stops at Da Nang. One evening on the back of a bike takes in several of its Bib Gourmand street kitchens, with a guide who knows what to order at each.
On foot through Hoi An's Old Town, at an unhurried pace
Covers Old Town plus nearby areas walking tours can't reach
See Da Nang's daily market life, a world away from the beach resorts
Local stalls away from the beach resort strip
Visit Da Nang's Michelin-recognised street food stalls
Guide's essential picks for Da Nang street food
On foot through Da Nang's local (non-resort) streets
Covers Da Nang's iconic daytime landmarks
Covers historical sites most beach-trip visitors skip
Mix of local bars and lit-up city sightseeing
Hands-on egg coffee making, not just watching a barista
Pick a route, follow the numbered stops, and open it in Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions. Every stop is a place from this guide.
Use two fingers to move the map
On our tours you sit on the back of a local rider's bike: helmet on, hands free for the camera, nothing to sign at a rental shop.
Hoi An by motorbike with a guide Ask on WhatsAppTwo full days cover the Old Town, the food and one morning in the countryside. A third lets you add My Son or the Cham Islands, and gives a tailor time for a second fitting. Plenty of people stay four or five and don't regret it.
Officially, yes. The 120,000 VND ticket for international visitors covers the Old Town itself plus five heritage sites of your choice, and it is valid for your whole stay, up to three days. Staff check at the entrances from time to time, so keep the stub on you. The money goes into the upkeep of the houses you came to see.
On the 14th day of every lunar month, the eve of the full moon. From dusk the Old Town turns off most of its electric light and runs on lanterns and candles. The next dates are 23 October, 22 November and 22 December 2026, then 21 January and 19 February 2027. The river is lantern-lit every night, so you won't miss out if your dates don't match.
Most years, in October or November, the river rises into the lowest streets for a day or two after heavy rain upstream. Shops move their stock upstairs, boats replace bicycles, and things reopen as soon as the water drops. If you travel in those months, book a room away from the riverfront and keep your plans flexible.
Hoi An has no airport and no railway station. Da Nang's airport is 30 km north, about 45 minutes by road. A Grab or a pre-booked car costs roughly 300,000–400,000 VND, and most hotels can send a driver. City bus 02 runs from Da Nang's central bus station to Hoi An for up to 30,000 VND, but it doesn't stop at the airport and takes about 90 minutes.
Outside the Old Town, yes, if you hold a motorcycle licence plus an International Driving Permit issued under the 1968 convention. Inside the Old Town, motorbikes are banned from 9:00 to 21:30. Bicycles are allowed everywhere and suit the flat countryside. Without a licence, ride on the back with one of our guides instead.
Very. This guide lists 13 vegetarian and vegan kitchens, from a rice-plate canteen in an Old Town alley to a café on the beach, and several of them cook cao lầu, white rose and mì Quảng without meat. Anywhere else, say “Tôi ăn chay, không nước mắm”: I'm vegetarian, no fish sauce.
A shirt or a simple dress takes about 24 hours. A suit, or anything lined, needs two to three days and at least two fittings. Order on your first day, pay a deposit rather than the full amount, and try everything on before you settle the bill.
Mì Quảng kitchens, the Dragon Bridge, Son Tra and six mapped routes.
90 minutes by airHo Chi Minh City guideWhere Saigon really eats, 21 photo spots and two routes on a map.
All of themCity guides by localsOne page per city: money, food, check-in spots and mapped routes.
Rates: Vietcombank, 9 Oct 2026, 23:00. Old Town ticket and walking hours: Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center, notice of 29 January 2026. Site fees: Da Nang tourism portal, 2026. Distances and map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Prices and opening hours were checked on 10 October 2026 and they do change: tell us if you spot something out of date.
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