Hoi An is small, and that is exactly the problem. Everything is a short bike ride away, so your list grows faster than your days. Three days is the classic stay here, and that fits roughly half of what you will ride past. You do not need all of it anyway.
A few things really belong on it: the old town at the moment the lanterns come on, the food you cannot get anywhere else in Vietnam, and one morning where you ride out of town. Others are on every photo and make a lovely half day if you have one spare, next to a bike and a random side road.
So where do your Hoi An days go, and what do you save for next time?
Want the practical side first, like where to sleep, how to get here and how many days to plan? That is all on our Hoi An page.
The rice fields around Tra Que at dawn
This is our favourite spot in Hoi An, and almost nobody is out there before seven. You cycle out of town towards Tra Que Vegetable Village, and within ten minutes it is just rice fields, waterways and farmers at work. The lantern streets feel like a different place afterwards.
A bike costs about €2 a day and is free at plenty of hostels. You need nothing else: no ticket, no tour, no guide. Just ride away from the centre and turn off wherever it gets green.
Go before the first buses roll in from Da Nang. That is also exactly the hour when the light sits low over the fields, so you get the most beautiful morning of your stay thrown in for free.
Our verdict: worth the early alarm, and do it on your very first day
The old town when the lanterns come on
The historic centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and has around 800 protected buildings: yellow merchant houses, assembly halls and the Japanese Covered Bridge. By day it is a pretty, car-free old town. Once it gets dark and the coloured lanterns come on, it turns into something else.
One ticket of about €4.50 gets you into five of those monuments. Buy it at an official booth, not from someone on the street. Allow half a day: everything is within ten minutes’ walk of everything else.
Go before eight in the morning or after six in the evening, because in between the light is harsh and the streets are packed. If you can time your visit for the full moon, do it: that night the electric lights go off, only the lanterns stay on, and candles float down the river.
Our verdict: a must, and go at the right hour
A boat with a candle on the Thu Bon river
From the water the old town looks different than it does from the quay: you sit low, it is quiet and the whole lit-up waterfront is right beside you. A woman rows you a little way up the Hoai river in a wooden boat and back again, and on the way you let go of a floating lantern with a candle in it.
It does not take long, about twenty minutes, and you just step in at the quay. Agree the price before you get in, and ask straight away whether the tip for the boat woman is included, because that is the classic point where it goes wrong here.
Go as soon as it is dark, not later. There are not too many boats out yet and you have most of the water to yourself.
Our verdict: do it once, and make it your first evening
Cao lau, white rose and the banh mi people queue for
Hoi An has dishes the rest of Vietnam does not. A bowl of cao lau is only officially allowed to carry the name if it is made with water from one specific well in town, and white rose, also called banh vac, comes out of the kitchens of a few families and nowhere else. The tailors are more famous, but the food is the real reason to stay longer.
A meal costs about €1.50 and a beer €0.50, so you can easily do three stalls in one evening. Ask for white rose at a stall even if you do not see it on the menu, because it is often not listed.
The queue at Banh Mi Phuong is long but it moves fast. Not in the mood to wait? Two streets away there is a cart doing almost the same sandwich with no queue at all. And if you love coffee, there is a workshop where you learn to make Vietnamese coffee, egg coffee included.
Our verdict: absolutely, and more than once
Cycling to An Bang Beach
The beach is four kilometres away and the ride there is almost better than the beach itself: twenty to thirty minutes through rice fields and past old cemeteries. An Bang is a relaxed beach with a row of beach bars and a lot less crowded than plenty of others.
A lounger costs nothing as long as you eat or drink something at one of those places. The fresh catch here is good and cheap, so this is a great spot to let your afternoon run on until after sunset.
Two things. Do not swim when the red flag is up, because the rip here is strong. And put a light on your bike if you ride back in the dark, because the road into town is properly pitch black.
Our verdict: worth a whole day, and the bike ride counts
A cooking class that starts at the market
The best cooking classes here do not start in a kitchen but at the local market. You walk past the stalls, see what came in that morning, and only then understand why a dish tastes the way it does.
The most popular version packs three things into one day: the market visit, a ride in a traditional round basket boat through the Cam Thanh coconut forest, and then cooking yourself. At the end you eat what you made.
This is the perfect way to fill your third day, once the old town and the beach are done. Do not book it on the same day as a day trip, or you are tied to a programme from early morning until late at night.
Our verdict: the most fun way to understand what you have been eating here for days
My Son or the Marble Mountains as a day trip
Two directions, two very different days. Inland, about an hour’s drive away, are the Cham temples of My Son: old brick towers in the greenery, quieter and older than anything in town. Towards Da Nang are the Marble Mountains, with Am Phu cave beneath them and the Lady Buddha on the coast.
Pick one. My Son is calmer and more historic, the Marble Mountains give you viewpoints, caves and a slice of Da Nang in the same day. Doing both is possible, but then there is not much left of your time in town.
Our verdict: two very different days, so pick one and do it properly
Got time to spare in Hoi An?
Getting something made at a tailor
The tailors are the reason plenty of people come here, and two days is enough. If you want to be happy with it, plan it on your first day and agree the fabric, the price and the number of fittings up front: give it two days and two fittings, and it sits right. Do that and you take home something you will still be wearing for years.
The old town at the right hour
Same streets, same ticket, a completely different experience. Early in the morning and in the last hour before dark you get the best light and the most space, because the day buses from Da Nang are not there yet. Use the hours between ten and four for the beach and you get the best of both.
Photographing the yellow walls
You see them on every feed: the ochre walls with flower boxes in front. Keep in mind this is simply someone’s house, with people living there who watch strangers pose in their doorway all day. Take your photo from a bit of a distance and stay out of the plants. There are hundreds of streets here that look just the same and where you have all the room you want.
A basket boat trip in Cam Thanh
The Cam Thanh coconut forest is already built into most cooking classes and market tours, so check your programme first. Not doing a cooking class? Then a separate basket boat trip is well worth it: nowhere else do you float through a maze of waterways between coconut palms like this.
Our top five in Hoi An
Only got a few days? These are the five we would do no matter what:
- The rice fields around Tra Que Vegetable Village, by bike and before seven
- The old town after six, when the lanterns come on
- Cao lau, white rose and banh mi, spread over as many stalls as you can
- Cycling to An Bang Beach, with a long afternoon at a beach bar
- A cooking class that starts at the local market
Still got time after that? The day trip to My Son or the Marble Mountains is the obvious fourth day. Would you rather be indoors? Make your own traditional lantern in a workshop: it is the only souvenir from this town you will have put together yourself.
So what do you really have to do in Hoi An?
Everything on this list is worth it, but Hoi An is above all a town for wandering. The travellers who get the most out of it dropped their plan on day two and just went cycling. This list is here to help you choose, and to keep that afternoon free.
If we had to pick just one thing: get up early once. Rent a bike, ride out of town towards the rice fields and be back for breakfast. It costs you €2 and an hour, and it is the bit of Hoi An most visitors miss completely.
And keep one evening totally empty. Head into the old town after six with no plan, eat wherever the queue of locals is, and let the lanes carry you along until you have no idea where you are. This town is small enough that you always end up back at the river.
