Backpacking Da Lat
You come up out of the heat on a bus that spends four hours going round corners, and at the top there are pine trees, mist in the valleys and people wearing jackets. Da Lat sits at fifteen hundred metres in the Central Highlands and it is eighteen degrees here every day of the year, which is why the French built it as a hill station and why Vietnamese honeymooners still fill it at weekends.
For a backpacker it is the adventure stop. This is where canyoning happens in Vietnam: abseiling down waterfalls, sliding over wet rock and jumping into pools, all day, for about forty euros. Around it are waterfalls, coffee plantations, an alpine coaster down a hillside and one of the strangest buildings in Asia.
And the coffee. The hills here grow most of Vietnam’s good arabica, so for once the cafe you are sitting in is about two kilometres from the plant.
Why Da Lat is popular with backpackers
- The best canyoning in Vietnam, and the only place it is properly run
- Eighteen degrees, when the rest of the country is at thirty-four
- Waterfalls, pine forest and empty mountain roads for a scooter
- Coffee plantations you can ride to and taste at
- The Crazy House, which has to be seen to be argued about
- €18 a day, and hostels here score higher than almost anywhere else
Best time to visit Da Lat
They call it the city of eternal spring and that is accurate: it is around eighteen degrees the whole year. What does change is the rain, and rain takes the fun out of canyoning and riding.
Bring a jumper, genuinely. Da Lat is the only place in southern Vietnam where you can be cold, and a lot of people arrive with nothing in their bag but shorts.
Backpacker budget: around €18 a day
- €5hostel bed
- €1.80local meal
- €0.60beer
- €5scooter per day
Guide prices from our own days in Da Lat. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Da Lat
Three of the highest rated hostels in the country are in this one small town, which tells you something about what a week of heat does to people’s gratitude.
Tigon Dalat Hostel
A 9.8 from fifteen hundred reviews. Central, sociable, with staff who will sit down and plan your two days with you, and a family dinner most nights.
Mooka’s Home
More homestay than hostel: a wooden house on the hillside with a view over the valley and a fire going. People book two nights here and leave on the fifth.
Dalat Family Hostel
The name is the concept. Group dinners, group trips, and a crowd that by day two behaves like it has known each other for years. More than three and a half thousand reviews and still a 9.2.
Best things to do in Da Lat
Canyoning
The reason most backpackers come here. A full day in a wetsuit and a harness: abseiling down the face of a waterfall, sliding twenty metres over smooth rock into a pool, jumping off a ledge you would not normally jump off, and one rappel straight through the falling water. A perfect five stars from over six hundred people.
Pay for a proper operator with its own gear and certified guides. This is not the activity to save eight euros on, and we say why further down the page.
A sunrise hike above the clouds
You leave in the dark, climb to a ridge, and sit above a valley filled to the brim with cloud while the sun comes up over the top of it. Breakfast is included and so, at that hour, is a genuinely good mood. Another five-star rating, which for a 4am start says a lot.
The three waterfalls
Datanla, Pongour and Elephant Falls in one day, in a small group, with the alpine coaster at Datanla thrown in: a metal luge track that runs down the hillside to the falls and which you control yourself. The most fun way to arrive at a waterfall anywhere.
The alpine coaster and the luge
If you only want the rides: the coaster down through the pines, a luge kart track and the viewpoints at Mongoland in one afternoon. Silly, cheap, and everyone gets off grinning.
The Crazy House
A guesthouse built to look like a hollowed-out banyan tree crossed with a Gaudi nightmare, by the daughter of a former Vietnamese president. Concrete tunnels, staircases with no handrails, giraffes and bears embedded in the walls. Two and a half euros and nothing else in Vietnam is remotely like it.
The coffee plantations
The hills southeast of town grow most of the good arabica in Vietnam, and the road out to Cau Dat runs through twenty kilometres of it. Most farms will let you walk in, show you the process and pour you a cup for a couple of euros.
The night market
Every evening the streets by the main square fill with stalls, and in the cold this is exactly the right way to eat. Get banh trang nuong, grilled rice paper with egg and spring onion on it, which tourists call Vietnamese pizza and which costs about fifty cents.
Xuan Huong Lake
The lake in the middle of town, with a five-kilometre path around it. Walk or cycle it early, when the mist is still sitting on the water and the whole place looks like it belongs in a different country.
Best area for backpackers
The city centre
Everything is around the lake and the market square: hostels, cafes, restaurants, tour desks and the night market. The centre is compact enough to walk and hilly enough that you will notice.
Staying further out gets you a view and costs you a scooter ride every time you want dinner. For two nights, stay central.
Good to know about this area
- Hostels, cafes and tour desks in a few streets around the square
- The night market starts at five, every evening
- Almost every tour picks up from the centre
- Scooter hire from about €5 a day
- It gets cold after dark. A hostel with blankets matters here
- The bus station is a few kilometres out, but pickups are included
How to plan your days in Da Lat
Two days is standard, three if you want to go canyoning as well. Pick how long you have.
The town and the lake. Walk the loop around Xuan Huong Lake, take in the Crazy House and the old station with its French locomotive, and drink coffee on a terrace looking over the rooftops.
Tonight: the night market, grilled skewers and hot soy milk.
Waterfalls on a scooter. Ride out to Datanla, Pongour or Elephant Falls, through the coffee and the strawberry fields. Stop at a plantation on the way back for a tasting.
Tonight: hotpot, which at fifteen degrees is exactly right.
Canyoning. Abseiling down waterfalls, sliding over wet rock, jumping into mountain pools. A full day, the best organised version of it in the country, and the thing people talk about afterwards.
Tonight: sleeper bus to Mui Ne, Nha Trang or Ho Chi Minh City.
Food and drink in Da Lat
Da Lat is the market garden of Vietnam. Everything that will not grow in the lowlands grows here: strawberries, artichokes, avocados and good coffee, and every menu in town leans on that.
At the night market, banh trang nuong is the thing: rice paper on a grill with egg, spring onion and dried shrimp, folded like a taco. And in a town this cold, hotpot stops being a meal and becomes a strategy.
Getting there and onward
Da Lat is high in the mountains and every road up to it is a climb, so journeys take longer than the distance suggests.
Getting there. About seven hours on the sleeper bus from Ho Chi Minh City, four from Nha Trang or Mui Ne. The road up is spectacular and not kind to anyone who gets travel sick.
Around town. The centre is around the lake and walkable. For the waterfalls and the plantations, rent a scooter at about €5 a day.
Onward. The usual route continues to Mui Ne or Nha Trang. There is also an airport, with cheap flights to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
- Sleeper busHo Chi Minh City 7 hrs · Nha Trang 4 hrs · Mui Ne 4 hrs
- ScooterFrom about €5 a day. A lot of corners
- Easy riderMulti-day trips through the highlands, on the back
- PlaneLien Khuong, 30 km south of the city
- Heritage trainTo Trai Mat, 7 km, purely for the ride
Staying safe in Da Lat
Da Lat is safe and relaxed. The two things that need thought are the mountain roads and which canyoning company you book with.
- Book canyoning with a company that owns and checks its own equipment
- Bring warm clothes. In the evening it drops towards ten degrees
- Ride slowly on the bends, especially after rain
- Check whether your travel insurance covers canyoning and abseiling
- Pick the cheapest canyoning tour. People have died here, and it was not bad luck
- Climb around the waterfalls on your own, off the marked routes
- Swim above a waterfall. The pull is stronger than it looks from the bank
- Ride down the mountain road after dark. There is no lighting at all
Canyoning is the most popular thing to do here and also the most dangerous. Pick an operator with a real reputation, its own kit and certified guides, and pay the extra few euros without thinking about it.
Rebels on the Road tip
Everyone does the waterfalls and the adventure tours and nobody rides out to the coffee. Take a scooter towards Cau Dat at first light, twenty kilometres southeast, through terraced coffee fields and greenhouses with the whole highlands dropping away to your left. The mist sits in the valleys until about eight. Stop at one of the farms, drink what they grew forty metres away, and ride back for lunch. Best morning in southern Vietnam, and it costs five euros and a tank of petrol.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do you need in Da Lat?
Two for the town and the waterfalls, three if you want to add a full day of canyoning, which most people do once they have heard about it.
Is canyoning in Da Lat worth it?
It is the best-organised adventure day in Vietnam, and for a lot of backpackers the highlight of the whole country: abseiling waterfalls, sliding down rock into pools, jumping off ledges. Book a reputable operator and it is well run and properly equipped.
Where should I stay in Da Lat?
The centre, around the lake and the market square. Everything is walkable, the night market is there, and the hostels here are among the highest rated in the country.
Is Da Lat expensive?
No. €18 a day covers it. Canyoning is the one big line in the budget, at around €40 for a full day including lunch and gear.
Do I need warm clothes for Da Lat?
Yes, and this catches nearly everyone out. Mornings and evenings sit around ten to fifteen degrees all year, and most backpackers arrive from the coast with nothing but shorts.
Da Lat or Sapa?
Sapa is rice terraces, trekking and hill villages in the far north. Da Lat is pine forest, waterfalls and adrenaline in the south. Sapa is more beautiful; Da Lat is more fun, better organised and easier to reach. Both are worth their two or three days.
Do I need a scooter in Da Lat?
Only if you want the plantations and the waterfalls on your own terms, which is the best reason to be here. Tours include transport, so it is not compulsory.
When is the best time to visit Da Lat?
December to March: dry and clear, cold in the morning. June to November is the wet season, which means an afternoon shower most days, greener hills and much fuller waterfalls.
