Backpacking Hanoi
Hanoi does not ease you in. You come out of the airport, get dropped at the edge of the Old Quarter because no car can get any further, and within four minutes you are standing on a pavement that is entirely motorbikes, trying to work out how to cross a road where nothing ever stops.
Then you sit down on a plastic stool thirty centimetres off the ground, someone puts a bowl in front of you, and it clicks. This is the city where Vietnam makes sense: a thousand-year-old capital with a French quarter bolted onto it, thirty-six trade streets that still mostly sell what they are named after, and a street food scene that the rest of the country measures itself against.
It is also the gateway to the best part of the country. Ha Long Bay, Ninh Binh, Sapa and Ha Giang all leave from here, most of them on a bus that picks you up outside your hostel. Three or four days in Hanoi, and the north opens up.
Why Hanoi is popular with backpackers
- The best street food in Vietnam, and it is not close
- Hostel beds from €6, beer from thirty cents
- Ha Long Bay, Ninh Binh, Sapa and Ha Giang all start here
- A thousand years of history you walk past rather than queue for
- The Old Quarter, which is a maze and should be treated as one
- Egg coffee, invented here, available on every corner
Best time to visit Hanoi
Unlike the south, northern Vietnam has four actual seasons. Hanoi in January can be properly cold and grey; in June it is thirty-three degrees and airless. When you come matters here more than anywhere else in the country.
Combining Hanoi with Sapa or Ha Giang? Come in September, October or April. That is when the terraces look their best and you are neither soaked nor shivering.
Backpacker budget: around €20 a day
- €6hostel bed
- €1.50local meal
- €0.30beer
- €1.50Grab ride
Guide prices from our own days in Hanoi. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Hanoi
Everything backpacker-shaped is in the Old Quarter, and all three of these are in it. Book the first night before you land: arriving into Hanoi with no bed and no plan is a specific kind of character-building.
Hanoi Central Backpackers Hostel
The default. Central, loud in the good way, and the easiest place in the city to be travelling on your own for a day and then not be. Their own tours and buses to Ha Long Bay and Sapa leave from the door.
Hanoi Backpackers Hostel & Rooftop Bar
The rooftop is the point. Everyone ends up there at six, which means you have plans by seven whether you wanted them or not. Light sleepers, take a private room.
Hanoi Buffalo Hostel
A step up in comfort without a step up in price, and there is a pool, which in a Hanoi summer is not a luxury. Good middle ground if you want the social side without the 3am version of it.
Best things to do in Hanoi
Ha Long Bay in a day
Sixteen hundred limestone islands standing straight out of green water, and one of the few UNESCO sites that genuinely looks like the picture. A day trip is a long day (you leave at eight, you get back at eight) but it is the cheapest way to see it, and you spend four of those hours actually on the water, with kayaks and a cave thrown in.
If you would rather have the same scenery with a fraction of the boats, sleep at Cat Ba instead and go out into Lan Ha Bay from there.
A food tour and Train Street
Do this on your first evening, not your last. Hanoi’s food is hidden behind doorways and down alleys and sold by people who make exactly one dish, and a guide gets you into six of those places in three hours. Everything you eat afterwards is better because you know what to look for.
Train Street is the other half: a residential alley about a metre wider than the train that comes through it twice a day. Since the crackdowns you get in through a cafe rather than off the street, which is what the tour arranges.
The water puppets
A thousand-year-old art form that started as something farmers did in flooded rice paddies, performed waist-deep behind a screen with a live band at the side. It is an hour, it is about four euros, and it is far stranger and better than “puppet show” prepares you for.
Ninh Binh in a day
Ha Long Bay on land, and for a lot of people the better day out: a three-hour rowing boat through caves and karst, five hundred steps up to a viewpoint over the whole valley, and the tenth-century capital at Hoa Lu. Closer than Ha Long, cheaper, and less boat traffic.
Staying longer is better still: see Ninh Binh.
A cooking class with a market run
Starts at the market, where you learn what the twelve herbs are and why every Vietnamese table has a plate of them. Then you cook four things and eat them. The most useful three hours you can spend at the start of a month in this country.
Making your own silver ring
Three hours in a small workshop with five grams of real silver, and you walk out wearing something you made. The silversmith handles the parts that would ruin it and you do the filing, the hammering and the polishing.
A straight five out of more than eight hundred reviews, which for anything in Hanoi is unusual. It is also the only thing on this page that sends you home with a souvenir that is not a photograph.
Hoan Kiem Lake at seven in the morning
The lake in the middle of the Old Quarter, and the one thing on this page that is free and unmissable. Get up early: at seven, half of Hanoi is out here doing tai chi, badminton, aerobics to a portable speaker, and running laps. By nine it is a nice lake with tourists round it.
The Temple of Literature
Vietnam’s first university, founded in 1070, and still the calmest place in the city. Five courtyards, stone tortoises carrying the names of everyone who passed the exams since 1442, and a lot of students in graduation gowns having their photos taken.
The night market
From Friday to Sunday a long stretch of the Old Quarter closes to traffic and becomes a market: clothes, souvenirs, phone cases and, more to the point, a food street running off the side of it.
Best area for backpackers
The Old Quarter
There is no second option and nobody pretends otherwise. Every hostel, every tour desk, every bus pickup and most of the food is inside this one square kilometre of thirty-six narrow streets, each historically named after the trade that worked it: Hang Bac for silver, Hang Gai for silk, Hang Ma for paper.
It is noisy. Scooters come through gaps you would not walk through, and the bars around Ta Hien do not go quiet until well after midnight. That is the trade for being able to walk to everything, and it is worth it for three nights.
Good to know about this area
- Practically every hostel in the city is here
- The lake, the night market and the temples are all on foot
- Buses to Ha Long, Sapa and Ha Giang pick up from your door
- Street food on every corner, most of it under two euros
- Ta Hien (“beer corner”) for bia hoi at about thirty cents a glass
- Loud until late: ask for a room off the street if that matters
How to plan your days in Hanoi
Three days for the city and one day trip, four if you want both Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh. Pick how long you have.
The Old Quarter and the lake. Get deliberately lost in the thirty-six streets, drink an egg coffee looking out over Hoan Kiem Lake, and walk out to the Ngoc Son temple on its little red bridge. Finish at Train Street for the evening train.
Tonight: bia hoi on the corner of Ta Hien, where a glass costs about thirty cents.
History, then food. Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and the One Pillar Pagoda in the morning, the Temple of Literature and the Women's Museum after. Street food tour of the Old Quarter in the late afternoon.
Tonight: the water puppets at the Thang Long theatre.
Ninh Binh or Ha Long Bay. A full day out of the city either way. Ninh Binh is closer, cheaper and quieter; Ha Long is the bigger sight. Pickup is around half seven from your hostel.
Tonight: eat around West Lake, away from the backpacker streets.
The Hanoi people actually live in. Cross the Long Bien Bridge to Banana Island, or cycle the loop around West Lake past the pagodas. Afternoon in Bat Trang, the ceramics village half an hour out, where you can throw your own pot badly.
Tonight: the weekend night market, or a rooftop in the French Quarter.
Food and drink in Hanoi
This is the best eating city in Vietnam, and it is not a close-run thing. Northern food is saltier and more restrained than the south: less sugar, more broth, and herbs by the handful.
Almost all of it happens on the street, on those thirty-centimetre stools, and the rule is one stall one dish. A place selling pho sells pho. If the menu has forty things on it in three languages, you have found the tourist version.
Bun cha is lunch, between twelve and two. Turn up at four and the good places are shut.
Egg coffee needs a word of its own. Whisked egg yolk, condensed milk and hot robusta, served in a bowl of warm water so it stays hot. It sounds wrong and tastes like drinking tiramisu. It was invented here in the 1940s when milk was scarce.
Getting there and onward
Hanoi is the transport hub of the north. Every sleeper bus into the mountains and every train south leaves from here.
From the airport. Noi Bai is about 35 km out. Grab takes forty-five minutes and costs around €10; the Vietnam Airlines minibus does the same run for a couple of euros.
Around town. Walk the Old Quarter, because that is the only way it works. For anything further, a Grab motorbike is usually under €1.50 and the price is fixed in the app before you get on.
Onward. Sapa and Ha Giang are an overnight bus away, Ninh Binh two to two and a half hours by train. Heading to the centre and the south, the train beats the bus for comfort and for the views.
- GrabCar or motorbike, price fixed in the app
- Sleeper busSapa 6 hrs · Ha Giang 7 hrs · Cat Ba 4 hrs
- TrainNinh Binh 2 to 2.5 hrs · Hue 13 hrs · Da Nang 16 hrs
- Ha Long BayDay trip or overnight, 4 hrs each way
- PlaneDa Nang in an hour, Ho Chi Minh City in two
Staying safe in Hanoi
Hanoi is safe, including late at night. What costs backpackers money here is almost never theft: it is prices that were never agreed.
- Agree a price before you get into a cyclo or take anything from a street cart, or just use Grab
- Stay behind the line at Train Street and do what the staff tell you. The gap is smaller than it looks
- Keep your bag on your lap when you are sitting on a stool by the road
- Take cash out at a machine inside a bank branch, not one down an alley
- Cross the road at a steady walking pace. The traffic steers around you; stopping is what breaks it
- Go with a driver who walks up to you inside the airport
- Let a shoe shiner take your shoe. You get it back for a price
- Hold your phone in your hand while walking next to traffic. Snatches from a passing bike happen
- Rent a scooter to ride in Hanoi itself unless you have real experience. Save it for the mountains
Rebels on the Road tip
Nearly everyone stays inside the Old Quarter for three days and leaves. Cross the Long Bien Bridge instead, the rusted French one, and walk down onto Banana Island in the middle of the Red River. Banana plantations, sand tracks, vegetable plots, a few buffalo, and the Hanoi skyline across the water. Twenty minutes from the noisiest street in Vietnam and completely silent. Go for sunset.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do you need in Hanoi?
Three for the city, four if you want a day trip as well. With both Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh you can fill a week without repeating yourself.
Is Hanoi safe for backpackers?
Yes, including at night. The real risks are the traffic and overpaying, not crime. Watch your phone near the road and agree prices up front.
Which area should I stay in?
The Old Quarter, and there is no serious second option. Every hostel, every tour pickup and most of the food is inside it, and it is all walkable.
Is Hanoi expensive?
No. It is one of the cheapest capital cities in Asia. Around €20 a day covers a hostel bed, three meals, a couple of beers and getting about.
What should I eat in Hanoi?
Bun cha, at lunchtime. Grilled pork in a bowl of broth with noodles and herbs, and the dish Hanoi is known for at home and abroad. Then pho for breakfast and an egg coffee in the afternoon.
Ha Long Bay or Ninh Binh?
Ha Long if you want the famous one and do not mind the boat traffic. Ninh Binh if you want the same limestone scenery with a rowing boat, a viewpoint and half the crowd, for less money and a shorter drive. If you have the time, do Ninh Binh as its own stop rather than a day trip.
When is the best time to visit Hanoi?
October, November, March and April: mild, dry and clear. December to February is cool and grey with drizzle that sits for days, and May to September is hot, humid and wet in the afternoons.
