Backpacking Phong Nha
Half the people doing Vietnam skip this, because it is a nine-hour bus from Hanoi to a village nobody has heard of. The other half arrive planning two nights and leave after four, and spend the rest of the trip telling everyone they meet to go.
Phong Nha-Ke Bang is a UNESCO park with over four hundred caves in it, including the biggest cave on earth. You will not be going in that one, because Son Doong costs three thousand dollars and sells out a year ahead. You will be going into the ones next to it, which are still cathedral-sized, still lit like a film set, and cost nine euros.
Around the caves is the other half of it: a valley of farm bars you ride between on a scooter, a river to swim in, and a village of homestays where the owner cooks dinner. It is the most relaxed two days in Vietnam, sat next to some of the most spectacular.
Why Phong Nha is popular with backpackers
- Caves the size of cathedrals, for about €9 a ticket
- A zipline into Dark Cave, then mud baths and a kayak back
- The Bong Lai Valley, which is a pub crawl on a scooter through farmland
- Empty roads and proper scenery on both sides of them
- Homestays for €6 where dinner is cooked for you
- Nobody is trying to sell you anything
Best time to visit Phong Nha
This place is about caves, and caves flood. The season here is shorter and harder-edged than anywhere else in Vietnam.
Coming in September, October or November? Expect Dark Cave and the kayak routes to be shut, and know that when the water is high the buses get rerouted as well. This is the one stop in Vietnam where the season can cancel the reason you came.
Backpacker budget: around €20 a day
- €6hostel bed
- €2.50local meal
- €0.60beer
- €5scooter per day
Guide prices from our own days in Phong Nha. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Phong Nha
The village is small and everything in it is good, which is unusual. All three of these are family-run, all three cook dinner, and all three will sort your onward bus.
Green Riverside Cosy Home
On the river with the karst behind it, run by a family who will feed you before you have asked. Quiet, green, and the one to pick if you want the version of Phong Nha where nothing is organised.
Central Backpackers Hostel Phong Nha
The social hub of the village: a pool, a bar, free beer hour, and a board of tours leaving every morning. If you turned up alone and want a group for Dark Cave tomorrow, book here.
Phong Nha Tuan Garden House
A 9.8 rating, and it is essentially a homestay with a garden around it. People come for two nights and change their bus twice. Best value bed in this part of the country.
Best things to do in Phong Nha
Phong Nha Cave and Paradise Cave in a day
The two headline caves in one go. You go into Phong Nha Cave by boat, up an underground river with the engine cut so it is just the sound of dripping, then on to Paradise Cave, which is thirty-one kilometres long and lit along a wooden walkway through chambers seventy metres high. Transport, tickets and lunch sorted, which in a village with no public transport matters.
Zipline, Dark Cave and the mud
The most fun you will have in Vietnam with a helmet on. You zipline four hundred metres across the river, swim into a cave mouth, wade through pitch black passages by head torch, and end up floating in a chamber of mud so thick you cannot sink. Then you kayak back out. Not remotely dignified and absolutely worth it.
Paradise Cave on your own
You do not need a tour. Ride out yourself, pay at the gate, and walk the boardwalk through what is genuinely one of the great sights in Southeast Asia: a chamber the size of a cathedral nave, stalagmites the height of houses, and air twelve degrees cooler than outside.
The national park
A UNESCO site, and the park is much more than its caves: limestone towers, thick jungle, and walking routes that range from an hour to overnight expeditions with a guide and a porter.
The Bong Lai Valley on a scooter
An afternoon that consists entirely of stopping. The valley behind the village has a handful of farm bars strung along one road: the Duck Stop, the Pub with Cold Beer, the Wild Boar Eco Farm. Ride between them, eat at each, and come back at dusk.
The Duck Stop
A farm where you walk into a field and about fifty ducks run at you because you are holding their food. It should be ridiculous and it is one of the most straightforwardly fun three euros in the country.
Mooc Spring
Clear blue water in the middle of the jungle, with walkways, kayaks and rope swings. It is the answer to a thirty-four degree afternoon, and it is only open when the water is low enough.
Best area for backpackers
Phong Nha Village
One village, one main street along the Son river, and every hostel, homestay, cafe and tour desk on it. There is no second option and nobody wants one.
The caves are all outside it, between seven and twenty kilometres away, which is why almost everyone rents a scooter for at least one day.
Good to know about this area
- Every hostel, homestay and tour desk is on the one street
- Scooter hire from about €5 a day, from your own guesthouse
- The river is right there, and you can swim in it
- Dinner is usually cooked where you sleep, and it is good
- The Bong Lai Valley starts about seven kilometres out
- Bring cash. ATMs here are scarce and sometimes empty
How to plan your days in Phong Nha
Two days is the minimum: one for the big caves, one for the valley. Three if you want a proper cave expedition. Pick how long you have.
Paradise Cave and Dark Cave. Paradise Cave first thing, before the coaches: a cathedral of stalagmites with a wooden walkway through the middle. Dark Cave after lunch for the zipline, the mud bath and the kayak back.
Tonight: a beer on the bank of the Son river while the light goes.
The Bong Lai Valley. Take a scooter out behind the village and work your way along the valley: the Duck Stop, the Pub with Cold Beer, the Wild Boar Eco Farm. A day made entirely of stopping at the side of the road.
Tonight: eat where you are staying. Almost every homestay cooks.
Phong Nha Cave, or go deeper. Take the boat up the underground river into Phong Nha Cave itself, or book a real expedition with a night camping at Hang En, the third largest cave in the world.
Tonight: night bus to Hue, Ninh Binh or Hanoi.
Food and drink in Phong Nha
This is a village, not a town: the food comes from the homestays and a handful of places on the main street. That sounds limiting and somehow is not, because the competition is small and the cooking is done by people who eat it themselves.
Out in the Bong Lai Valley the eating is the activity. The Pub with Cold Beer does barbecued chicken and you order it hours in advance, because they go and get it.
Getting there and onward
Phong Nha sits almost exactly halfway between Hanoi and Hoi An, which is what makes it such a sensible stop even though it looks like a detour.
Getting there. Night bus from Hanoi, about nine hours. From Hue it is only four, and for most people that is the better direction to arrive from.
Around here. Everything outside the village needs a scooter, about €5 a day. Paradise Cave is twenty kilometres out, the Bong Lai Valley seven.
Onward. The railway stops at Dong Hoi, forty-five minutes away, with night trains to both Hanoi and Da Nang. Buses run straight to Hue.
- Night busHanoi 9 hrs · Hue 4 hrs · Ninh Binh 8 hrs
- TrainFrom Dong Hoi, 45 minutes from the village
- ScooterFrom about €5 a day. Everything is outside town
- Phong Nha CaveBoat into the cave, about an hour
- BicycleFrom about €2, enough for the Bong Lai Valley
Staying safe in Phong Nha
The village is quiet and safe. The risks are wet rock, dark passages and unfamiliar mountain roads.
- Wear shoes with grip in the caves. The rock is wet everywhere
- Carry a torch or a power bank. Dark Cave is genuinely pitch black
- Ask whether your tour still runs if it rains. High water closes caves at short notice
- Ride slowly on the road to Paradise Cave. There are cows on the carriageway
- Walk into any cave that is not an official, marked route
- Do the zipline with your phone loose in a pocket
- Swim in the river after heavy rain. The current picks up fast
- Assume you can withdraw cash here. Bring it from Hue or Dong Hoi
Rebels on the Road tip
Almost everyone does the caves and gets straight back on a bus. Give the Bong Lai Valley a whole afternoon instead, and go at four rather than at noon. Small farms, empty lanes, rice fields with the light coming in low, and bars where you are one of three customers. Order the chicken at the Pub with Cold Beer on your way past in the morning so it is ready when you come back. That is the day people remember from Phong Nha, and it is not the one with the zipline in it.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do you need in Phong Nha?
Two to three. One for the big caves, one for the valley, and a third if you want a longer cave trip or the national park.
Phong Nha or Ninh Binh?
Ninh Binh is rice fields, rowing boats and viewpoints, and it is cheap and close to Hanoi. Phong Nha is caves, jungle and adventure, and it takes more getting to. If you only do one and you like being underground or on a scooter, make it Phong Nha.
Where should I stay?
Phong Nha Village, on the main street along the river. Every hostel, homestay and tour desk is on it, and there is nowhere else that makes sense.
Is Phong Nha expensive?
No. About €20 a day, and that is with a scooter and a cave ticket in it. The one thing that costs real money is a multi-day cave expedition.
Paradise Cave or Dark Cave?
Paradise Cave is the beautiful one: enormous, lit, and quiet enough to hear water drip. Dark Cave is the fun one: zipline, mud, head torches and a kayak. They are completely different days out and most people do both.
Do I need a scooter in Phong Nha?
Not strictly, since tours include transport. But every single thing here is outside the village, and €5 a day buys you the Bong Lai Valley, which is half the reason people love this place.
Can you visit Son Doong, the biggest cave in the world?
Only on a four-day expedition with the single licensed operator, at around three thousand dollars, and the permits sell out roughly a year ahead. Hang En, the third largest cave in the world, is an overnight trip for a fraction of that and starts from the same village.
When is the best time to visit Phong Nha?
February to August. September to November is the rainy season, when the caves flood and tours are cancelled, and that is the one thing that can genuinely spoil this stop.
