The best things to do in Hoi An are the Japanese Covered Bridge, the Fujian Assembly Hall, Tan Ky House, the night market and lantern boats on the Thu Bon, and the Cham temple ruins at My Son. The Ancient Town streets are free to walk; one ticket, sold at the booths around the edge of the old quarter, admits you to five of the 22 ticketed monuments inside it. Give the town three days: one for the old quarter, one for the craft villages and the beach, one for My Son and the coast road.
Hoi An traded under the name Faifo, and for two centuries it was the port where Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese merchants met the Cham and Viet traders of the Thu Bon river. It survived because it failed: the river silted, the business moved 30 kilometres north to Da Nang, and nobody had a reason to knock the warehouses down. UNESCO listed the result in 1999 as an exceptionally well preserved trading port. What that means on the ground is about ten walkable streets of tile, timber and mustard render, a river with lantern boats on it, and a food culture built on one well. The ten entries below run from the Japanese bridge at the western end of Tran Phu, out through the craft villages, to the Cham ruins at My Son.
Landmark· Tran Phu Street at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Hoi An, Da Nang
Chua Cau is the image the town sells itself on, and the reason is structural rather than scenic: a covered bridge with a temple built into its northern side, put up in the early 17th century to link the Japanese quarter to the Chinese one across a creek. The shrine inside is to Tran Vo Bac De, a weather deity, and the carved dog and monkey guarding either end are usually read as the zodiac years the work started and finished. It reopened in August 2024 after a 19-month restoration that split opinion locally for how new the finished render looked. Photograph it from the Bach Dang bank rather than on it, where the crowd stands.
Time15 min
CostAncient Town ticket
Best atBefore 8am
TipThe 20,000 dong note in your wallet carries this bridge. Compare the two while you stand there.
The richest of the five Chinese congregation halls, founded in 1697 by merchants from Fujian and given over to Thien Hau, the sea goddess who was supposed to bring their ships home. The scale is the point: a triple gate, then a courtyard, then a main hall of carved and gilded timber under coils of incense that burn for weeks. Read it as a trade guild that happened to worship, which is what a congregation hall was, and the layout makes immediate sense.
Time30 min
CostAncient Town ticket
Best atMid-morning
TipShoulders and knees covered. It is a working temple, not a museum piece.
Historic house· 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Hoi An, Da Nang
Two hundred years old and lived in by seven generations of the same family, which is why the guide showing you round is usually a descendant. The frame is the lesson: a Japanese roof, Chinese carved beams and Vietnamese hardwood columns holding up one house, built with a river door at the back for loading boats. Look for the flood marks on the wall by the stairs, a record of how often the Thu Bon comes in and how high.
Time30 min
CostAncient Town ticket
Best atMorning
TipAsk which floor the furniture goes to in flood season. The answer explains the whole building.
Market· Nguyen Hoang Street, An Hoi, Hoi An, Da Nang
Cross the An Hoi footbridge after dark and the street turns into several hundred metres of silk lanterns for sale, lit and hung in rows. It is unashamedly a tourist market, and it is still the best hour of the day here, because the light is the town's own product. The boats waiting on the Thu Bon below sell a slow lap of the river with paper candle lanterns to drop over the side. Both are best on the 14th day of the lunar month, when the electric lights in the old quarter go off.
Time1 hr
CostFree to walk
Best atAfter dark
TipSettle the price and the length of the trip before you step into a boat.
Market· Tran Phu Street at Bach Dang, Hoi An, Da Nang
The market that feeds the town, which is a different thing from the market that sells to it. Produce, herbs, fish and butchers under one roof from first light, and a food court at the river end where the stalls do cao lau, mi Quang and com ga for a fraction of what the restaurants on Nguyen Thai Hoc charge. Go at seven, when the boats have just unloaded and before the heat sets in.
Time45 min
CostFree
Best at7am
TipEat at the stall with the most locals sitting at it, then buy herbs on the way out.
Ruins· Duy Phu, Da Nang (about 40 km southwest of Hoi An)
The Cham built and rebuilt this valley of brick temple towers from the 4th century to the 13th, dedicated mostly to Shiva, and it was the religious centre of a kingdom that ran the central coast for a thousand years. UNESCO listed it in 1999 alongside Hoi An. The damage is part of the story: bombing during the war destroyed the largest tower, and the craters are still in the ground beside the groups that survived. The brickwork is the thing to look at up close, laid without visible mortar in a technique nobody has convincingly reproduced.
TimeHalf day
CostTicketed
Best atFirst entry of the day
TipTake the earliest shuttle. The site is unshaded and the coach groups arrive mid-morning.
Village· Tra Que, Hoi An Tay, Da Nang (about 3 km north)
Forty or so families growing herbs on a few hectares of sand between the river and a lagoon, fertilised with weed dredged out of the water rather than with chemicals. That sounds like a marketing line and is not: it is why the mint and the coriander on your cao lau taste stronger here than anywhere else in Vietnam. Most visitors book a session and end up hoeing and watering with a shoulder yoke, which is harder work than it looks and takes about two hours.
Time2 hr
CostTicketed
Best atEarly morning
TipCycle out. It is flat, it is 20 minutes, and the ride is through rice paddy the whole way.
Nature· Cam Thanh, Hoi An Dong, Da Nang (about 5 km east)
A stand of nipa water palm in the brackish channels where the Thu Bon meets the sea, planted by Mekong Delta settlers and later used as cover by the Viet Cong. You see it from a thung chai, the round bamboo basket boat, paddled between the palms. Be clear about what you are booking: the mid-morning trips come with amplified music and boatmen spinning the baskets for tips, and the early ones are quiet water, kingfishers and crab traps. They cost the same.
Time2 hr
CostTicketed
Best atFirst light
TipAsk for the early slot and say you do not want the spinning-boat show.
Village· Thanh Ha, Hoi An Tay, Da Nang (about 3 km west)
Potters have worked this bank of the Thu Bon for around 500 years, and the village supplied the tiles and bricks that the old quarter is still standing on. The workshops along the lane will put you on a foot-driven wheel for as long as you want to embarrass yourself, and the terracotta park at the end holds scale models of world monuments in local clay, which is odd and rather good. Pair it with Kim Bong across the water for a half day of craft villages.
Time1.5 hr
CostTicketed
Best atLate afternoon
TipThe village is on the way back from nowhere. Ride out along the river rather than the main road.
The French photographer Réhahn spent a decade reaching all 54 recognised ethnic groups in Vietnam, and the result fills four rooms of a 19th-century house on the far bank: portraits at scale, more than 60 collected costumes, and recordings of the languages some of these communities have almost stopped speaking. It is free, it is quiet, and it is the one room in Hoi An that tells you about the country rather than the town.
Time45 min
CostFree
Best atAfternoon
TipPhan Boi Chau is the old French quarter and worth the walk on its own.
Three. The first covers the Ancient Town on foot, the second the craft villages and a beach, the third My Son or the coast road to Da Nang. Two works if you skip My Son. One means seeing the old quarter and nothing that explains it.
Do you have to buy the Ancient Town ticket?+
Not to walk the streets, which are public. The ticket, sold at booths around the edge of the old quarter, admits you to five of the 22 ticketed monuments: the assembly halls, the old houses, the museums and the covered bridge. If you intend to go inside anything, you need one.
When is the Hoi An lantern festival?+
The 14th day of every lunar month, so roughly once a month, all year. The Ancient Town switches its electric lights off from about sunset and runs on lanterns until around ten. The February full moon, Nguyen Tieu, is the largest of them.
What is the best time of year to visit Hoi An?+
February to April: warm, dry and before the summer heat, which pushes past 35°C from May. Avoid October and November, when the typhoon season brings the heaviest rain and the Thu Bon has flooded the old quarter more than once.
Is Hoi An still in Quang Nam province?+
No. Since 1 July 2025, Quang Nam has been merged into Da Nang city and Hoi An is administratively part of Da Nang, split across three wards. Older maps, signs and booking sites will say Quang Nam for years yet, and the place itself has not moved.
Where to eat
Best restaurants in Hoi An
Eight kitchens, from the banh mi counters to the river terraces.
Trinh Diem Vy's flagship, and the room that made the case that Hoi An street food deserves a proper kitchen. Cao lau, white rose and clay-pot fish, cooked in an open galley in a two-storey shophouse. Book, or queue.
A market stall since 1990 that Anthony Bourdain filmed in 2009 and never stopped being famous for. The pate and the house sauce are what separate it. Expect a line most of the day.
The other banh mi, five minutes north and usually five minutes faster. Fried egg, herbs and a homemade mayonnaise, made in front of you by a woman who has been doing it for decades.
A handful of tables in a house near the bridge, and a menu short enough to read in a minute. Steamed bao, pork belly with a mustard-leaf salad, banana blossom. The cooking is the argument, not the room.
Family-run since 1993 and the reliable place to order the four local dishes back to back: white rose, fried wontons, cao lau and com ga. No frills, no river view, consistently good.
A market recreated indoors: stalls around a courtyard, each cooking one thing, so a table of four can eat across the whole of central Vietnam in an evening. The same group as Morning Glory.
Chef Duc's river terrace opposite the old quarter, doing Vietnamese flavours through a Western technique and not apologising for it. The view of the lit bank is half of what you are paying for.
The breakfast and cake half of the Ms Vy group, with an upstairs terrace over the Thu Bon. Come for the pastry counter and the coffee rather than the dinner menu.
The largest name in town and the safest first stop, with three showrooms and its own production floor. Prices sit above the street average and the fittings are where the money goes.
Tailoring here since 1997, with in-house tailors and a second shop on Le Loi. Strong on men's suiting and the place to go if you want the fabric explained rather than pointed at.
Three shops and the broadest fabric wall in Hoi An, which matters if you have arrived with a photograph and no idea what it should be made of. Coats and tailored jackets are the strength.
Long-established, family-run and quieter than the big three, which usually means a shorter wait for a second fitting. Ask for the cutter by name and keep the same one across fittings.
A social enterprise staffed entirely by deaf and hearing-impaired servers, so the room is silent and you order by ticking a form and passing wooden word blocks. The tea service is serious, and the quiet is the reason to come.
Three floors of a Tran Phu shophouse with its own roaster downstairs and the best rooftop view of the tiled roofs at the top. Everyone knows about the roof, so go on the hour before sunset or not at all.
Arabica from the Vietnamese highlands, roasted on site since 2012, poured on a shaded veranda a few streets out of the crush. The flat white is the order.
A local chain with branches all over the old quarter, which makes it the reliable air-conditioned fallback rather than the discovery. Egg coffee and Vietnamese filter, done properly.
The town's long-running bar, with a garden courtyard, pool tables and live bands on Tuesday and Saturday. It has outlasted every trend that arrived after it.
Two hundred and thirty years old, still in the same family, and built with a hatch in the first floor for hauling goods up when the river comes in. The balcony over the bridge approach is the best free view in the quarter.
A Chinese merchant's house of the late 17th century, narrow at the street and long at the back, with carving on the beams done by Kim Bong craftsmen. The smallest of the ticketed houses and usually the emptiest.
A bookshop for most of the 19th century, then a meeting point for the local independence movement, which is why the display cases hold pamphlets rather than porcelain. The house that gives you the politics.
Built in 1802 by a mandarin of the Tran family and kept as an ancestral worship house ever since, on a walled plot of around 1,500 square metres. A descendant explains the boxes on the altar, which is the part people remember.
Founded in 1786 by merchants from Guangdong, and the one with the dragon fountain in the courtyard. Quieter than the Fujian hall a few doors down and easier to look at properly.
Built in 1845 by the Chaozhou community and given to the deities of wind and wave. The woodcarving on the altar screens is the finest in Hoi An and the hall is a ten-minute walk from the crowd, which is not a coincidence.
Standing since 1653, dedicated to the Chinese general Quan Van Truong and used by merchants swearing to deals. It sits opposite the market, so it is the easiest one to fold into a morning.
An old timber house holding the ceramics dredged from wrecks and dug from the town, mostly 15th to 17th century, from China, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. It is the exhibit that explains why the port existed at all.
The beach Hoi An actually goes to: a strip of sand loungers, seafood shacks and a genuine swimming break, 20 minutes by bicycle straight up Hai Ba Trung. Come for sunrise or after four, when the day heat has gone.
An Bang's quieter neighbour, with beach bars in the dunes and fewer loungers. Erosion has eaten into it in recent years, so the sand shifts season to season.
Once the town's main beach and now the cautionary tale: upstream dams and river sand mining stripped it, and much of what is left sits behind geotextile breakwaters. Go for the walk and the sunset, not for the swim.
The long-standing one, three kilometres downriver: a walk through the central market for ingredients, a boat down the Thu Bon, then a herb garden and the kitchen. Half a day, and the transport is the best part.
Ms Vy's school, run from a dedicated floor above Vy's Market. Central Vietnamese technique taught by the group whose restaurants you have probably already eaten in.
A 200-year-old Chinese trading house where artisans make silk lanterns and embroider at the back, and a short traditional music and dance set runs at the front. The lantern class folds flat for the flight home.
Hoeing, watering with a shoulder yoke and planting on the sand beds, then cooking what you picked. Physical, unglamorous and the clearest explanation of why the herbs here taste the way they do.
Six hundred years of boat and house building on the far bank, recognised as national intangible heritage in 2016. The workshops still cut the replacement beams for the old quarter, and they will put a chisel in your hand.
The city Hoi An lost its trade to, and now the region's capital: the Han river bridges, the Cham Museum and My Khe beach. Forty-five minutes by road, and the obvious half day if the old quarter starts to feel small.
Five limestone and marble hills rising out of flat coast, hollowed into Buddhist cave shrines and pagodas. There is a lift up the main hill and a great many steps once you are on it. Two hours, easily paired with the beach.
A French hill station turned theme park, reached by one of the longest cable cars in the world, with the pedestrian bridge held up by two giant stone hands at 1,414 metres. Crowded, unsubtle and genuinely spectacular. Go at opening or skip it.
Eight islands and a marine protected area, 30 to 35 minutes by speedboat from Cua Dai. Reef snorkelling, one fishing village and a beach day. Boats do not sail in rough weather, so the trip is effectively a dry-season one.
The Nguyen dynasty capital, its walled citadel and the emperors' tombs strung along the Perfume River, listed by UNESCO in 1993. It is a long day from Hoi An and a better overnight, but the drive over the Hai Van Pass makes the day version worth it.
Twenty-one kilometres of switchbacks over the spur where the weather changes, between Da Nang and Lang Co, with a French and American fort at the top. Trucks take the tunnel now, so the road is almost empty. The point is the road.
Lunar New Year, and the biggest week of the Vietnamese calendar. Families come home, many shops and kitchens close for several days, and the old quarter fills with kumquat trees and peach blossom. Book far ahead and expect a quieter town for food.
Feb
Nguyen Tieu, the first full moon
The 15th day of the first lunar month, recognised as national intangible cultural heritage. Offerings and prayers run at the assembly halls and the old houses, and the lanterns go up in numbers the monthly full moon does not match.
Feb/Mar
Cau Ngu, the whale worship festival
The fishing villages along the coast honour the whale spirit and ask for a safe season, with boat processions and hat boi opera. Held in the first months of the lunar year, on dates each village sets for itself.
Mar
Ba Thu Bon Festival
The 12th day of the second lunar month, upriver at Duy Xuyen, honouring the river goddess in a rite with Cham roots. National intangible cultural heritage and the most local thing on this list.
Monthly
Full moon lantern night
On the 14th day of every lunar month the electric lights in the Ancient Town go off from about sunset and the streets run on silk and candle lanterns until roughly ten. It is the single best evening to be here, and it happens twelve times a year.
May
Vesak, Buddha's birthday
The 15th day of the fourth lunar month. Lantern displays and ceremonies at the pagodas, and a public procession of floats through the town on the largest years.
Sep/Oct
Tet Trung Thu, the Mid-Autumn Festival
The 15th day of the eighth lunar month, and the children's festival. Lion dance troupes work their way down Tran Phu and Nguyen Thai Hoc, drumming at each shop for a red envelope.
2 Sep
National Day
Vietnam's independence day and a public holiday, so domestic travel peaks and the town is at its busiest with Vietnamese visitors rather than foreign ones. Book accommodation early.
Getting around
Hoi An transport & airports
How to arrive and move around the city.
DAD
Da Nang International Airport
The only airport for Hoi An, about 30 km north and 45 minutes by road. It is Vietnam's third busiest, with domestic flights to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and direct international routes across East and Southeast Asia. There is no airport bus to Hoi An, so it is a car either way.
Hoi An has no station. The nearest is in Da Nang, on the north to south line between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The Hue to Da Nang leg runs along the cliffs of the Hai Van and is the most scenic three hours of rail in the country.
The cheap way in: the yellow public bus runs between Da Nang bus station and Hoi An bus station through the day, taking an hour and a half against 45 minutes in a car. It does not serve the airport terminal, so you would ride into the city first.
Grab covers Hoi An and Da Nang and is the simplest way to price a car; Mai Linh and Vinasun are the metered taxi firms. In town you will not need any of it: the Ancient Town closes to cars and motorbikes for set hours each day, and almost everything in this guide is inside a 15-minute cycle. Most hotels lend bicycles.
Hoi An's own dish and one that has never travelled: thick chewy noodles, slices of five-spice pork, greens from Tra Que and squares of fried crackling, in barely enough broth to wet the bowl. The noodles are traditionally made with water from the Ba Le well and lye from local wood ash, which is the usual explanation for why nowhere else gets it right.
White rose, banh bao banh vac
Translucent steamed rice dumplings pinched into a rose shape, filled with shrimp, topped with fried shallot and served with a sweet dipping sauce. One family in town has made the wrappers for most restaurants here for generations.
Mi Quang
The regional noodle rather than the town one: flat turmeric-yellow noodles under pork and shrimp, a shallow, intense broth, peanuts, herbs and a sesame rice cracker snapped over the top. Eat it for breakfast, as Quang Nam does.
Hoanh thanh chien
Fried wonton squares under a topping of tomato, shrimp and herbs. A Chinese inheritance reworked into something crisper and sharper than its ancestor, and the standard opener in every old-quarter restaurant.
Com ga Hoi An
Chicken rice: rice cooked in the poaching stock until it is yellow with turmeric, shredded chicken tossed with onion and Vietnamese coriander, pickles and a bowl of broth on the side. Simple, and a good test of a kitchen.
Banh mi
Hoi An's version leans on pate, char siu pork and a house sauce, in a roll that shatters rather than tears. Two counters have built international reputations on it, and the gap between them is smaller than the queues suggest.
Banh dap
A sheet of grilled rice paper laid over a soft steamed one, smashed flat with the heel of your hand at the table and dipped in mam nem, a pungent fermented anchovy sauce. The Cam Nam sandbank is the place to eat it.
Che bap
Sweet corn pudding, thickened with tapioca and served warm or over ice, made with corn from the Cam Nam islet in the river. The cheapest thing in this guide and the best way to end a hot afternoon.
Hoi An fact sheet
Hoi An at a glance
The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Vietnam
Region
Hoi An ward, Da Nang city (Quang Nam province until July 2025)
Population
About 150,000 in the former Hoi An city (2018)
Founded
Cham river port from the 2nd century; international trading port from the 16th
Nickname
Faifo, the name European merchants traded under
Language
Vietnamese
Currency
Vietnamese dong (₫)
Time zone
ICT (UTC+7)
Calling code
+84 235
Airports
Da Nang (DAD), about 30 km north
Power
220V, plug types A, C and F
Emergency
113 police, 114 fire, 115 ambulance
Interesting facts
UNESCO inscribed Hoi An Ancient Town in 1999 under criteria (ii) and (v): a material record of cultures fusing in an international port, and an exceptionally well preserved traditional Asian trading town.
The town survived because the trade left. The Thu Bon silted up in the 19th century and business moved to Da Nang, so there was never the money or the reason to rebuild, and the 15th to 19th-century shophouses stayed standing.
The Japanese Covered Bridge appears on the Vietnamese 20,000 dong banknote. It reopened in August 2024 after a 19-month restoration, the most thorough work done on it in decades.
My Son, 40 km inland, was listed by UNESCO in the same year as Hoi An. Its Cham brick towers were built without visible mortar, and the technique has never been convincingly reproduced.
On 1 July 2025 Vietnam cut 63 provinces to 34. Hoi An city stopped existing as an administrative unit and was reorganised into three wards of Da Nang: Hoi An, Hoi An Dong and Hoi An Tay.
Headed to Hoi An?
Get our one-page Hoi An cheat sheet plus a fresh destination every Thursday. Join 38,000 travelers.
