HOI AN · VIETNAM
Lanterns after dark, basket boats by day.
The old trading port on Vietnam’s central coast: a lantern-lit quarter four centuries old, the coconut-palm water forest at Cam Thanh, market-to-table cooking, and the day trips beyond, to the My Son ruins, Ba Na Hills and the Hai Van Pass.
Only in Hoi An
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Old quarters, boat rides and lantern stalls turn up across Vietnam. A 400-year-old port you can walk end to end, a forest you tour by spinning bamboo bowl, and a river you set alight with candles do not.
The old town
A trading port the centuries left alone
Hoi An was Southeast Asia’s busiest port for three hundred years, and when the river silted up the town simply stopped. What survived is a near-intact quarter of wooden merchant houses, Chinese assembly halls and the 400-year-old Japanese Covered Bridge, now a UNESCO site you can walk end to end, tailors and all.
- 1 Hidden Gems of Old Hoi An
- 2 Coconut Jungle Eco & Hoi An City Tour With Boat Ride
- 3 Hoi An Ancient Town Walking Tour with a Local
The coconut forest
Spin a bamboo basket boat through the palms
Just east of town, the Hoai River runs into Cam Thanh, a maze of nipa water palms the fishermen work from round bamboo coracles called thung chai. Glide through the channels, watch a boatman spin yours in dizzying circles, try your hand at a crab net, and learn a way of life that predates the tourists by centuries.
- 1 Hoi An: Basket Boat Ride in the Coconut Forest
- 2 Cooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & Cooking
- 3 Hoi An Cooking Class(Market,BasketBoat Crabfishing&Cooking Class)
After dark
Set a lantern adrift on the river
Every evening Hoi An closes the old quarter to traffic and lights thousands of silk lanterns. Take a sampan out onto the Hoai, release a paper lantern carrying a candle and a wish, and watch the current carry it off among hundreds of others. On the full moon the electric lights go off entirely, and only the lanterns remain.
- 1 Hoi An : Hoai River Boat Trip by Night and Floating Lantern
- 2 Hoi An: River Lantern Boat Experience with Free 5G eSIM
- 3 Evening Walking Food Tour, folk game and lantern boat
Start here
The one everyone books first.
If you only lock one thing in before you arrive, make it this. The Hoi An morning more travellers book than any other.
The classics
Hoi An's Most Popular Tours & Classes
Basket boats, lantern making, market cooking classes and the My Son ruins. The days most people book first.
Where to begin
The days a Hoi An trip is built around.
Basket boats and cooking classes, lantern nights on the river, the My Son ruins and the big runs out to Ba Na Hills and Hue. The guides most trips get planned around, and the best of each.
The big question
Which day trip beyond the old town?
Hoi An sits within an easy drive of three very different days out. Here is how the big three compare, and who each one is for.
The market and the table
From the morning market to your own wok.
Hoi An is one of Vietnam’s great food towns, and the cooking classes start where the food does: in the riverside market, picking herbs and rice noodles. Most cross to the Cam Thanh palms by basket boat and stop to throw a crab net, then it’s on to the classics, white rose dumplings, fresh spring rolls, a sizzling banh xeo, before you sit down and eat the lot.
Read the guide: cooking classes & market tours →Past the rice fields
The other Hoi An, by bicycle.
Ten minutes from the lanterns the town gives way to rice paddies, water buffalo and the herb gardens of Tra Que. Pedal the back lanes past farmers and duck ponds, cross the river on a wooden sampan, and see why the cooks come out here for their greens. Flat, shady and a world away from the old town.
See the countryside rides →After dark
When the lanterns come on, the town changes.
Each evening Hoi An closes the old quarter to traffic and lights thousands of silk lanterns. The Hoai fills with paper boats carrying candles, the bridges glow, and the whole place slows to a walk. On the full moon it goes further still: the electric lights switch off, and only the lanterns are left.
Lantern nights & river cruises →An hour inland
The brick towers the jungle kept.
In a green valley ringed by hills, My Son is the spiritual heart of the old Champa kingdom: clusters of Hindu temple towers raised in red brick from the 4th century on, and surrendered to the forest when the Cham faded. Dawn tours reach the ruins before the heat, often with a set of Champa music played out among the towers.
- 1 Hoi An: My Son Sanctuary Early Morning w. Champa Food Brunch
- 2 Hoi An/Da Nang: Golden Bridge , My Son Sanctuary & Marble Mt
- 3 Hoi An: My Son Sanctuary and Thu Bon River Boat Trip
Eat the town
Cao lau, white roses, the best banh mi in Vietnam.
Hoi An has dishes you won’t find anywhere else: cao lau noodles made only with water from one ancient well, translucent white rose dumplings folded by hand, crackling banh xeo pancakes, and a banh mi so good Anthony Bourdain crowned it the world’s best. A food tour walks you stall to stall with someone who knows exactly which is which.
See all 29 food tours →Beyond the old town
Six ways out of Hoi An.
The Ancient Town for the lanterns and the bridge. Cam Thanh for the basket boats. My Son for the Cham ruins. Then the bigger days out: Ba Na Hills, the Marble Mountains, and Hue over the pass.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Basket boat if you want the forest. Cooking class if you want the market. A bicycle for the rice fields, a Vespa for the coast. Plus lantern making, food tours, river cruises and a Vietnamese coffee.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Hoi An? A few days that mix the old town with the country and coast around it.
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