Hoi An
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Hoi An is three places that happen to touch: a ticketed heritage town, a working river, and a beach four kilometres north. Visitors who treat it as one thing usually see the first, at the hour it is busiest.
Everything on the site about the town is collected here. What follows is the orientation the rest of it assumes.
Why is the old town ticketed?
120,000 dong, five heritage sites, valid for ten days. UNESCO listed Hoi An on 4 December 1999, as an unusually complete surviving example of a South-East Asian trading port. The ticket is how that survival is funded.
The rule confuses people, so it is worth stating plainly. Walking the streets is not gated. The ticket buys entry to five of the old houses, assembly halls and museums. Inspectors check it at those sites rather than at the edge of the district.
Ten days of validity means one ticket covers a whole stay. Buy it once, use the five entries across several visits, and see the town at three different hours rather than marching through it in one.
Where should you stay in Hoi An?
In the old town to walk out into it, at An Bang to swim. The beach sits four to five kilometres north, ten to fifteen minutes by bicycle. Almost everyone hires one rather than paying for the ride twice a day.
Staying in or beside the old town puts you in the lanterns after the day trippers leave. That is the version of Hoi An worth being there for. The trade is noise and price, both higher than the equivalent room further out.
An Bang gives you mornings in the water and a commute to dinner. It suits longer stays and families; it suits a two-night visit less well, because the cycling starts to eat the time you came for.
Da Nang is the third option and a different trip. Staying there and visiting for a day is common. It is also the choice that most reliably produces the complaint that Hoi An is a tourist trap. A day trip arrives at the busiest hour and leaves before the good one.
How long does Hoi An need?
Two nights minimum, three if the trip allows. The town reads differently at three hours of the day, and a single overnight only buys you one of them.
Mornings are quiet and the light is good on the river. Afternoons are the crowded stretch, which is when the beach or a tailor fitting earns its place. Evenings are the lanterns, and they are the reason to have a room here rather than in Da Nang.
The three-day route sets that out hour by hour, including which day the trip out to My Son belongs on.
On a ten-day route through the country, Hoi An takes three nights and is the one stop on that route that does not need to move. That is deliberate: it is where the slack lives when a cancelled sailing or a missed connection has to go somewhere.
How old is the old town?
Hoi An was a working international port from roughly the 15th to the 19th century, trading with Japan, China, Portugal and the Netherlands, and UNESCO listed it in 1999. The Japanese Covered Bridge dates from the 1590s.
The town survived because the river silted up and the trade moved to Da Nang, leaving the buildings standing and nobody rich enough to replace them.
When does it flood?
Late October to mid-December, worst in October and November. Water comes into the old town's streets, shopfronts board up, and boats appear where pedestrians were. A seasonal event with a routine attached, rather than a disaster.
Nothing about this makes the season unvisitable. A trip built around the central coast in those weeks does need a spare day and a flexible booking. Photographs taken in March are a poor guide to what November looks like.
The rest of the year is straightforward. The centre is dry from roughly February to August, and hot in the middle of that stretch. Our region-by-region calendar covers how that disagrees with the north and south, which matters if Hoi An is one stop of several.
How do you get here?
Hoi An's low traffic and compact old town also make it the easiest base in the country for travelling with children.
Through Da Nang, always. Hoi An has no airport and no railway station. Da Nang's airport is about 28.5 km away, a 40 to 50 minute transfer by car, and the Da Nang to Hoi An guide prices every way of covering it. Da Nang station is the arrival point if you come by train.
The train from Hue is worth taking for its own sake rather than for speed. The line crosses the Hai Van Pass; the road tunnel does not. Land in Da Nang, ride the last half hour by car, and you are in the old town.
What should you eat here?
Hoi An is also where most people take a cooking class, and group size decides whether it teaches anything.
Cao lau, which is not really made anywhere else. Thick chewy noodles, slices of pork, greens, and only a few spoonfuls of broth at the bottom. Tradition ties those noodles to water from one particular well in the town.
Mi Quang, from the surrounding Quang Nam province, is the other local plate: turmeric-yellow noodles, barely any broth, peanuts and a sesame cracker. Our guide to what to eat, city by city covers where the rest of the country's dishes belong.
Two pages go deeper than this one. Where to stay in Hoi An sets the old town against the beach and the rice fields between them, and things to do in Hoi An is organised by the hour rather than by the sight.
FAQ
Do you have to pay to enter Hoi An old town?
The old town ticket costs 120,000 dong for foreign visitors, covers entry to five heritage sites, and stays valid for ten days. Walking the streets themselves is not gated, but the ticket funds the conservation that keeps them standing, and inspectors do check it at the sites.
How long should you spend in Hoi An?
Two nights covers the old town and one beach afternoon. Three is the number most people wish they had booked, because the town changes character between morning, late afternoon and after dark, and one day only shows you one of those.
Should you stay in the old town or at the beach?
The old town if you want to walk out into it, An Bang if you want to swim and cycle in. The two sit four to five kilometres apart, roughly ten to fifteen minutes by bicycle or scooter, so the choice is about which one you want on your doorstep rather than which you get to see.
When does Hoi An flood?
Late October to mid-December, with October and November the peak. Streets in the old town go genuinely underwater and shops board up — it is a recurring seasonal event rather than a rare disaster, and any trip planned for those weeks needs slack in it.
How do you get to Hoi An?
Through Da Nang. The airport is about 28.5 km away, which is a 40 to 50 minute transfer by car, and Hoi An has no airport or station of its own. Arriving by train means Da Nang station and the same road for the last stretch.
