The best beaches in Vietnam, and the month each one works

Vietnam has about 3,260 km of coast, and the best beaches in Vietnam are not one list. The country's two shores run on opposite seasons: when one is calm and clear, the other is being rained on.

So this page is arranged the way the decision is actually made. First the month, then the beach, then how you physically get to it and what that leg costs.

Which coast is in season in your month?

The southern islands and the central coast swap places twice a year, and the north is a summer-only proposition. Read the row for your month before you read about any particular beach. The wrong month turns the best beach on this page into a wet afternoon indoors.

The two calendars govern the rest of a trip too, and the month-by-month guide sets it out for the inland regions. On the coast the cost of ignoring it is absolute: a beach in the wrong season is a grey sea you cannot go into.

Why is My Khe the cheapest beach to reach?

Thirty kilometres of sand run along one city, and an international airport sits about 5 km from the water at My Khe. No other beach in Vietnam costs so little to reach. You land, take a 15-minute taxi, and you are on the sand with a city's restaurants behind you.

• Season — May to August, and it is genuinely flat then.
• Getting there — a taxi or Grab from Da Nang airport runs 70,000 to 120,000 dong and takes about 15 minutes; the transport guide covers arriving from Hue or Hoi An by road.
• What it costs — a sun lounger 50,000 to 100,000 dong, a fresh coconut 25,000.
• Where it fits — Da Nang is a base rather than a destination, and the beach is the reason people stay a week.

Can you do Hoi An and a swim in one day?

Yes, and most visitors do. An Bang lies 4 km from the old town, which is 20 minutes by bicycle. A morning among the tailors and lanterns, an afternoon in the sea. That is the ordinary shape of a Hoi An day rather than an ambitious one.

• Season — May to August, with autumn floods closing the road some years.
• Getting there — a bicycle from the old town takes 20 minutes and costs nothing at most hotels; a taxi is 80,000 to 120,000 dong.
• What it costs — a bed and umbrella at a beach restaurant is free with lunch, roughly 150,000 to 300,000 dong a head.
• Where it fits — the Hoi An page covers the town, and the where to stay guide explains the trade between sleeping at the beach or in the lanes.

What is Nha Trang bay actually good for?

Diving, cheap rooms and easy logistics rather than empty sand. Nha Trang is a city beach 6 km long with islands offshore, the country's largest dive industry and its most visible resort infrastructure. That is exactly what some trips want and what others are avoiding.

• Season — February to September, with the wet window in the last quarter of the year.
• Getting there — Cam Ranh airport is about 35 km south; the airport bus is 50,000 to 70,000 dong and a taxi 350,000 to 450,000.
• What it costs — the cheapest rooms of any Vietnamese beach city, and a PADI Open Water course around $250 to $350.
• Where it fits — Nha Trang is where most people in the country learn to dive — the diving guide has the seasons for each coast.

Is Mui Ne a swimming beach at all?

The strip east of Phan Thiet is Vietnam's kitesurfing capital, and the wind that makes it is the same wind that chops the water up.

• Season — November to April for wind, which is the point here.
• Getting there — about 200 km from Ho Chi Minh City: a sleeper bus or limousine van takes 4 to 5 hours for 150,000 to 350,000 dong, and the train to Phan Thiet leaves a 20 km transfer.
• What it costs — a kitesurfing course runs several million dong; a room is cheaper than the central coast.
• Where it fits — Mui Ne suits a wind sport or a stopover, not a swimming holiday.

How easy is Phu Quoc, really?

Easier than any other island here. Phu Quoc has its own international airport and a visa exemption for the island alone. It fills with people who never see the mainland.

• Season — November to April, with the southwest monsoon closing the west coast from about June.
• Getting there — direct international and domestic flights to Phu Quoc; ferries from Ha Tien take about 90 minutes and from Rach Gia around 2.5 hours.
• What it costs — a taxi from the airport to the southern beaches is 250,000 to 400,000 dong; rooms run from hostel to genuinely expensive.
• Where it fits — the Phu Quoc page covers the split between the built-up southwest and the quieter north and east.

What does Con Dao cost you in effort?

A flight or a ferry that nothing else on this page demands. Con Dao is 16 islands with a national park over most of them. The beaches are still empty precisely because reaching them costs an extra leg and a day the sea can cancel.

• Season — November to April, and the sea can rearrange your schedule in any month.
• Getting there — flights from Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho take about 45 minutes; the ferry from Soc Trang or Vung Tau runs 3 to 4 hours and cancels in swell.
• What it costs — more than anywhere else on this page, because the island imports everything.
• Where it fits — Con Dao is the two-night detour people either skip or remember for years — Dam Trau, the best-known beach, is a few minutes from the airport.

Where do Vietnamese holidaymakers go instead?

Three hours south of Da Nang, where the coast empties out. Quy Nhon and Phu Yen are working ports with beaches attached rather than resorts with towns attached. They carry the cheapest beach rooms in the country, because the domestic market sets the price.

• Season — May to August, like the rest of the centre.
• Getting there — Phu Cat airport is about 30 km from Quy Nhon and Tuy Hoa airport sits in Phu Yen; trains on the Reunification line stop at Dieu Tri for Quy Nhon.
• What it costs — the cheapest beach rooms in the country, and a boat to Ky Co beach from Nhon Ly is a few hundred thousand dong.
• Where it fits — Quy Nhon and Phu Yen are where the domestic holiday goes.

Is the north worth a swim?

Only as a side dish. The north's beaches are small and the season runs May to September. The water is not why anybody comes: the limestone is, and a swim off a boat happens between the karst and lunch.

• Season — May to September only.
• Getting there — bus from Hanoi's Old Quarter to Cat Hai in about 2.5 hours, then 20 to 30 minutes by ferry or speedboat; since 2024 a cable car does the same crossing in around 10 minutes.
• What it costs — a day boat into Lan Ha bay with kayaking runs several hundred thousand dong a head.
• Where it fits — Cat Ba is the base, Ha Long Bay the more famous water, and the kayaking guide covers the part that is actually worth the day.

What does each one cost to reach?

Between nothing and about twenty dollars, and the transfer is the number people forget when they compare beaches. A cheap room 45 minutes from an airport stops being cheap once two people make that trip twice.

At about 26,000 dong to the dollar, every one of those transfers is under twenty dollars. The trip cost guide puts that against a week's budget.

What does empty sand actually cost you?

No lifeguard, no flags and often no shade or drinking water. That is the trade at Con Dao, at Quy Nhon's coves and on the east side of Phu Quoc. It is also what makes them worth the extra leg.

Treat every beach as unpatrolled unless you can see otherwise, and read the beach safety guide before the first swim. Rip currents on the central coast during the autumn swell are the specific hazard. They run hardest when the water looks calmest from a hotel window.

How should a two-week trip use all this?

Pick the coast that matches the month and give it 3 or 4 nights, rather than chasing two coasts a thousand kilometres apart. A trip built to catch both good seasons is a trip built around internal flights.

The exception is a long trip in March or April, when the south is still calm and the centre has already turned. That is the only window where both work, and it is the reason those two months fill first.