Travel requirement: 

* Make sure your passport is valid for at least 6 months before traveling abroad 

* For an entry visa, please click here. If you don't have time or have any difficulty with your visa, we can arrange the visa service at an additional charge.

What should you pack before traveling:

*Sunscreen SPF 15 or greater with UVA and UVB protection. 

* Diarrhea medicine: loperamide [Imodium] or bismuth subsalicylate [Pepto-Bismol]    

*Insect repellent:  If also using sunscreen, always apply insect repellent after sunscreen: 

DEET

Picaridin (known as KBR 3023 and icaridin outside the US)

IR3535

Oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE)

Para-menthane-diol (PMD)

2-undecanone

Airplane

The nearest airport is in Da Nang which has domestic connections from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (Sai Gon), Can Tho, Hai Phong, Da Lat, Buon Me Thuoc & Nha Trang with Vietnam Airlines and VietJet Air, and some international flights from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Macau, Japan, Philippines & Cambodia.

*The best option to come from Da Nang airport is a private car arranged by Villa Orchid Garden Riverside. There are three popular vehicle options:

4 seater Vios Toyota: 440,000 dong by one-way pick up

7 seater Fortuner Toyota: 530,000 dong by one-way pick-up

16 seater Huynhdai Minivan: 630,000 dong by one-way pick-up

Our car drivers will meet you at the arrivals (domestic or international) for the pick-up

By train

There is no railway station in Hoi An. The nearest is in Da Nang, which receives several trains a day from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, Nha Trang etc. Most travel agents and hotels can book a train ticket for you.

Da Nang Railway Station: 202 Hai Phong, Tan Chinh Ward, Thanh Khe District, TP Da Nang, Phone: + 84 511 375-0666.

*The best option to come from Da Nang railway station is a private car arranged by Villa Orchid Garden Riverside. There are three popular vehicle options:

4 seater Vios Toyota: 440,000 dong by one-way pick-up

7 seater Fortuner Toyota: 530,000 dong by one-way pick-up

16 seater Huynhdai Minivan: 630,000 dong by one-way pick-up

By bus

Open-tour buses like Sinh cafe, Hanh Cafe, An Phu, Hai Son Sleeper Bus run daily up and down the coast from Da Nang and Hue taking 3.5-4h and Nha Trang taking 9-10 hours overnight.

Contact with hotel receptionist to ask helping with booking an open-tour bus ticket.

One destination two heritages and one Biosphere Reserve.

Hoi An is a beautiful city in Vietnam, just south of Da Nang. The Old Town of Hoi An is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hoi An, once known as Faifo, with more than 2,000 years of history, was the principal port of the Cham Kingdom, which controlled the strategic spice trade with Indonesia from the 7th to the 10th century and was a major international port in the 16th and 17th centuries - and the foreign influences are discernible to this day.

The culture & heritage are mostly from the Cham people whose kingdom originally stretched from Hue South to Phan Thiet (South of Nha Trang) - the Champa's most likely originally from Java. The original Cham political capital was Tra Kieu, the commercial capital was Hoi An and the spiritual capital was My Son (Hindu). The Cham people were Hindu, and by the 10th century, the influence of Arab traders on Hoi An resulted in some converting to Muslims.

The second major influence was from the Chinese, firstly from traders but especially the escaping Ming Dynasty armies who after settling in Hoi An for some years moved further south and created Saigon as a major trading port.

The third and last major influence of culture & heritage was from the Vietnamese and is fairly recent and only came after the Cham lost control of this area. For a tourist wanting Vietnamese culture & heritage, Hue is a much better destination than Hoi An (but the weather is much rougher too!).

While the serious shipping business has long since moved to Da Nang, the heart of the city is still the Old Town, full of winding lanes and Chinese-styled shophouses, which is particularly atmospheric in the evening as the sun goes down. While almost all shops now cater to the tourist trade, the architecture has been largely preserved, which is unusual in Vietnam, and renovation has proceeded slowly and carefully - it's mercifully absent of towering concrete blocks and karaoke parlors.

The culture & heritage that the UNESCO World Heritage Site status for Hoi An Ancient Town was trying to preserve has long since gone. Since 1999, when UNESCO WHS status was awarded, there has been a massive increase in tourism - with the result that most houses have been sold by the community to speculators and shop owners to be used for commercial purposes. The former community, and with it their culture and heritage, has gone and in their place are endless indistinguishable shops, restaurants, art galleries, etc. There are hundreds of tailor shops in Hoi An.

Located 20 kilometers east of Hoi An Old Town, The Cu Lao Cham (Cham Island)-the Hoi An Biosphere Reserve. The archipelago is renowned for its marine species including corals, mollusks, crustaceans, and seaweed. It is also home to colonies of swiftlets and is known as the "kingdom of birds' nests. Swiftlets live on cliffs and are collected by professional and hard-working workers. A bird nest is considered one of the most valued gifts to present to someone because the nest is very rare and expensive.

There are three options to get to Cham Island, all of which leave from Hoi An. A public ferry sails from Bach Dang Wharf and stops at Cua Dai Pier to pick up passengers (for local people and deliver products to the island). You can also board a speedboat from Cua Dai Beach (very popular for tourists because it is fast and convenient), or take the leisurely option of a traditional Vietnamese sailing boat (it is not very popular).

The dive season in Hoi An is generally from February to the end of September. The best visibility and water temperature you will find from June to September. With temperatures between 27-29°C and visibility from 10-25m – the diving is amazing.

 An hour's drive away from the East of Hoi An Old Town, you visit the temple complex of My Son (My Son Sanctuary) - recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  From Hoi An, you can go to My Son by a private car(takes typically 1 hour) or boat (in guided tours only). The guide will assist travelers to reach the boat station by car and then they can enjoy a relaxing cruise trip on Thu Bon river. The ride is around 40 minutes.  We recommend you spend 2 hours in My Son for visit.

Overtourism - a growing problem in Hoi An.

Over the past decades, Hoi An has become an increasingly popular tourist destination, attracting just under 5 million visitors (including 3.7 million foreigners) in 2018. The local heritage is a source of great pride to local residents, and with tourism services in Hoi An currently accounting for 64% of the local economy, there is widespread recognition that tourism makes an invaluable contribution to the local economy, creating jobs, generating increased income for local people and paying for much-needed infrastructure.

Yet in recent years, like many other important heritage cities around the world, Hoi An has begun to fall victim to over-tourism, thanks mainly to the advent of cheap all-inclusive package tours, an exploitive and unsustainable form of travel which consumes huge amounts of resources while offering visitors a shallow understanding of the local culture and giving little back to the local community. Already there has been an exodus of residents to suburban areas and an influx of absentee private investors into the town, transforming Hoi An from a once-living community into a place of tourist attractions, restaurants, cafés and souvenir shops, with few local facilities - ironically, this change in function and living environments, precipitated by the influx of tourists, is now criticized by those very same tourists for its "loss of authenticity". Mass tourism has also contributed to the decline in traditional occupations such as agriculture and fishing, disruption of cultural traditions and practices, diminishing the meaning and purpose of many temples and traditional festivals, increased the cost of living for local people, and brought a general increase in noise and pollution. The proliferation of tourist boats on the river has caused riverbank erosion and damage to fauna, and most alarmingly, despite the significant increase in hotels, guest houses and other tourism facilities, Hoi An still had inadequate wastewater collection and disposal systems - in many districts, raw sewage still flows directly into the rivers, polluting the environment.

Tourism is now one of the world's largest industries, and it is clear that mass tourism can have devastating impacts - environmental, cultural, and economic - which must be acknowledged and addressed. In recent years, in an effort to mitigate its negative effects on Hoi An, the authorities have encouraged the development of tourism activities outside the old town, involving exploration by bicycle and kayak. However, much more remains to be done, including regulation of group sizes and coach drop-off points to manage visitor flows, greater efforts to attract market segments that respect the environment and local culture, and are eager to discover and share experiences, and above all the development of more opportunity to spatially disperse tourism away from Hoi An town to other, less visited places throughout Quang Nam.

Source: Exploring Quang Nam - author Tim Doling.

To enter most of the main attractions in the Old Town (i.e. the handful of buildings that aren't shops) you require a ticket (120,000 dong), which is sold at various kiosks. You certainly do not (usually) require a ticket just to walk the streets. But it can seem that way since the main entrance to the Old Town is the Japanese covered bridge, which is one of the attractions /that does/requires a ticket. But there's nothing to stop you from using the nearby footway on the waterfront instead.

Once purchased, the old town ticket (120,000 dong) includes five coupons that can be used to enter five attractions of your choosing: museums, old houses, assembly halls, the handicraft workshop (and traditional music show) or the traditional theatre, and either the Japanese Covered Bridge or the Quan Cong Temple. Tickets are sold at various entry points into the Old Town, including Hai Ba Trung Street, and also at some of the attractions, including the Cantonese Assembly Hall. The city requests that visitors dress "decently" while visiting sites in the Old Town. Men should wear a shirt and women shouldn't wear bikini tops, sleeveless blouses or skirts above the knees. Respect the local culture and remember that you are not on the beach.

1. First, you may choose one of the two landmarks of Hoi An:

Japanese Covered Bridge's Pagoda (Chua Cau or Lai Vien Kieu). The Bridge is located on the west end of Tran Phu Street, but the ticket is ONLY required to access the annexed pagoda on one side of the bridge's interior; the bridge itself is free for crossing. The bridge was constructed in the early 1600's by the Japanese community, roughly 40 years before they left the city to return to Japan under the strict policy of sakoku enforced by the Tokugawa Shogunate, and renovated in 1986. Today, it's the symbol of Hoi An.

Precious Heritage Museum, 26 Phan Boi Chau A 500m2 display of photos and artifacts collected by Réhahn during the past 10 years of the french photographer's explorations of Vietnam. Free Entrance.

Quan Cong Temple, 24 Tran Phu Street.

2. Hoi An has four museums highlighting the history of the region. These museums are managed by the Hoi An Center for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation. Entrance to the museum is permitted with a Hoi An Entrance Ticket.

The Museum of History and Culture, at 13 Nguyen Hue St, was originally a pagoda, built in the 17th century by Minh Huong villagers to worship the Guanyin, and is adjacent to the Guan Yu temple. It contains original relics from the Sa Huynh, Champa, Dai Viet, and Dai Nam periods, tracing the history of Hoi An's inhabitants from its earliest settlers through to French colonial times.

The Hoi An Folklore Museum, at 33 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, was opened in 2005, and is the largest two-story wooden building in the old town, at 57m long and 9m wide, with fronts at Nguyen Thai Hoc St and Bach Dang St. On the second floor, there are 490 artifacts, organized into four areas: plastic folk arts, performing folk arts, traditional occupations, and artifacts related to the daily life of Hoi An residents.

The Museum of Trade Ceramics is located at 80 Tran Phu Street and was established in 1995, in a restored wooden building, originally built around 1858. The items originating from Persia, China, Thailand, India, and other countries are proof of the importance of Hội An as a major trading port in Southeast Asia.

The Museum of Sa Huỳnh Culture is located at 149 Tran Phu Street. Established in 1994, this museum displays a collection of over 200 artifacts from the Sa Huỳnh culture—considered to be the original settlers on the Hội An site—dating to over 2000 years ago. This museum is considered to be the most unusual collection of Sa Huỳnh artifacts in Vietnam.

More places you may interested in:

The Precious Heritage Art Gallery Museum is located at 26 Phan Boi Chau. It includes a 500m2 display of photos and artifacts collected by Réhahn during the past 10 years of the French photographer's explorations of Vietnam. 

The Hội An Museum is a history museum located at 10B Trần Hưng Đạo.

3. There are three old houses that exist in an awkward halfway state between museum show-piece and somewhat shabby residence for the family that lives there.

Phung Hung House, 4 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, just west of the Japanese Bridge. Traditional two-story wooden house, inhabited over 100 years by eight generations; and the current one attempts to guide you around in hope of a tip.

Quan Thang House, 77 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street.

Tan Ky House, 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street. As above, a younger member of the family will provide a cup of tea and a "tour" that doesn't stray from the front room of the house, as you'd need to step over sleeping members of the older generation to go anywhere else. The design of the house shows how local architecture incorporated Japanese and Chinese influences. Japanese elements include the crab shell-shaped ceiling supported by three beams in the living room. Chinese poems written in mother-of-pearl are hanging from a number of the columns that hold up the roof.

4. Numerous congregation halls, where Chinese expatriate residents socialized and held meetings, are dotted about the town. They are typically named after the home region of their members, such as Fujian and Canton. Some do not have ticket-takers, so it's up to your conscience if you want to try wandering into a second.

Cantonese Assembly Hall (Quang Dong), 176 Tran Phu Street. Built in 1885, it has a calm courtyard with ornate statuary. Take a peek at the half-hidden back yard and its kitschy pastel dragon statues.

Hokien (Fujian) Meeting Hall (Phuc Kien), 46 Tran Phu Street. Built in 1757.

Chinese All-Community Meeting Hall (Trieu Chau), 157 Nguyen Duy Hieu. Built in 1887. It's near the Fujian hall, also spanning the block.

Learn more about 10 things to do in Hoi An here.

The Hoi An Lantern Festival, a renowned cultural event in Hoi An, Vietnam, is a celebration of light, color, and tradition. This vibrant and enchanting festival is held on the 14th day of each lunar month when the moon is at its brightest.  Offering an extraordinary experience for both residents and tourists. Throughout the year, the festival showcases Hoi An's rich heritage, featuring a stunning display of thousands of lanterns illuminating the ancient town and the serene Thu Bon River.

The Hoi An Lantern Festival holds a special place in the hearts of locals and visitors alike. It serves as a platform to celebrate Vietnam's culture and heritage, fostering a sense of community and unity. During the festival, the entire town is adorned with radiant, handcrafted lanterns, creating a surreal and mesmerizing atmosphere that transports participants back in time. The festival encapsulates the unique blend of influences in Hoi An, including Chinese, Japanese, and European, making it an exceptional showcase of cultural diversity. In addition to the visual spectacle, the festival also offers a diverse array of street food, traditional music performances, and rituals that engage attendees in the rich tapestry of Vietnamese traditions.

Visitors to the Hoi An Lantern Festival can expect a plethora of activities and experiences that cater to all ages and preferences. As the sun sets, the town's streets come alive with the soft glow of lanterns. One of the highlights is the ritual of releasing floating lanterns on the Thu Bon River, symbolizing the sending away of worries and bad luck, and welcoming good fortune. Traditional music and dance performances are held at various locations throughout the town, providing insight into Vietnam's artistic heritage. Furthermore, visitors can indulge in a delectable array of street food, from savory dishes to sweet treats, making the festival a true culinary delight. Hoi An Lantern Festival continues to capture the hearts and imagination of all who partake, ensuring that this captivating event remains an integral part of Hoi An's cultural identity and the global calendar of must-visit festivals.

As of 2024 and 2025, the festival dates coincide with the following Gregorian calendar dates: December 14, 2024, January 13, 2025, February 11, 2025, March 13, 2025, April 11, 2025, May 11, 2025, June 9, 2025, July 8, 2025, August 7, 2025, September 5, 2025, October 5, 2025, November 3, 2025, and December 3, 2025