Hoi An
A port the river silted up two centuries ago, and preserved by doing so
- When to go
- September 28° · 25 rainy days
- Per day
- €price 1 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 23 km Da Nang · 89 km Huế
- Right now
Hoi An was one of the great ports of South-East Asia until the river silted up and the trade moved to Da Nang. The town then stood still for two hundred years and so survived intact — which is why it is UNESCO-listed today rather than under concrete.
The old town ticket is €4 and is usually misunderstood. It does not buy entry to the streets — you walk, eat and photograph those for nothing. The ticket is a booklet of five coupons for five of some twenty protected buildings: Chinese assembly halls, merchant houses, museums and the Japanese Bridge. Enforcement is at the door of each building, not out on the street.
What keeps people a second night is tailoring. The town has several hundred workshops that make to measure in one or two days; quality runs from excellent to poor, and the difference shows not in the window but in how many fittings they call you back for. Anyone planning a suit or a coat arrives on day one and leaves on day three — not the other way round.
In the evening the street lights go off, silk lanterns come on, and candle boats drift down the Thu Bon. It is the most photographed thing in the country and it is crowded, but there is a simple trick: fifteen minutes upstream on foot, across the bridge towards the market, and the same picture comes without the crowd.
What to see in Hoi An
The Japanese Bridge
A covered sixteenth-century bridge with a shrine in the middle, restored in 2024. One of the five buildings a coupon from the booklet opens.
Lanterns and boats at night
The street lights go off and candles drift down the river. Fifteen minutes upstream is the same scene without the crush.
- T
The tailors
Several hundred workshops making to measure in a day or two. You come on your first day, not your last.
An Bang beach
Four kilometres by bike from the centre. Bikes are usually free at your guesthouse and are the best way to move here.
A cooking class
The market in the morning, cooking in the afternoon. The one thing visitors take home from this town that is not made of fabric.
My Son
Cham temple ruins from the seventh to the thirteenth century, an hour away. Go at dawn, before the coaches and the heat.
Two things you probably did not know
Hoi An was one of the most important ports in Southeast Asia until the river silted up in the nineteenth century. The town stopped changing and stayed as it was, which is why it is UNESCO listed today.
The sixteenth-century Japanese bridge has a temple built into the middle and is guarded by statues of monkeys at one end and dogs at the other. It is printed on the Vietnamese twenty thousand dong note.
Ready for Hoi An?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Hoi An — day trips or weekends.
Vietnam
→A country sixteen hundred and fifty kilometres long, where north and south are never in season together
China
→A country the size of a continent, where the hard part is sorted out before you fly: payment, internet and tickets
Thailand
→Two coasts the monsoon never reaches at the same time, and a north seen through smoke in March
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Ha Long Bay, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Hoi An if you have been.
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