Old town

Hoi An

Lanterns, tailors and a river town that kept its face.

A small riverside town that kept its old trading-port face — shophouses, lanterns after dark, and a tailoring trade that will make you something and have you back for a second fitting.

Give it two or three days. Our suggestion, not a rule.

Go if…

  • You want somewhere you can walk or cycle across.
  • You want one properly beautiful place on the trip.
  • You want clothes made, and enough days to do it unhurried.

Maybe not if…

  • You dislike crowds. The old town is small and everybody is in it at the same hour.
  • You want a city. Hoi An runs out of new streets quickly.
The bit people get wrong

The old town is at its best early in the morning and again once the day-trip buses have left. The middle of the day is the version everybody complains about online.

Goes well with Da Nang and Hue.

These are orientation notes, not the finished guides. They carry our read on who each place suits and what people most often get wrong about it — no prices, no opening hours and no entry rules, because those are the things that go stale and we have not verified them for these places yet. Useful for deciding where to go. Not enough to book on.

The full Hoi An guide is still being written

We are not going to publish a thin page about a place we have not researched properly. When this one is ready it will be as detailed as Ho Chi Minh City — costs, neighbourhoods, food, transport and the entry rules, every figure sourced and dated.

Read the Ho Chi Minh City guide All destinations