H I an Vietnam 6 Day Itinerary
Hoi An’s Ancient Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the electricity goes off once a month and 1,000 silk lanterns take over. On those full-moon evenings the alleyways of the old trading port, built by Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese merchants in the 15th to 19th centuries, look the way they probably did before electric light arrived. The rest of the time, Hoi An is the kind of place that seems almost too photogenic to be real, and then draws you in with food that is specific to this one town in ways that nowhere else in Vietnam has replicated.
Six days is enough to move slowly.
Day 1: Da Nang Airport to Hoi An
Da Nang International Airport (DAD) is the arrival point for most visitors. Hoi An is 30 kilometres south, and the standard taxi takes 30 to 40 minutes and costs between 250,000 and 350,000 VND (roughly 10 to 14 USD) depending on the company. App-based services (Grab is the one to use in Vietnam) are reliably cheaper and show you the price before you get in. Avoid the men outside arrivals offering fixed-price transfers without a meter: the rate is always higher.
Check in and rest, then walk into the Ancient Town as the light drops. The ticket system for the old town is 120,000 VND per person for international visitors, payable at booths on Tran Phu or Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Streets. You receive a ticket with five tearable stubs, each valid for one attraction from a list of 22. The ticket is valid for your entire stay, not just one day, so pace yourself.
Dinner on the first night: Banh Mi Phuong at 2B Phan Chu Trinh Street, a small shop that Anthony Bourdain once called the best sandwich in the world. The Hoi An version of banh mi is heavier with fillings than the Saigon version, and the queue here is long enough to prove the point but moves fast. Eat standing on the street.
Day 2: Ancient Town Attractions
The Japanese Covered Bridge (Lai Vien Kieu) at the western end of Tran Phu Street was built around 1593 by the Japanese merchant community and has a small temple inside. It is Hoi An’s most photographed structure and worth seeing early, before the tourist crowds thicken. Entry uses one stub from your ticket.
Walk east along Tran Phu to the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall, built by Fujian Chinese immigrants in 1697. The courtyard and main hall are layered with incense smoke, red lacquerwork, and ceramic figures of deities doing dramatic things. It is busy and slightly chaotic and far more interesting than the quieter museums. One ticket stub.
The local central market at the eastern end of Tran Phu is not ticketed. Vendors here sell pho, cao lau, and fresh herbs in the morning. Cao lau, Hoi An’s signature noodle dish, is made with thick yellow noodles from water drawn from a specific well in the old town, served with char siu pork, herbs, and crispy rice crackers. It is available all over town but best eaten at a lunch stall in or near the market, where the noodles are freshest. Bà Bé Restaurant on Thai Phien Street and Cao Lau Thanh next door are both run by families and pack out with locals at noon.
For white rose dumplings (Banh Vac), go to Madame Khanh at 49 Tran Cao Van Street. She sells out by midday.
In the afternoon, rent a bicycle from your hotel or from any of the dozens of rental shops on Le Loi Street and cycle along the Thu Bon River south of the old town. The path runs through rice fields and past small villages and takes about an hour without stopping.
Day 3: My Son Sanctuary and the Hill
My Son Sanctuary is a complex of Cham Hindu temples 40 kilometres west of Hoi An, built between the 4th and 14th centuries. Entry is 150,000 VND. Most visitors join a half-day group tour (around 200,000 to 300,000 VND per person) from the old town, which includes transport and a guide. The temples were bombed during the Vietnam War and several are ruins, but the best-preserved structures, particularly groups B, C, and D, are genuinely striking. The Cham civilisation built these sites as active religious centres for nearly 1,000 years, and very little about their engineering or iconography resembles anything elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Return to Hoi An by early afternoon. Take a cooking class in the evening. Many operators run these, but the Hoi An Cooking Club on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street is among the best-organised: you visit the market with a chef, select ingredients, and cook three or four dishes in a traditional kitchen. Cost is around 25 to 30 USD per person including the meal.
Day 4: Countryside and Tra Que Village
Tra Que Herb Village, 3 kilometres north of the old town, is a farming settlement where local families have grown herbs and vegetables using organic methods for generations. You can walk around the plots freely, but the more interesting option is to join a working session with a farmer (around 150,000 VND), which involves actual digging, raking, and watering, followed by a meal cooked from what you have just harvested. It is the kind of activity that sounds contrived and turns out to be worth doing.
Hire a bicycle and ride out: the route is flat and takes about 20 minutes. On the way back, stop at the rice paper village of Thanh Ha, where artisans press and dry rice paper sheets by hand. You can watch the process and buy a bag of the finished product for almost nothing.
Afternoon at An Bang Beach, 4 kilometres east of the old town. An Bang is quieter and less commercialised than Cua Dai Beach. Beach chairs and an umbrella rent for around 30,000 to 50,000 VND from the beachside cafes, which also serve cold beer and seafood. This is the afternoon to do nothing useful.
Day 5: Full Moon Lantern Festival (if dates align) or Da Nang Day Trip
The Hoi An Lantern Festival occurs on the 14th day of every lunar month: the electricity in the Ancient Town is switched off at 6pm and the streets are lit entirely by silk lanterns hung from every facade and tree. Floating candle lanterns (5,000 to 10,000 VND each) are sold by children on the Thu Bon riverbank and released into the current. The festival runs until around 10pm. It is crowded, beautiful, and genuinely atmospheric in a way that the best travel photography only partly captures. If your visit coincides with the full moon, this is the priority for the evening.
If dates do not align, take a day trip to Da Nang. The Marble Mountains (Ngu Hanh Son) are a cluster of five marble and limestone hills with cave pagodas, carved shrines, and a staircase to the summit of Thuy Son, the tallest peak. Entry is 40,000 VND. The view from the top takes in the whole coastline from Da Nang Bay south to Hoi An. The Museum of Cham Sculpture, a 15-minute drive north in central Da Nang, houses the world’s largest collection of Cham artefacts: carved sandstone figures, altars, and friezes dating from the 7th to 15th centuries. Entry is 60,000 VND. The Dragon Bridge across the Han River breathes fire on Saturday and Sunday evenings at 9pm, which is exactly as absurd and enjoyable as it sounds.
Day 6: Departure
Check out and transfer to Da Nang Airport. Grab is the reliable option. Allow 45 minutes for the journey in morning traffic. If you have time before the airport, buy tailored clothes only if you ordered them on day one or two, since good tailors in Hoi An need at least 48 hours for a proper fitting cycle.
A note on tailoring, because it is unavoidable: Hoi An has hundreds of tailor shops and a corresponding number of common scams. The most prevalent involves fabric substitution, where you choose a wool or linen sample but receive a garment made from polyester. Always ask to keep a small cutting from the bolt before the cloth is cut, and verify the fabric weave and weight at the final fitting before paying. Reputable shops with long review histories (Mr Xe, A Dong Silk, and Be Be Tailors are among the most consistently cited) are safer choices than shops that approach you from doorways with a commission-driven tuk-tuk driver.
Practical Notes
The best time to visit Hoi An is from February to April, when central Vietnam’s dry season is established and temperatures are mild rather than punishing. May to August is hot and humid but manageable. September to January brings rain and occasional typhoon risk; October and November can see significant flooding in the Ancient Town, which is low-lying next to the Thu Bon River.
Cash (Vietnamese Dong) is essential for street food, market stalls, and most smaller restaurants. ATMs are plentiful in the old town but charge withdrawal fees. Bring 500,000 VND notes or smaller; very large denominations confuse small vendors.
The local SIM card situation in Vietnam is excellent: a tourist SIM with several gigabytes of data costs about 3 to 5 USD from convenience stores at Da Nang Airport. Buy one on arrival.