Things to Do in Hoi An — What's Worth a Day, and Where to Eat After

Seven things people actually do around Hoi An — what each is, roughly what it costs, when to go, and which dinner neighbourhood it leaves you standing in. One is worth a whole day. One is worth twenty minutes, and we'll say so.

Hoi An is small enough that the geography does the planning for you. Everything below sits within forty minutes of the Japanese Bridge, so the useful question isn't "what should I see", it's "where do I want to be hungry at seven o'clock". Each one is tied to the neighbourhood it drops you in.

Prices are approximate, in Vietnamese đồng, as at August 2026. They move, most are cash, and anything sold at a riverbank is negotiated. Treat them as a sense of scale.

My Sơn Sanctuary

Red-brick Cham temples in a bowl of jungle 40 km south-west, built and rebuilt between roughly the fourth and thirteenth centuries. Entry is around 150,000₫ per person, normally covering the shuttle buggy and the Cham dance; a shared minibus from Hoi An runs about 300,000–600,000₫ per person, private cars more.

Allow four to five hours door to door. Go at sunrise — the 05:00 tours aren't a gimmick. By half nine the coaches have arrived and the brickwork throws the heat back at you. February to August is driest; the access road can flood in October and November.

Be warned: much of My Sơn is rubble — bombed heavily in 1969, and what stands is a fraction of what the signboards describe. If you've seen Angkor or Bagan, this reads as small. Go for the setting and the brickwork up close, not the scale.

Eat after: you're back by eleven on the western side — that's Cẩm Châu. Mate Restaurant and Coffee or Nhan's kitchen for a long lunch with air conditioning.

Basket boats and the coconut forest, Cẩm Thanh

Five kilometres east, the Thu Bồn spreads into channels of nipa palm and you get paddled through them in a thúng chai, a round bamboo coracle. Reckon on 150,000–300,000₫ per person for a short paddle, more bundled into a half-day tour with crab-fishing. Forty-five minutes to two hours.

There are two versions of this trip and they are not the same. The quiet one is a green tunnel and a woman folding a grasshopper out of a palm frond. The loud one is a man spinning a boat to techno while forty others do the same beside you. Both cost about the same, so book the last slot — 15:30 to 17:00, when the light goes gold and the sound systems have gone home.

Eat after: Cẩm Thanh has exactly one place in our data — The Basket Boat Café & Restaurant, and it's genuinely good. Otherwise it's ten minutes to the riverside run through Hội An Đông: Breeze Restaurant and Basket Boat or Phan Gia Riverside.

Cooking classes

The standard shape is a market walk, a boat crossing, then four or five dishes in a garden kitchen: fresh rolls, bánh xèo, green mango salad, something in a clay pot. Four to five hours, usually from 08:30, roughly 450,000–1,200,000₫ depending on group size.

Here's the part nobody mentions: almost every class teaches the same four dishes. Don't choose on the menu, choose on the room — a herb garden in Trà Quế is a different day from a riverside kitchen. Ask how many people, and whether you eat what you cook.

Longer piece at Hoi An cooking classes; the places that teach and feed you are at best cooking-class restaurants. Tra Que Water Wheel and Kumquat BBQ teach in the herb village, Cua Dai Central from the Old Town side. Rather eat than cook? A food tour covers more ground.

Lantern boats on the Thu Bồn

After dark a woman rows you twenty minutes up and back while you set a paper lantern onto the water. Around 150,000–200,000₫ per boat — per boat, not per person, for three or four of you — agreed on the bank before you step in. Lanterns are 10,000–20,000₫ on the bridge. On the fourteenth night of the lunar month, when the town cuts its electric lights, prices roughly double.

It's twenty minutes in a queue of boats. It's also the image you came for. Do it once, early, then spend the other evenings on the bank watching other people do it.

Eat after: you land on An Hội. QQ Restaurant holds 4.9 across seven thousand Google ratings; Pause And Enjoy is a five on TripAdvisor. Timing a trip around the festival? See lantern festival dining.

An Bang and Cửa Đại beaches

An Bang is four kilometres north-east and it's the one that works: a strip of beach bars where a lounger is free with a food or drink order, or 50,000–100,000₫ on its own. Cửa Đại, five kilometres east, has lost most of its sand to erosion — long stretches are sandbagged or walled. Go to An Bang unless you're staying at Cửa Đại.

May to August is swimming season. From October the surf comes up, the water turns the colour of tea and the bars board over. Mornings are calm, afternoons windy. Half a day is plenty.

Eat after: stay put. An Bang Beach gives you Purple Lantern, Mr Hoà's Kitchen and The Moon — fifteen in all, plus the whole seafood list. At Cửa Đại, Cỏ Hồng and Le Petit Bistro are the reason to be there at all.

The Ancient Town ticket

Around 120,000₫ buys a booklet of five coupons, each admitting you to one of roughly twenty-two heritage sites — assembly halls, merchant houses, small museums, the Japanese Bridge. It's valid for your whole stay, not one day.

Enforcement is inconsistent: the booths check in the daytime and rarely at night. Buy it anyway — it's the price of two coffees and it pays for the conservation. But don't treat five coupons as a target: two assembly halls and one merchant house is a satisfying morning, and the fourth museum blurs into the third.

Go between eight and ten, before the coach groups, or after five when the lanterns come on — midday in June is an endurance event. A self-guided audio walk is a fair budget alternative to a guide.

Eat after: Old Town holds 72 of our 203 restaurants. Start with cao lầu — the noodle that only exists here — at Miss Ly, or try Hoi An Heart and Faifoo Central.

Cycling to Trà Quế herb village

Three kilometres north, flat the whole way, fifteen minutes on a bicycle. Hotels usually lend bikes free; hire is 30,000–60,000₫ a day, or use a rental booking site for something better than a hotel single-speed. The village sometimes charges around 35,000₫ to enter.

The whole point is the hour you pick. At half six the growers are watering by hand and the fields smell of mint; at half four the light comes in low across the water. At midday it's a hot flat field and you'll wonder what the fuss was. An hour or two on its own, half a day with a class.

Eat after: Trà Quế is only four places and they're all worth the ride — Kumquat BBQ, Rêu Dining and Tra Que Water Wheel. Cycle back through Hoi An Tây for dinner nearer the bridge.

A day that actually works

One full day: Trà Quế at seven, the Ancient Town ticket by nine, a long lunch out of the sun by noon, Cẩm Thanh at four, a lantern boat at eight, dinner on An Hội. Four of the seven, none rushed. My Sơn wants its own morning; the beach wants its own afternoon.

Booking any of this

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Then eat

Every trip above ends at a table. Browse all 203 Hoi An restaurants by neighbourhood, Google and TripAdvisor ratings side by side, check the map, or jump to cao lầu, bánh mì, seafood or vegetarian & vegan. Nobody pays for position.