Hoi An: 13 Unusual Things to Do
Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use.
Hoi An only exists as a museum-piece town because the river that made it rich, the Thu Bon, silted up and quietly stranded it in the 19th century while Da Nang took over as the region’s port. That accident is why the old merchant houses, the Chinese assembly halls, and the Japanese Covered Bridge are still standing instead of buried under a modern port city. This guide covers the 13 things about Hoi An that are genuinely odd once you get past the postcard shots of yellow walls and lanterns, plus the practical stuff (the e-visa, the ticket that isn’t really a ticket, the flood season nobody mentions in the brochure) you need before you land in Da Nang.
Hoi An at a glance
| Days needed | 2-3 for the town, 4-5 with My Son and Da Nang day trips |
| Best months | February-April (dry, 23-29°C) |
| Worst months | September-November (the Thu Bon can flood the Old Town) |
| Daily budget | roughly 650,000 VND backpacker, 1.65 million VND mid-range |
| Currency | Vietnamese dong (VND, ₫) |
When to go to Hoi An (and when the river wins)
February through April is the safe bet: dry, warm, and before the summer heat. May through August is hot and humid but good for the beach. Then there’s the part travel blogs skip: September through November is genuine flood season, and it isn’t a light drizzle. In October 2025 the Thu Bon hit 5.62 metres, beating the 1964 record, and roughly 40,000 tourists had to be moved between hotels as water rose over Bach Dang Street; a second flood in November 2025 put around 1.5 metres over the same road. If you’re visiting Hoi An between September and November, book something refundable and check river conditions before you commit to a non-cancellable room. December and January are cooler and drizzly, and Tet (17 February 2026) brings crowds and closures, though Hoi An stays more open than most of Vietnam during the holiday.
Do I need a visa for Hoi An?
Most nationalities need a Vietnam e-visa, and it only exists at one address: evisa.gov.vn. It runs roughly $25-50, takes about 3 working days, and is valid 90 days. A shorter 45-day visa-free list covers travellers from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, and the Nordic countries (verify current list; UK BN(O) passport holders are not included). Copycat sites charge two or three times the official fee for the same paperwork, so check the URL before you pay.
Is the Old Town ticket mandatory?
No. Walking Hoi An’s streets, crossing the Japanese Bridge, and wandering the market are all free. The roughly 120,000 VND “ticket” everyone mentions is actually a booklet of 5 coupons, each redeemable at one of about 20 heritage sites (assembly halls, old houses, the ceramics museum). Enforcement only happens at each site’s own door, and a large share of visitors never buy the booklet at all (verify current price and enforcement).
The 13 unusual things to do in Hoi An
1. Learn why the town froze in time. The Thu Bon river silted up just as Da Nang’s port grew, so Hoi An’s 15th-19th century trading town, once known as Faifo, simply stopped changing instead of getting demolished for something newer. That’s the whole reason Hoi An Ancient Town made UNESCO’s list in 1999.
2. Catch the lantern festival that happens every month, not once a year. The Full Moon Lantern Festival lands on the 14th day of every lunar month, not just once. Street electricity gets cut, cars are barred from the Old Town, and candle-lanterns go floating down the Thu Bon, usually busiest between 8 and 9pm. You can float a lantern on any ordinary night; the 14th is just the amplified version.
3. Get a tailor-made suit and ignore the “24-hour” pitch. Hoi An has roughly 400 tailor shops, and the famous same-day suit is mostly a template rush job, not true bespoke. Real bespoke tailoring needs 3-5 days and at least one in-person fitting. Get two or three quotes, order a single test item first, photograph the agreed fabric, and pay only a modest deposit, around 20 percent, before committing to a full order.
4. See where a war left craters in a UNESCO site. My Son Sanctuary, about an hour southwest of town, is a cluster of red-brick Cham Hindu temples dating from the 4th to 13th centuries, also UNESCO-listed in 1999. Much of it was destroyed by US bombing during a single week in August 1969, and the bomb craters are still visible next to the ruins. Go early to beat the heat and the tour buses.
5. Take the ferry to Cam Kim island. A short boat or bicycle ride across the Thu Bon gets you to Cam Kim, a quiet island of rice paddies and workshops with almost none of the Old Town’s crowds.
6. Watch a potter’s wheel that has turned for centuries at Thanh Ha. The Thanh Ha pottery village keeps making terracotta by hand, largely for other Vietnamese buyers rather than tourists.
7. Track down the last carpenters of Kim Bong. Kim Bong village once supplied the carved wooden boats and houses of the old merchant town; a handful of workshops still carve furniture and boat models the same way.
8. Buy from a shop that runs on written notes, not spoken orders. Reaching Out, a deaf-run fair-trade crafts shop at 131 Tran Phu, sells lacquerware, silk, and embroidery, with staff communicating by handwritten card instead of speech.
9. Take the calm basket boat, not the spinning one. Cam Thanh’s water-coconut village is where the round thung chai basket boats operate, but the viral spinning “dance” for photos is a recent invention with no real tradition behind it, and the waterway can turn into a boat traffic jam at peak hours. Ask for an early or late slot for the quieter version.
10. Cycle to Tra Que before the tour groups wake up. The Tra Que herb village, fertilised with riverweed for around 400 years, is at its best at dawn, before the cooking-class buses arrive.
11. Eat a noodle that supposedly cannot leave town. Cao lau, Hoi An’s signature noodle, is a dense, lye-treated rice noodle topped with char-siu pork, greens, and crisp croutons. Local legend says it needs water from the Ba Le well and ash from the Cham Islands to taste right, which is the excuse locals give for why it never quite travels.
12. Shop the Morning Market instead of the Central Market. The Central Market is the postcard version, priced for tourists; the early Morning Market a few streets over is where locals actually buy produce and fish at local prices.
13. Take the cable car to a giant pair of stone hands. The Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills, held up by two enormous moss-covered stone hands about 1,400 metres up, opened in 2018 near Da Nang and is reached by a Guinness-record cable car. It’s unapologetically manufactured, and still worth the trip.
Where to stay in Hoi An
The Ancient Town puts you in walking distance of everything but is the noisiest and densest option. An Bang Beach, about 4-5km out, is quieter with a beach on your doorstep. Cam Thanh and the rice-paddy fringe are calmer still, good for boutique stays. Compare places to stay in Hoi An .
Getting there and around
There’s no airport or train station in Hoi An itself; everyone flies into Da Nang International Airport, then takes a 30-45 minute Grab or taxi (roughly 250,000-400,000 VND; ignore any tout quoting 500,000-700,000 VND at the arrivals hall). Inside town, the Old Town core is pedestrianised for parts of the day, so walking, cycling, or an electric cart covers most of it; rent a motorbike only if you’re headed out to the beaches or villages, and bring an International Driving Permit.
Round it out
For the food side of all this, see where to eat in Hoi An and the full rundown of things to do in Hoi An . For My Son, the Golden Bridge, and Hue, see the Hoi An day trips guide , and for the monthly lantern nights and Tet timing, see festivals and events in Hoi An . If you’re mapping out days, the 5-day Hoi An itinerary fits the town plus both major day trips.
Book a My Son sunrise tour or a Golden Bridge and Ba Na Hills day trip before you arrive, since both fill up in high season. For the visa and UNESCO details above, the official sources are the Vietnam e-visa portal , UNESCO’s listing for Hoi An Ancient Town , and UNESCO’s listing for My Son Sanctuary .
The one thing to actually plan around, more than any single sight on this list: check the Thu Bon’s water level before you book a September-to-November trip, because the flood that stranded this town in amber two centuries ago hasn’t stopped happening.