Hoi An

Hoi An is a 15th-century trading port that somehow never got knocked down, and it is at its best in the forty minutes either side of sunset.

The Ancient Town has been on the UNESCO list since 1999, and what makes it rare is not any single building but the fact that the whole street plan survived – a merchant town of ochre walls, carved shutters and tiled roofs that grew rich on silk and ceramics between the 15th and 19th centuries, went quiet when the river silted up, and so was never modernised. Walking it is the attraction.

One thing worth knowing before you plan: as of July 2025 Quang Nam province was folded into Da Nang, so Hoi An is now administratively part of Da Nang city. Nothing on the ground changed, but older guidebooks and addresses will say Quang Nam, and that is now out of date. You fly into Da Nang International, about thirty kilometres and forty-five minutes away.