If you are planning a trip to Vietnam, then the seaside city of Da Nang has probably already popped up on your radar. This beautiful place, along with the smaller town of Hoi An, located just next door, are not to be missed destinations for first time visitors. There are several things to know about Da Nang though that will make your visit go a lot smoother, with less hassles. So here are my Da Nang Travel Tips for the first time visitor.
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Table of Contents
- Consider carefully where you choose to stay
- Visit Da Nang on a weekend
- Don’t miss the night markets
- Hire a scooter to get around Da Nang
- Spend a day in Hoi An
- Keep an eye on the weather
- Time your visit to My Son
- Find a small coconut boat company
- Don’t be scammed at the coconut boats
- Take tours into consideration
- Watch out for dodgy car parkers
- Avoid Chinese New Year
- Summary
Consider carefully where you choose to stay
This is very important, hence the reason it comes in at number one on my Da Nang Travel Tips.
The first time I visited Da Nang from Hanoi, I chose the perfect area to stay. This came from a bit of research, and we were so happy when we arrived and realized we’d nailed it! Until the Air BNB turned out to be dodgy, and possibly didn’t even exist.
So, we were forced to relocate. Problem was at short notice on a busy weekend, there wasn’t much around. As a result we stayed in a good area, but a LONG way from anything.
Da Nang is rather large, especially if you are on a budget and you would usually stay central and walk around everywhere. That’s pretty much us too.
So when you visit Da Nang, you have to take into account what you like to do, and how you travel. Technically there are several different areas to stay in Da Nang but I will narrow it down for the first timer to just two.
Firstly there is Beachside. If you love the beach, and would plan to spend a lot of time there, then this might be the area for you. There’s a lot of high-rise apartment blocks here, and it reminds me a lot of the Gold Coast in Australia. The beachfront has a lot of restaurants and bars, and the beach itself if beautiful.
The other place to consider is Riverside, somewhere between or around the Dragon Bridge and Han River Bridge, preferably on the beach side of the river. This will have you around a lot of good, cheap local restaurants, the night markets, and the Dragon Bridge which is iconic in Da Nang.
For a really great overview of the neighborhoods in great depth, check out THIS website which really helped me.
Visit Da Nang on a weekend
Now, I usually hate visiting places on weekends, as the domestic tourist crowd adds to the normal tourists and things just get out of hand. This can really be true in big cities especially.
In Vietnam, I found that even though this still might be true, there are so many events on weekends that you just don’t want to miss! This was true in Hanoi with the wonderful traffic free walking street, and was just as true in Da Nang.
The main reason for this was the incredible Dragon Bridge fire show.
The Dragon Bridge is unmissable in Da Nang, and one of my best Da Nang Travel Tips is to be there on the weekend as the fire show only occurs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
The show runs for about 20 minutes. Local authorities stop the traffic on the bridge, pedestrians crowd around and riverside restaurants are full to overflowing as people pack in to see the show.
The Dragon’s head on the bridge, at BOTH ENDS, blows actual FIRE for several minutes, before concluding by spraying WATER out into the night air. It’s quite spectacular and worth seeing if you are in Da Nang!
Don’t miss the night markets
This wouldn’t be a list of Da Nang Travel tips if I didn’t mention the incredible night markets.
These are actually located right beside the Dragon Bridge on the beach side, and offer up some really great food options. We found they were not as cheap as some of the local restaurants, but the BBQ options they had was something that I’d never seen before in Vietnam, and honestly didn’t see again!
We had a wonderful plate FULL of pork belly, and it was some of the nicest pork belly I’ve ever eaten.
You can get nearly anything you wish to eat the night markets. There’s even several stalls selling fresh lobster packages for prices that you would die for in Australia!
Hire a scooter to get around Da Nang
As I mentioned earlier, Da Nang is a fairly large place. Most of what you do will be centrally located between the beach and the river, but even just that walk is a couple of kilometers. The place we ended up staying in on our first visit was halfway, and we ended up hiring a scooter because the walking was just getting too much.
Now, I enjoy walking when I travel. It’s my favorite way to get around. But in Da Nang I found that riding a scooter was a lot better. Especially when the weather is at its extremes – very hot, or nasty tropical rain!
There’s also another reason I have hiring a scooter as one of my Da Nang travel tips.
Most of what you will do, away from the immediate surrounds, is a fair distance away. Unless you are willing to pay for tours to places such as Hoi An, Ba Na Hills, Marble Mountains or My Son Sanctuary, then hiring a scooter is a must. You can ride to most places really easily, and scooters don’t really cost very much.
There are several good places to hire around town, but there are just as many with dodgy reviews where customers have had bad experiences. I usually prefer to stick with tried and tested places that can be trusted, and usually find those on KLOOK or GetYourGuide. Check the links below for some prices for trusted sources. I personally hired through the company at KLOOK and couldn’t have been happier.
Spend a day in Hoi An
Hoi An is unmissable if you are in Da Nang.
It’s not a large town, but basically it’s everything that Da Nang is not. Smaller and more traditional, you will find that strolling around Hoi An is like strolling around a small village, compared to the highrises in the more modern areas of Da Nang.
There are also a few unique activities that you can do in Hoi An that you can’t do elsewhere. Most popular are taking a ride in a local coconut boat, and going down to the river of an evening to experience the Hoi An lantern ceremony.
The only problem with Hoi An, is that all with the immense popularity of the place comes crowds. The lantern ceremony in particular can get absolutely jam packed with people, especially on weekends and public holidays.
Time your visits well, and this may not be such an issue. If you don’t have a scooter or your own transport, there are plenty of day trips you can take from Da Nang to Hoi An, so you don’t have to miss out.
Keep an eye on the weather
This is one of those Da Nang Travel Tips that should be common sense as it’s a tropical country with a tropical climate. But there is a good reason that I’ve included it.
Firstly, the weather changes fast. I booked a week at Da Nang and even up to a week before I arrived the forecast was for good weather and around an average of 27°C. When we arrived, it was cloudy, windy with a bit of rain around and the average was more like 20°C.
So things can change fast.
One of the main reasons that keeping an eye on the weather is important though, is if you are planning on heading to somewhere like Ba Na Hills and the Golden Hands Bridge. Many times of the year cloudy conditions will sit over the hills, obscuring views from the bridge. So keep an eye on the weather as you try to time your visit!
Time your visit to My Son
When it comes to weather, and temperatures in particular, My Son Sanctuary is another place that it is worth timing right.
This place is beautiful to visit. It’s located about an hour to the west of Da Nang, and easy to be visited if you have your own transport.
My tip is to get there early. Especially during the warmer months, as it is located in an area of jungle that can present high humidity and scorching sun. Take water with you, and most importantly, arrive as early in the day as you possibly can!
This will mean that you are missing the hottest part of the day, and if you are early enough you will also miss the large groups of day trippers on tour busses.
Find a small coconut boat company
One thing you will notice when you visit the Hoi An coconut boats, is that there are a lot of options. If you look on Google Maps though, you might only see a couple of companies popping up, which was the case when we visited.
But make no mistake, there are a lot of companies there. A couple of these companies are also very big, and control a LARGE portion of the market. Now, while this might seem good, as they must be popular for a reason, it actually isn’t good at all.
They have a LOT of customers, and cater to many tour companies. This means they have bus loads of people coming through all day. So, on the day you arrive, you could well be rushed through, into a boat and out again quicker than you can take to really enjoy the experience. These companies are time limited, and they care more about numbers than their actual customers.
Instead, find a smaller company. We found Hacoconut and loved everything about them. We were the only customers there when we arrived, and we got a very personal experience. Our boat trip also went longer than the others, as they had no reason to rush. Going with them was the best decision we could have made.
If you can’t get to Hoi An yourself, and have no choice but to take a tour, then try THIS ONE.
Don’t be scammed at the coconut boats
Which brings me to the next thing on my list of Da Nang Travel Tips. Not being scammed at the coconut boats.
This really involves the people sitting nearby on scooters that will try to steal you from other companies.
The day we went to the coconut boats, I sent them a message on WA prior to arriving. Basically, I made a booking and they were expecting me. As we were still at Marble Mountain, and then having lunch before heading to Hoi An, they kept messaging me, asking if I was coming, and even offering discounted prices.
I didn’t understand this until we arrived on the scooter.
On the main road outside was a lady sitting on her scooter, calling out and trying to get us to go with her to the coconut boats. We ignored her because I knew where I was going. This didn’t deter her, and she rode in front of us all way down through the village to the wharf area. When we stopped to orient ourselves, she got right in our face and told us to follow her to her company.
I told her no I had a booking, and she demanded to see the booking! Then, she claimed to be from the same company I had booked with, and that they were the one company.
Fortunately, we didn’t fall for it and a minute later I found Hacoconut a few doors down. They told me that they lose a lot of business to these scammers, which is really sad for a small family run company.
Take tours into consideration
We really had a bad time when we went to Marble Mountain. It was a busy day, and we arrived at the same time as all the tour busses. It was chaos! So much so that we ended up leaving early without seeing it all as it just was NOT enjoyable.
You really have to time when you arrive at places around Da Nang and Hoi An with tour buses and tour groups in mind. Arrive well before them, or later in the afternoon once they have left.
Sometimes this can’t be avoided, but if you can, try and do it!
Watch out for dodgy car parkers
This also occured for us around Marble Mountain, but then once we were aware of it we started seeing it at other places such as My Son Sanctuary as well.
If you are on a scooter, you’ll arrive like any other tourist, looking around and trying to find the entry. At Marble Mountain, this immediately makes you a target for the local warung owners.
One such lady pointed out to us the the ticket entry booth was right opposite her warung, and that we could park there for only 10,000 VND. This was a good deal, and there was a decent Pho restaurant next door. So with a view to having a park in the shade and lunch after our visit to Marble Mountain, we took her up on the deal.
I paid for the parking and two bottles of water before setting off.
When we returned, we had lunch, and then the lady asked us to look at her souvenirs, really getting pushy for us to buy. Our scooter was nowhere to be seen, as she’d moved it out the back, and upon enquiring she just kept telling us it was safe, and that we should look at her souvenirs while someone goes and gets it.
We started to realize this was a scam of sorts, and demanded our scooter. Once we got it, and retrieved our helmets, she started to then demand the parking fee which I had already paid.
Things got very vocal, from her, as I knew I had paid and her only defense was to make enough fuss that we would be scared of the police and pay her a second time.
Don’t fall for this. Don’t even park in the warungs. Just go to the official entrance and park there.
At My Son it was the same, and people were being conned to park a few hundred meters down the road for 30,000 VND when there was free parking at the entrance!
Avoid Chinese New Year
This is a big one, and one of my Da Nang travel tips that should be at the top!
Chinese New Year is very big in Vietnam (obviously) and in places like Da Nang many things are closed. In fact, it was like a ghost town.
This means (and yes we have been there at this time of year) that you will have to eat at more expensive places because everything else is closed. Many attractions are closed, and all accommodation is booked out.
DO NOT go near Da Nang at Chinese New Year!
Summary
I hope this list of Da Nang Travel Tips and Hints helps you out when you visit Da Nang. I will be adding to this list over my next few visits to Da Nang, so bookmark it or keep it as a reference!
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