Tours from Hoi An in 2026: My Son, Cham Islands and a farm

This guide covers the top ten with quick cards, then a full section per trip (My Son, Cu Lao Cham, the Cam Thanh basket boats, cooking classes, the Tra Que farm, lantern workshops, countryside cycling, the Marble Mountains, the Hai Van Pass and the evening shows), plus three day budgets, a booking-platform comparison and a month-by-month availability matrix.

Top 10 tours from Hoi An — what to choose

Twelve trips run regularly out of Hoi An, but ten of them take 90% of the demand. My Son and Cu Lao Cham are the must-sees; the basket boats and a Tra Que cooking class are the must-dos. Everything else is a matter of taste and budget. What to see inside the town itself is in the Hoi An attractions guide.

• Hoi An Old Town (Phố cổ Hội An): Where every tour starts — Lantern quarter and the An Hoi pier
• My Son Sanctuary (Thánh địa Mỹ Sơn): 55 km, 90 min by car — Ticket 150,000 VND (~$6), UNESCO
• Cham Islands, Bai Lang (Cù Lao Chàm — Bãi Làng): 18 km by sea, speedboat 25 min — UNESCO biosphere reserve
• Cua Dai port (Bến tàu Cửa Đại): Speedboat pier for Cu Lao Cham — Departures around 09:00
• Bay Mau coconut forest (Rừng dừa Bảy Mẫu): 5 km, 15 min from Old Town — Boat 80,000–100,000 VND (~$3–4)
• Tra Que farm (Làng rau Trà Quế): 3 km, 10 min — UN Best Tourism Village 2024, entry 35,000 VND
• Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn): 25 km, 35 min — Ticket 40,000 VND (~$1.60)
• Hai Van Pass (Đèo Hải Vân): 65 km, 1 h 45 min, 496 m — The motorbike route to Hue
• Lang Co lagoon (Đầm Lập An): The standard stop on the Hai Van run — Turquoise shallows, prawn shacks
• Ba Na Hills and Golden Bridge (Bà Nà Hills): 50 km, 1 h 15 min — Ticket 950,000 VND (~$38)
• Cam Kim island (Đảo Cẩm Kim): Where the cycling tours start — Five-minute ferry, bikes on board

Rate used, summer 2026: 1 USD ≈ 25,000 VND.

Three typical profiles

• Family, kids 6+: basket boats at Cam Thanh, a lantern class in Old Town, the Tra Que farm with the conical hat, then dinner and a lantern boat on the Thu Bon. Around $40–50 a day for four.
• Solo and active: the Heaven & Earth cycling loop on Cam Kim, then the Hai Van Pass with an easy rider, then snorkelling at the Cham Islands. About $110–150 for the three days.
• Couple, romantic: sunrise at My Son, an evening lantern boat, a premium cooking class at Eat Hoi An, a lantern class at Reaching Out. Around $190–230 for two over two days.

My Son sanctuary — Champa temples from the eleventh century

Entry to My Son is 150,000 VND (~$6) and includes the shuttle buggy to the temples, the Champa museum and the Apsara dance show. It is 55 km from Hoi An, 90 minutes by car. The site opens at 06:00 and closes at 17:00, and the only way to beat the coaches from Da Nang is to leave at five in the morning.

What is actually there

Seventy-plus red-brick temples, built without mortar. The Cham knew a technique that has since been lost: their walls have stood for a thousand years in the jungle, while the twentieth-century French restoration joints are already crumbling. The groups worth your time:

• B, C and D — best preserved, the photogenic core. This is where the linga and yoni stand, the Hindu symbols of Shiva.
• A1 — the largest and finest temple, destroyed by American bombing in 1969. What is left is a foundation and a warning.
• The Champa museum — sculpture and fragments rescued before the bombing. Included in the ticket.

The Apsara dance runs twice a day, usually 09:15 and 10:45. It lasts 25 minutes, is included, and takes place by the B group.

Tour formats

English-language trip reports converge on the same point: the sunrise format costs the same and delivers a different site. Pickup is 04:30–05:15, you are at the ruins by around 06:30, and you get 1.5–2 hours before the Da Nang coaches arrive at 09:30.

Before you go

• Closed shoes. Stone, mud after rain, steps. Flip-flops will not do.
• Repellent. It is jungle, and mosquitoes are serious in the wet season.
• Water, 1.5 l per person. There is a kiosk on site at triple the price.
• Two hours on site for an unhurried look at all the groups.
• Cash. There is a café, but cards are not accepted everywhere.

We took the sunrise tour for $35. At seven there were us and two other couples. The guide suggested we stop talking for a while, because you can hear the cicadas. The coaches came at 9:30 and we were leaving. Best day of the tripcomposite of TripAdvisor and r/VietnamTravel reports, 2025–2026

Cham Islands (Cu Lao Cham) — a biosphere reserve

The Cham Islands are eight islands 18 km off the mouth of the Thu Bon, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2009. The season is unforgiving: open March to September only. From mid-October to the end of February the monsoon drives the swell and the provincial authorities ban passenger boats outright. Do not try to work around it, because operators get fined rather than accommodated.

This is the single most common way an English-speaking visitor wastes a day in Hoi An: arriving in October with snorkelling booked in their head and finding the pier shut.

What a standard tour looks like

The programme is identical across 95% of operators: speedboat from Cua Dai port (25 minutes) to the main village of Bai Lang, a walk through the village with a guide, a family-style seafood lunch on the beach, an hour of snorkelling at Bai Chong or Bai Xep, back by 15:30.

Prices and the extras nobody mentions

Rules and reef etiquette

• Reef-safe sunscreen is compulsory. Anything with oxybenzone or octinoxate has been banned in the reserve since 2019, and the patrol boat does check. Fines run 500,000–1,000,000 VND.
• Taking or buying coral and shells is illegal — up to 4 million VND plus confiscation.
• Visibility: 10–15 m April to August, 5–8 m in March and September when the water is still cloudy from the monsoon.
• Go on a weekday. Bai Chong can hold 200+ people at once on a weekend.

Basket boats at Cam Thanh and Bay Mau

The Bay Mau coconut forest in Cam Thanh village is five kilometres from the Old Town and the easiest thing to do near Hoi An. Renting a round basket boat (thúng chai) at the pier officially costs 80,000–100,000 VND (~$3–4) for 50–60 minutes with a boatman, plus 30,000 VND to enter the forest.

What happens on the water

You paddle narrow channels between water coconut palms, the same channels the Viet Cong used for cover during the war. The programme is the same wherever you book:

• Twenty to twenty-five minutes of paddling through the channels.
• The "dancing boat" show, where the boatman spins the coracle on the spot at up to 20 revolutions a minute and throws spray three metres.
• A crab-netting demonstration. The crab goes back in.
• Rings, grasshoppers and hearts woven from coconut leaf, handed over as souvenirs.
• Renditions of "Hello Vietnam" and "Despacito", which you will either enjoy or endure.

The pricing trap

The touts around the pier are the whole problem. They intercept you two hundred metres before the water and offer a boat "right now" for 150,000–400,000 VND per person. You get the same boat that costs 80,000 at the pier, and no receipt.

When to go

The forest runs 06:00 to 18:00 and gets busy from 08:00. The good hours are 09:00–10:30, when it is quiet, or 15:30–17:00 for the light. Weekends and Vietnamese public holidays add a 100,000 VND surcharge per boat.

It combines well with a Tra Que cooking class or the farming experience, and the combo tours run $25–35 for half a day with lunch. How to get around the area at all is in the Hoi An transport guide.

Cooking class — learning cao lau and white rose

A cooking class in Hoi An runs from $20 for a basic programme in Tra Que to $69 at the premium schools in Old Town. A standard class takes 3–5 hours and includes a market visit with the chef, transfer to a farm or studio, cooking three to five dishes, eating them, and a certificate you will never look at again.

Five schools by format

What you cook

The menu in 90% of classes revolves around central Vietnamese dishes:

• Cao lầu — the Hoi An dish: noodles made with lye water from the old Cham wells, char siu pork, bean sprouts, crisp crackling. Genuinely local, and the water is why.
• Bánh bao bánh vạc — "white rose", rice dumplings with prawn and pork, hand-pinched into a flower.
• Bánh xèo — crisp rice crêpe with prawn, sprouts and herbs, wrapped and dipped in nước chấm.
• Fresh spring rolls (gỏi cuốn) — the un-fried summer version.
• Green papaya salad (gỏi đu đủ) — sharp, with dried beef.

What a good class looks like

1. 07:30–09:00 — meet at the school or get picked up.
2. 09:00–10:00 — Hoi An market: the chef shows you spices, fish sauce, how to choose herbs.
3. 10:00–10:30 — transfer to the farm or studio, often by boat.
4. 10:30–13:30 — you cook three to five dishes alongside the chef. You do the chopping.
5. 13:30–14:00 — lunch off everything you made, certificate, recipes by email.

The basic class at Mai Home for $25 — market, farm, lunch of four dishes. The most useful thing we did all trip: I made cao lau at home and it tasted rightcomposite of Hoi An cooking-class reviews, 2025

What to look for once you are eating out is in the Hoi An food guide.

Tra Que Vegetable Village — a farming experience

Tra Que is over 300 years old and sits three kilometres from the Old Town between the Co Co river and An Bang beach. Thirty varieties of herb grow here without chemicals: instead of fertiliser, river algae. In November 2024 UN Tourism named Tra Que a Best Tourism Village of the World, the only Vietnamese entry that year.

Entry is 35,000 VND (~$1.40) and a bike from the stands nearby is 30,000 VND a day. Some sources say the village is free to walk and only the activities cost. In practice the ticket gate charges, so budget for it. You can turn up without a tour and just wander, or take a programme.

Formats

What the farming experience actually involves

This is not standing in a hat for a photo. The real programme:

• You put on a nón lá and an apron.
• You are taught to carry a yoke with two 8 kg buckets of water.
• You break a bed with a hoe, rake it, and sow basil or mint.
• You water by "rain" — a can with holes in the base.
• You harvest the mature herbs for the next guest.

Afterwards there is tea and tam hữu: five herbs in one roll (lettuce, basil, mint, coriander, chervil) dipped in nước chấm.

Best time of day

• 06:30–08:30 — the morning watering, soft light, farmers actually working, no other tourists.
• 16:30–18:00 — sunset over the beds, cool enough to sit, and a local café with a view of the plots.
• Midday is too hot even in winter. Twenty minutes of that sun and you are burnt.

We assumed it was a tourist set piece. It turned out to be work. Half an hour with the yoke and all four of us were done in. Our nine-year-old then watered three beds himself and did not want to leavecomposite of TripAdvisor reviews of Tra Que, 2025

Lantern-making workshop in Hoi An

A lantern workshop in Hoi An costs from 90,000 VND (~$3.60) for an hour with a ready-made frame to 345,000 VND (~$14) for a full class where you bend the bamboo yourself. You leave with a collapsible silk lantern 20 cm across that packs flat in a suitcase, lights from an included LED candle and runs 30+ hours on one battery. It is the best souvenir in this town and the only one that survives the flight.

Four workshops

How a lantern is made

1. Bamboo frame — 8 to 12 ribs bent into a circle and lashed. In the full class you do this yourself in about 30 minutes; in the express version it is ready.
2. Choosing fabric — silk or cotton, 20+ colours and patterns. Silk costs more and looks better lit from inside.
3. Stretching and gluing — the fabric goes over the frame, is fixed with PVA and trimmed.
4. The collapsible base — a spring and metal rings let the lantern fold flat.
5. LED candle — warm-toned, flickers like a flame, included.

Reaching Out is a special case

Reaching Out is a social enterprise staffed by deaf artisans. The class runs on picture cards and sign language, and that is part of the experience rather than an obstacle. Profits fund employment for people with disabilities in Quang Nam province. It holds 4.9 on TripAdvisor, and the most repeated line in the reviews is that it was both the best souvenir and the most memorable hour of the trip.

Cycling tours through the rice fields and Cam Kim

A countryside cycling tour costs $25–45 for three to five hours with a guide, bike, water, a snack and the ferry crossing. The highest-rated operator on TripAdvisor is Heaven & Earth Bicycle Tours: 5.0 across 600+ reviews, small groups up to eight.

The classic route

An 18–25 km loop, entirely flat, on cruiser bikes:

1. 07:30 or 14:00 — start at the Thu Bon bridge, bike and helmet briefing.
2. 08:00 — the Cam Kim ferry, five minutes, bikes loaded on board.
3. 08:15–10:00 — the paddies of Cam Kim island, stops in the carpentry village of Kim Bong where they make lanterns and furniture, and a Buddhist temple.
4. 10:00–11:00 — Cam Phu or Triem Tay village, tea with a local family, tropical fruit.
5. 11:00–12:30 — the loop back along the far bank of the Thu Bon, lunch at a family restaurant.

Operators compared

Practicalities

• Departure time. From May to August take the 07:30 slot only. After 11:00 the heat is genuinely dangerous.
• Wet season (October–December): tours still run, but the fields are wet and the mud is real. Ponchos provided.
• Children — from 8 on their own bike, from 5 on a child seat behind the guide.
• Bring a hat or bandana, sunscreen, and 100,000–200,000 VND in cash for incidentals.

Marble Mountains

The Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn) are five limestone hills rising out of the plain 25 km from Hoi An on the road to Da Nang. The ticket is 40,000 VND (~$1.60), the lift is an optional 15,000 VND, and the Am Phu cave costs another 20,000 VND. A combined tour with Old Town or Lady Buddha runs $25–50 for half a day.

What is inside

The five hills are named for the five elements: fire, water, earth, wood and metal. Visitors climb Thuy Son, the water one, which is the biggest and the most interesting:

• Huyen Khong cave — the main draw, an enormous chamber with a hole in the roof that drops a shaft of light onto Buddhist altars and statues left from the French period.
• Linh Ung pagoda — a working monastery with a white Buddha.
• Am Phu cave, the "hell cave" — grim tableaux of the Buddhist underworld. Not for easily spooked children, and a separate ticket.
• The viewpoint — 200 m up, with Da Nang, the Non Nuoc coast and the outline of Hoi An in the distance.

Getting there

• On a tour is the sensible option. Combos of "Marble Mountains + Old Town" or "Marble Mountains + Lady Buddha + My Khe beach" run $30–45.
• On your own — a Grab from Hoi An is 350,000–450,000 VND one way, a taxi with waiting 800,000–1,000,000. Renting a scooter at $7 a day is cheaper. The city itself is covered in the Da Nang guide.
• Best time — before 10:00, ahead of the heat and the Da Nang coaches, or after 15:30.
• Shoes. The stairs are steep, 200+ of them even if you take the lift. Trainers.

Hai Van Pass — the motorbike run to Hue

The Hai Van Pass (Đèo Hải Vân, "pass of the ocean clouds") is a 496 m switchback between Da Nang and Hue that Jeremy Clarkson called one of the best coast roads in the world in the 2008 Top Gear Vietnam Special. An easy rider tour from Hoi An costs $60–80 for a full day with a guide-driver, or $30–50 if you ride yourself, plus $10–15 for the bike.

Three formats

The route

The standard one-way Hoi An to Hue along the coast road is 130 km and 8–10 hours with stops:

1. 08:00 — leave Hoi An, through Da Nang and along My Khe beach.
2. 09:00 — Lady Buddha (Linh Ung pagoda), the 67 m white statue on the Son Tra peninsula.
3. 10:30 — Lang Co lagoon, turquoise shallows between the sea and the hills. Prawn shacks.
4. 11:30 — the climb to the pass, stopping at the old French fort on the summit.
5. 13:00 — a fishing village and a seafood lunch.
6. 14:30 — Tu Hieu temple or the Khai Dinh tomb, optional.
7. 17:00 — arrive in Hue. Luggage goes separately, and the guide arranges it.

A round trip back to Hoi An in one day exists, but that is 260 km and 12 hours. It is a slog.

Season and small print

• Best months — March to August: clear and dry.
• Winter (November–February) — fog on the summit regularly kills the view, and rain makes the road slick.
• Poncho and a warm layer. It is 18°C at the top even in summer.
• Camera mount — the guides allow it and will help you fix a GoPro.

Evening tours and the Lantern Festival

Hoi An after dark is a separate town, and it costs anything from 150,000 VND for a lantern boat to $48 for a ticket to the Hoi An Memories show. Things start at 18:30 when the Old Town lighting comes on and run to midnight.

What to pick

The lantern boat

The most popular evening thing in town: you get into a wooden boat by the An Hoi bridge, a boatwoman rows quietly, and you light a candle in a paper lotus and set it on the river. Dozens of boats around you, hundreds of lights on the banks, small flames drifting downstream. Thirty to forty-five minutes, no music, no show.

Hoi An Memories Show

An open-air production on Hoi An Memories Land with 500 performers, music, costumes and projection. The story runs from the first Champa settlements to the French period. Sixty minutes, tickets by zone: VIP $48, standard $24, budget $20. Book two or three days ahead in high season.

Whether it is worth it is genuinely contested. People praise the scale and the staging and criticise the Disney-flavoured reading of history. Families with kids 8+ almost always come out happy.

The Lantern Festival

Once a lunar month, on the 14th day, the Old Town cuts its electricity from 18:30 to 22:00. Only lanterns, candles on lotus floats and light spilling from doorways. Free, but the peak after 19:30 puts five thousand people on Bach Dang street. Come at 18:00 or after 21:30.

2026 dates: 28 March, 27 April, 26 May, 25 June, 24 July, 23 August, 21 September, 21 October, 19 November, 18 December. The full programme is in the Hoi An Lantern Festival guide.

We went to the Lantern Festival with two kids. By 19:30 we could not get down Bach Dang — half an hour standing still. We came back at 22:00 once the coaches had gone, and it was magiccomposite of visitor reports, 2025

Prices and budgets

Everything in one table, for planning. Rate used, summer 2026: 1 USD ≈ 25,000 VND.

Three day budgets

• Budget day, about $13 for two: morning cycling around Tra Que ($1.40 entry plus $1.20 bike), a basket boat at Cam Thanh ($4 for the boat), then a lantern class ($5) and a lantern boat ($2.50 for the two of you).
• Standard day, about $85 for two: the sunrise My Son tour ($35 each), then dinner and a lantern boat in the evening.
• Premium day, about $130 for two: a cooking class at Eat Hoi An ($50 each) plus an evening lantern class at Reaching Out ($15 each). A Vespa Adventures food tour does not fit that budget, at $85 a head.

What everything else costs in town is in the Hoi An prices guide.

Where and how to book

Tours out of Hoi An sell on seven channels, and there is no single right answer. It depends on whether you optimise for price, for flexibility, or for not having to think about it.

What to book when

• Premium tours (Vespa Adventures, Heaven & Earth, Eat Hoi An, Red Bridge) — 5 to 7 days ahead. Small groups sell out.
• Standard day trips (My Son, Cham Islands, Cam Thanh, cooking classes) — 1 to 2 days ahead. There is always space.
• Lantern class and basket boat — walk up, no booking needed.
• Hoi An Memories Show — 2 to 3 days ahead in high season, or you are left with VIP seats.
• Hai Van easy rider — a day ahead. Easy to move if it rains.

Small tricks

• Compare Klook and GetYourGuide on the identical product. The gap reaches 25%.
• Do not prepay 100% through a hotel. Ask to pay on arrival, or leave a 30% deposit.
• Booking in a shop often matches the online price but without free cancellation. If the forecast is unstable, book online.
• A freelance local guide costs $80–120 a day, which undercuts the home-country operators by a wide margin.

Season — what runs when

Hoi An has two seasonalities stacked on each other. The general one is weather: dry February to August, wet September to January. The specific one is the Cham Islands, which close completely for four to five months of monsoon. Cycling tours in winter become mud runs, and the Hai Van Pass becomes a fog experience. Month-by-month weather is in the Hoi An weather guide.

Going for one specific thing

• Snorkelling and beach — April to August, with May the pick.
• Sunrise at My Son without the heat — February–March or October–November.
• Hai Van by bike — March to August, April best.
• Lantern Festival — every lunar month, best October to February when it is cool.
• Cycling — March–April and September–October, between the heat and the rain.
• Lantern and cooking classes — all year, no difference.

We flew in in October counting on the Cham Islands and found them shut for four months. What saved the trip was that Hoi An has plenty that works in any weather: a cooking class in the rain, lanterns, museums, cafés. We got to the islands the following Aprilcomposite of visitor reports, 2025

FAQ — tours from Hoi An

Checklist — what to pack for a day trip

The same kit works for any day out of Hoi An, whether that is a basket boat, My Son or the Hai Van Pass.

For the morning:

• SPF 50 sunscreen, reef-safe for the Cham Islands
• Hat or bandana
• Trainers or closed shoes, mandatory for My Son and the Marble Mountains
• Repellent, for the jungle at My Son and the beds at Tra Que
• 1.5 l of water per person
• A light layer — it is 18°C on Hai Van and at Ba Na

Money and documents:

• Small notes, 100,000–200,000 VND for water, tea and ice cream
• A photo of your passport and e-visa on your phone
• Travel insurance, with motorcycle cover if you are doing a bike tour

Electronics:

• A 10,000 mAh power bank — a day of photos will flatten your phone
• A plug adapter: Vietnam uses type A and C
• A camera or GoPro for Hai Van and the Cham Islands
• A dry bag for the boats, both Cham and Cam Thanh

Seasonal:

• October to February: a poncho, sold on every corner for 30,000 VND
• May to August: electrolytes
• Winter: a warm layer for the Hai Van Pass, where the fog sits at 18°C

Read next: Hoi An guide · Hoi An attractions · Hoi An workshops · Hoi An beaches