Best things for Families to Explore in Hoi An

Over the last 2 years, my family has spent over 6 months in Vietnam, so it’s high time that I got around to writing about what is easily one of my favorite spots in the country: Hoi An.

I’m definitely not the first travel writer to talk about Hoi An as a great place to visit. And in fact, this relatively small city has won several different awards and honors over the years. UNESCO named it a Cultural Heritage site 1999. Travel+Leisure called it the “Most charming city of the world” in 2019. And in 2016, it earned the #1 spot for world’s top cities to visit from the Wanderlust Travel Awards. I’ve also seen it listed as a top spot for Digital Nomads, for foodies, for culture lovers, and for families.

But while this all points to it being a certifiably great spot, it does beg the question: “What is there to do in Hoi An?”

Let’s take a look!

Explore Vietnam’s history in Old Town

While Old Town is definitely not the only thing to do in Hoi An, it is the main attraction.

Hoi An’s placement at the mouth of the Hoai River made it an ideal trading post from very early in the city’s life. Trading ships visited from all around, and ships from China, Japan, and as far away as Europe were all said to have come here to trade and settle, from very early on in Vietnamese history.

I’ve already written and excellent article on the 22 Historic Sites you can explore in Old Town, so I won’t go into a ton of detail here, but just briefly here are some of the top things to do in Old Town.

• Visit the UNESCO Historical Sites
• Take a boat ride on the river and light a floating candle
• Enjoy a delicious meal while overlooking the river
• Shop til you drop!
• Check out one of Hoi An’s fun and educational shows

This year, my family has been renting a place in Da Nang, Vietnam, which has given us several opportunities to take day trips down to Hoi An, but no matter what else we do, we always make time to head to Old Town!

Sample Amazing Central Vietnamese Foods

Vietnamese cuisine is some of the most popular food in the world, for good reason. The simple, fresh ingredients found in most Vietnamese cooking makes for some delicious dishes with savory, sweet, and occasionally spicy flavor profiles that offer a bit of something for everyone.

If you haven’t already explored the most popular Vietnamese food options around, you absolutely need to try these staples in your trip:

• Banh Mi – Often called the best sandwich in the world, banh mi usually features grilled meat or local cold cuts, pate, fresh green veggies, and a touch of chili jam all on a crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside French bread bun. (Note: I like adding a fried egg, as well!)
  
• Pho – Pho is a Vietnamese soup with a broth flavored with sweet and savory seasonings and flat rice noodles. You can get it with either chicken or beef, but Central Vietnam typically goes with beef pho.
  
• Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls – Fresh spring rolls are usually a DIY affair in Vietnam. Fill your rice paper with grilled meats, fresh greens, cucumber and unripe mango, roll it up, and dip it in the tangy-sweet fish sauce. Delightfully refreshing!
  
• Vietnamese Coffee – Vietnam grows more coffee per capita than any country other than Brazil, but it’s almost all robusta, not arabica. To balance the stronger, bitter flavor of the robusta beans, Vietnamese coffees typically mix in lots of sweet flavors. Salt Coffee and Egg Coffee (think custard, not scrambled) are some of my favorites!

Of course, one of the fun things about Vietnamese Food is that each region also has its own specialties to try! So, if you’ve already had the “typical” Vietnamese fare, these are the ones you need to check out in Hoi An.

Note: The Banh Mi in the picture above is from a shop in Hoi An recommended by Anthony Bourdain!

Cao Lau Noodles – A very local specialty

Proper Cao Lau noodles are said to be made with the water from one specific well in Hoi An, which makes them really difficult to find anywhere else. They are a particularly chewy noodle that I find delightful and are most often served with some Char Sui pork in a broth.

I get these on almost every trip into Hoi An!

Mi Quang Noodles – A regional delight

These are flat rice noodles, stir-fried meat (usually pork and shrimp) and served with broth, rice crackers, and a quail egg. It looks a bit like pho, but the flavor profile is more savory and less sweet, which I love. It’s extremely popular across the Quang Nam region (thus Mi Quang, or noodles from Quang Nam) so you can get it in Da Nang or Hue, as well.

Banh Xeo – Vietnamese Savory Pancakes

Named after the sizzling sound of the batter in a hot pan, banh xeo is a savory pancake with shrimp inside. Typically, you cut the pancake into strips, wrap it up in rice paper with greens (like a spring roll) and enjoy!

Of course, if none of those quite tickles your fancy, there are plenty of other options to choose from around Hoi An featuring basically any kind of food you can imagine. (I had a lovely chicken gyro there the other day.)

Shop til you Drop

With it’s rich history as a global trade center on the Maritime Silk Road, it should come as no surprise that Hoi An remains, at its heart, a market town.

Get Custom tailored clothes and shoes

While you can get basically anything you like in Hoi An, the area is world-renowned for its huge number of tailors and leather workers ready to create you an entire wardrobe from scratch. Custom suits, dresses, shoes, and bags are all on the table. And while getting a whole outfit tailored for you is more expensive than buying a souvenir t-shirt off a rack, it’s also something that will look great for years to come.

Just note: If you plan to get clothes made, it will take a few days to a week. Make this one of your first stops on your trip to give the tailor the time they need to make you something spectacular!

Find Unique Souvenirs

Custom clothes aren’t the only unique souvenir you can find. Wandering through the many shops in town will turn up plenty of fun items that aren’t common elsewhere.

One of our favorites was a hand-carved stamp that we had made from a family portrait. So, now we can stamp our faces on random pieces of paper anytime we like! Useful? Not particularly. Fun and unique? You bet!

See one of Hoi An’s Amazing Shows

If you’re looking for a fantastic way to spend your evening, it’s worth looking into one of the different theatrical shows available in Hoi An.

Step into Hoi An’s past at the Memories Show

The Hoi An Memories show is, fittingly, put on at the Hoi An Memories Resort, Spa, and Theme Park.

The show debuted way back in 2018 and has been running consistently since then. It features hundreds of actors and dancers and traces the history of Hoi An as a city back over 400 years. While the show depicts several different historical events from the city’s past, the bulk of the performance is in the artistic way it portrays the simple acts of living life in Hoi An.

It is an impressively large and theatrical show and is considered the single largest artistic performance in Vietnam. Of course, large shows often have large admission prices, and Hoi An Memories is much the same, with the cheapest tickets to see the show costing around $20 on Klook. But it’s worth noting that kids under 100cm can get a free entry ticket with an adult ticket (on location), and kids over 100cm but under 140cm can get in for a discounted kids price ticket!

Alternatively, you can purchase tickets as an add-on when you stay at the Memories Resort. It’s not the cheapest place to stay in town, but it is definitely one of the nice places!

Watch the Bamboo Circus at Hoi An Lune Center

I have not yet had the chance to see the show at the Lune Center in Hoi An, but the building where it is hosted has caught my eye several times!

Circus shows in South East Asia typically feature incredible acrobatics and beautiful visuals, all wrapped up in a story filled with both drama and humor. I watched a similar circus show in Siem Reap, Cambodia and absolutely loved it, from start to finish. And with the rave reviews that Lune is already getting, I’m definitely going to need to make time for it soon!

Catch a performance at the Hoi An Traditional Performance Theater

This is one of the spots I have listed in my article on the 22 Historical Sites in Old Town as a bonus! Getting into the performance requires you to use one of your Old Town entry tickets, but the trade off is getting to spend some time in an air-conditioned theater to watch some form of traditional Vietnamese performance.

This is a great, budget-friendly way to see a show in Hoi An located right on the river in Old Town. What’s not to love?

Take a River Ride in a Coconut Boat

If you’ve spent much time researching Hoi An on social media, you’ve probably come across videos of tourists getting spun around in circles in small, round, boats in a way that looks more like a carnival ride than a mode of transportation. These are the coconut boats!

Fun fact: Vietnamese coconut boats were originally designed as a means of tax evasion!

The French occupiers decided to levy a tax on boats in the area, which felt extremely unfair considering how many of the people in the area depended on fishing to make ends meet. Some ingenious fishermen came up with the bowl-like design of the coconut boats because they looked different enough from regular boats that they could claim that they weren’t boats at all. Just a large basket. The government agreed, and the fishermen were spared the taxes.

Today, the coconut boats are still in use across the entirety of the region. They are used by fishermen, farmers, and by tourism companies looking to give visitors a unique experience.

Looking to experience it yourself? While you can just get a ride down to the Coconut village and pay for a ride in person, I’d suggest pre-paying a ticket either on Get Your Guide or Klook. It just makes the whole process a bit smoother, and allows you to pay with a credit card instead of cash.

If you’d like to get spun around in the boat, keep in mind that that usually costs a bit extra, paid directly to the boat spinner. And at the end of your ride, your boat driver (paddler? captain?) will ask for a tip for their hard work. For both of these reasons, it’s wise to keep some cash on hand, even if you pre-paid online.

Head to An Bang Beach for some Seaside Fun

Just because Hoi An is typically considered a cultural tourism hotspot doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities to sit back and relax. After all, the beach is right there!!

There are great beaches all up and down the coast, but An Bang beach is the beach to choose when in Hoi An. It’s a public access beach, so there’s no need to pay an entry fee, but there are plenty of amenities located throughout the area. I highly recommend choosing a beachside restaurant with a good vibe where you can set up. Usually, all it takes is ordering a couple coffees, coconuts, or smoothies to get comfy seats with an ocean view.

If that’s all you’re looking for, then great! You’re all set. But if you’d like to add a touch of education in, for flavor, also be sure to check out my article on adding education to your next beach trip!

Check out the Nearby Craft Villages

While the craft villages surrounding Hoi An aren’t technically part of it, these smaller outlying villages exist, in large part, to support Hoi An through their crafts. Each village tends to focus on a specific craft and they do it well. And, they’re all close enough to Hoi An that you can easily visit them without needing to change hotels.

Here are some of the most popular:

Tra Que Vegetable Village

The vegetable village is a small farming community located on a river island just outside of Hoi An proper. In fact, on one of my family’s recent trips to the area, we chose to stay here instead of in Hoi An!

Visitors to the village can take farm tours, complete with demonstrations on ancient watering techniques, photo ops with water buffalos, and chances to taste produce fresh from the gardens. Or, if you prefer, you can just take a walk or ride a bike around the area and see what there is to see! But whatever else you do here, you have to stop in at one of the local restaurants for lunch or a cooking lesson!

When we stayed here, we ate at a local restaurant called Tra Que Basil and had some of the best food we’ve ever had in Hoi An!

We hadn’t left enough time in our schedule for a cooking lesson that day, but if we had, I would have signed up immediately. You can contact them via their Facebook page, or, if you prefer to shop around for other cooking classes in the area, there are a few online options via Klook.

Thanh Ha Pottery Village

Have you ever wanted the chance to throw a pot from clay in a (semi-)remote Vietnamese village? Well, have I got the spot for you!

Thanh Ha Village produces tons of high quality pottery and has been exporting their works globally since the early days of Hoi An’s history. Today, their village has been preserved as a historical village location where visitors can come and witness the process firsthand. The local artisans show the process of pottery from gathering clay to the finished pot, and visitors can even get their hands dirty and make their own!

The cheapest way to do it is simply to buy an entry ticket to the village on arrival, but if you’d prefer someone to guide you through the process, then you’ll prefer to pre-book on Get Your Guide.

Hoi An Silk Village

Ok. So, I’m cheating a bit here, because the Duy Trinh Silk Village is actually a bit further afield from Hoi An than my family wanted to travel. However, I found a cheat. Hoi An Silk Village, while not technically a village, still does an incredible job of teaching families about silk production!

On our visit, we started off with a welcome drink of mulberry tea (which was wonderful), then went on a full historical exploration of silk manufacturing from seeing where the silk worms are raised to seeing how the silk is woven. And then, at the end of the tour, they had an entire gift shop filled with silks to choose from!

I had no idea that silk was that fascinating when I began the tour, but now I can confidently say it’s worth spending an afternoon to learn about!

As much as I would love to say that this is everything that you’ll want to check out in Hoi An, the truth is I’m just barely scratching the surface!

Find something that I missed? I’d love to hear about it!
Contact me at Jacob@neverendingfieldtrip.com