Multi-Day Tours in Hoi An

Multi-day tours from Hoi An go two ways, out to sea or up the coast. The sea version is two or three days that pair the old town with the Cham Islands, with a night or two in a Hoi An hotel and the island day in the middle. The northern version follows Highway 1 over the Hai Van Pass, past Lang Co beach, to Hue, the 19th-century capital of the Nguyen dynasty, with its Citadel and royal tombs. From there routes split. One turns to the Demilitarized Zone: Khe Sanh Combat Base, the Vinh Moc tunnels and the Ben Hai River, the former border between North and South. The other heads to Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park and its caves, Paradise Cave among them.

All of them are private. The two-day sea trip is the short one: a hotel check-in at 14:00, an afternoon on a bicycle in the old town, then a boat to Cham Island the next morning and a return by about 15:00. The three-day versions add a night and a third element, a cooking class or an ao dai photo session, while the plain one adds only the second hotel night. The DMZ run is two days with a hotel night, and the Phong Nha version is two days and one night in Phong Nha, with Hue on the way. The longest is a six-day private heritage trip through Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue, built to be reshaped. Hotels, entry fees and a guide are included on most of them, and two guests is the minimum on the DMZ and Phong Nha routes.

Practical. Typhoons reach the centre mostly between September and November, and the Cham crossing can be the first leg to change. The Hai Van Pass is a climate divide, so Hue can be cooler and wetter than Hoi An, where January afternoons sit near 25C. On the two-day sea package the second morning is a check-out, with bags kept at the hotel desk. The northern routes collect in Hoi An, Da Nang, Hue or Lang Co, and the DMZ day starts at about 7:00. The sea packages ask 72 hours' notice to cancel, and the rest 24.