Ha Giang
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City
Ha Long
Sapa
Mekong Delta
Da Nang
Hue
Hoi An
Ninh Binh
Da Lat
Nha Trang
Phan Thiet
Phu Quoc
Quang Binh
Quy Nhon
Vung Tau
Thai Nguyen
Hoi An gives you a good evening and a short night, and most people planning a night out here have that the wrong way round.
The old town is at its best from about six to eleven. After eleven, most of it is finished. There’s no club district, no late strip in the heritage streets, and if you’re the kind of person who goes out at ten, you’ll walk down to the river and find them stacking chairs.
What there actually is: a handful of decent bars in the old town, a loud backpacker area across the bridge that stays open latest, and a few beach bars four kilometres out where the live music is.
Three different scenes with three different closing times, and most visitors only ever see one of them.
- Quick Answer: Hoi An nightlife happens in three separate places. The Ancient Town along Le Loi and Nguyen Thai Hoc is wine bars, cocktails and riverside drinks, and it closes around 11pm. An Hoi island over the bridge is where the backpacker bars are and the only places open past midnight. An Bang and Tan Thanh beaches, four to five kilometres out, have the live music and the sunset drinking. There aren’t any real clubs, so a proper club night means Da Nang, 45 minutes away.
- The Three Areas:
- Ancient Town, Le Loi and Nguyen Thai Hoc: quiet drinks, wine, cocktails, some live music. Done by 11pm.
- An Hoi island, Nguyen Phuc Chu and Pham Hong Thai: loud, cheap, young, open latest.
- An Bang and Tan Thanh beaches: beach bars, weekend bands, better before dark than after.
- What You’ll Pay:
- Local beer 15,000–30,000 VND. Craft and imported 60,000–100,000.
- Cocktails 90,000–180,000, cheapest on An Hoi, dearest on the riverfront.
- Happy hours mostly 5pm to 7pm.
- Grab dries up after midnight, especially out at the beaches.
Three Areas, Three Closing Times
| Area | From the old town | Who’s there | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Town | You’re in it | Couples, expats, older travellers | About 11pm |
| An Hoi island | Five minutes over the bridge | Backpackers, groups | 1am and later |
| An Bang / Tan Thanh | 4–5km, 15 minutes | Mixed, live music crowd | 11pm to midnight |
Most people stay in or near the old town, never cross the bridge, never get out to the beach, and form their whole opinion of Hoi An nightlife from a single one of those.
Mango Rooms
- 37 Phan Boi Chau, Ancient Town
- Happy hour roughly 5pm to 7pm.
Riverside, bright, and the cocktails are made with actual fruit and not syrup, which isn’t a given at this price. There’s live music upstairs most nights and the happy hour is a real one, not a five-percent-off gesture.
Like everything else on this side of the water it winds up around eleven. If you’re building an evening in the old town, this is the sort of place you land at eight and leave at ten.
The Riverfront Generally
Everyone ends up here at some point. It’s the postcard: lanterns on the water, boats going past, the whole thing lit up.
You’re paying for the view and the drinks aren’t better than two streets inland. I think that’s a perfectly fair trade on your first night, when the view is the point, and a bad one by your third. Move back a block and you’ll pay half.
Tiger Tiger Bar
Cross the bridge and the volume goes up. Tiger Tiger is the dependable backpacker bar over there, loud music, cheap drinks, drinking games, a crowd almost entirely in its twenties.
If you’re travelling alone and want to be in a room with other people, this is the easiest door in Hoi An to walk through. Nobody will look at you oddly for arriving on your own and it doesn’t take long before someone’s talking to you.
Mr Bean Bar
Smaller, same idea, deals aimed at groups. There’s no real reason to choose between these two and most people doing an An Hoi night end up in both anyway.
Why Not Bar
- Right next to Mr Bean Bar, An Hoi island
- The last place still open.
Why Not starts late and finishes very late, and it’s where the night goes when it’s got away from you. It’s genuinely fun if that’s the night you came for, and it’s the only place in town that stays open long enough to feel like a proper late one.
The honest note on it: there are ongoing problems with people hanging around outside at closing, and petty theft in that area comes up a lot. I wouldn’t walk out of there on my own at three in the morning. Go with other people, order your Grab from inside before you leave, and don’t leave your drink sitting.
I’m not saying skip it. I’m saying treat it like a late bar anywhere, which is a thing that doesn’t otherwise apply in Hoi An.
Roots Bar
- Near An Bang beach
- Open until about 11:30.
If you want live music in Hoi An, start here. Bands at weekends, open mic on Sundays, and a crowd that’s a mix of locals, expats and whoever’s staying nearby, so it doesn’t have the fully-tourist feel of the bars in town.
Tamarind cocktails are what people order. There are usually a couple of dogs asleep under a table. It’s the bar I’d send someone to who says the old town felt a bit like a film set.
Salt Pub
Attached to a resort, Australian in feel, and the good bit is the lawn between the pub and the sand. Best in the late afternoon with the sun going down.
I wouldn’t come out here after dark specifically for it. I’d come at five, stay through sunset, eat somewhere on the beach and go home.
Thung Chai Sea Bar
Tan Thanh is the quieter beach and this is the quieter bar. Open to the sea, not many people, good for a slow drink. Not somewhere you’d base a night out.
One thing about all three beach bars. Getting home is the problem. Grab availability drops off after eleven and the ride back is dark and unlit in places. Either sort out the return with a driver before you start, or cycle out early and cycle back before you’ve had too much.
What Time Does Everything Actually Close?
Old town bars stop serving somewhere between 10:30 and 11:30. Beach bars are about the same.
An Hoi is the exception. A few places run to 2am and occasionally past it, though those closing times move around and a bar that went till three last season might be shutting at midnight now.
The practical version: if you want a late night, be over the bridge before eleven. After that, the old town side is a walk, not a drink.
Drink Prices
Local beer, Tiger or Larue or Saigon, is 15,000 to 30,000 VND depending where you are. Craft and imported runs 60,000 to 100,000.
Cocktails are 90,000 to 180,000. The riverfront sits at the top of that and An Hoi at the bottom, which is more or less what you’d expect.
Happy hours are common and usually 5pm to 7pm, which lands neatly in the hour before dinner and is worth building around.
Are There Clubs in Hoi An?
Not really.
There are late bars on An Hoi with a DJ and a bit of a dancefloor, and one or two have “club” in the name. None of them is a nightclub the way you’d mean it in Saigon or Bangkok.
If that’s specifically what you want, Da Nang has real ones, it’s 45 minutes by Grab, and things stay open there. It’s a legitimate plan for one night of a trip, though the ride home at four in the morning costs more than the night did.
Da Nang or Hoi An After Dark?
Da Nang if you want a big night. It’s a city, it has clubs and rooftop bars and a beachfront, and none of it closes at eleven.
Hoi An if you want a good evening. Prettier, walkable, and the drinking happens in old buildings beside a lit-up river instead of in a basement with a smoke machine.
Most people do both, since the Da Nang to Hoi An run is easy enough that a night in the city isn’t a big deal.
A Bar Crawl Without Booking One
Two of the hostels run organised pub crawls. They’re cheap, chaotic, aimed at people in their twenties, and they do exactly what you’d expect.
Doing your own is easy because the whole thing is walkable. Mango Rooms for a first drink, dinner on Bach Dang, over the bridge to Tiger Tiger and Mr Bean, then Why Not last if you’re still going. That’s about four hundred metres of walking across the entire night.
Live Music and the Big Show
Live music in the old town is thinner than you’d hope. Mango Rooms has something on most nights and a few riverside restaurants put a guitarist out, but the real answer is Roots Bar at the beach.
There’s also Hoi An Memories, a large outdoor show on an island near town with several hundred performers in it. x, but it’s the biggest evening thing here by some distance.
Is Hoi An Safe at Night?
Yes, and more than most towns this size. The old town stays busy and lit until late and I’ve never felt uneasy walking it, including on my own.
Normal things apply. Watch your bag in the crush on the bridge, don’t leave a phone sitting on a riverside table.
The one exception is outside the late bars on An Hoi at closing time, for the reasons above. That’s a specific spot at a specific hour, not a general problem with the town.
Grab works at night, but availability drops after midnight and out at the beaches, so open the app before you’re standing in the dark needing it.
Where to Stay If You Want to Be Near It
Old town or the streets right around it if you want to walk home from dinner and drinks. It’s noisy. That’s the trade and you should make it knowingly.
An Hoi if the late bars are the point, though you’ll hear them from bed.
An Bang if you’d rather be at the sea with a few good bars and a taxi into town when you feel like it. That’s what I’d pick for a longer stay, and the areas are compared properly in places to stay in Hoi An.
If You’re Not Drinking
Plenty of people searching for Hoi An nightlife aren’t really after bars.
The lanterns come on at dusk and the old town after dark is the event whether or not you drink.
A lantern boat ride is twenty minutes and 170,000 VND for the boat. The night market on Nguyen Hoang goes until about ten. There are evening cooking classes, and an evening food tour covers six or seven stops between six and half eight. For dinner first, the five restaurants I recommend is the short list.
Start Three Hours Earlier
The advice you’ll read most often is that Hoi An has no nightlife and you should go to Da Nang for one. I don’t agree, but I understand how people arrive at it.
The good part of the evening here runs six to eleven, and if you’re used to leaving your hotel at ten you’ve missed most of it before you start.
What I’d do: a drink at Mango Rooms around six, eat by eight, be on the river or in the market by nine, and cross to An Hoi at ten if you want more. That’s a full night out in a town that supposedly doesn’t have one.
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