Most of the best things to do in Hanoi are on every list you’ll find: Hoan Kiem Lake, the Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, the mausoleum, Hoa Lo Prison, the train street, a bowl of pho on a plastic stool. I live here, and I’d send a friend to nearly all of them. What I’d change is the hour.

A lot of Hanoi is a different city at six in the morning, or after ten at night, from the one you see at three in the afternoon. The lake belongs to people doing tai chi and badminton before work. The wholesale markets don’t open until most visitors are asleep. The famous sights are fine in the middle of the day, and that’s when I’d do them, so the edges of the day are left for the local life Hanoi is known for.

So this is the list, with the times I’d go and the bits in between, and links to the longer guides when one thing deserves a whole page.

Quick Answer: The best things to do in Hanoi are a walk round Hoan Kiem Lake before 7am, getting lost in the Old Quarter’s 36 streets, the Temple of Literature with the Fine Arts Museum across the road, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex and the Imperial Citadel, Hoa Lo Prison, egg coffee where it was invented, the weekend walking street and night market, sunset on Long Bien Bridge, and a bicycle or a drink by West Lake.
The famous sights, and when:
- Hoan Kiem Lake: 6am to 7am, when the city is out exercising.
- Temple of Literature: 8am, 70,000 VND, with the Fine Arts Museum 400m away.
- Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum: Tuesday to Thursday and weekend mornings only, closed for about two months each autumn.
- Hoa Lo Prison: daytime, or the night tour Friday to Sunday.
- Water puppets: 50 minutes, 100,000 to 200,000 VND, beside the lake.
Local life:
- Long Bien Market: wholesale fruit and vegetables, roughly 10pm to dawn.
- Quang Ba Flower Market: 236 Au Co, from about midnight.
- Train street: the Kham Thien section is open; the Old Quarter section is fenced.
- West Lake and Truc Bach: cycling, cafés, sunset.
Evenings: walking street and night market Friday 7pm to Sunday midnight, bia hoi, late food on Tong Duy Tan.
Prices in 2026: pho 40,000 to 50,000 VND, bun cha 40,000 to 70,000, egg coffee 30,000 to 45,000 at the old cafés.
How long: three days covers the city, more if you add Ninh Binh or Ha Long.

You’ll notice I’ve linked to a few hotels and activities I used or recommend, you can even highlight any text to check prices and book instantly. If you make a booking through them, I receive a small commission, which really helps support the work I do here, at no additional cost to you.

Best Things to Do in Hanoi: The List I Give Friends

Walk round Hoan Kiem Lake at 6am. The loop takes about 25 minutes slowly, and the morning is when it’s Hanoi’s lake and not a backdrop.
Get lost in the Old Quarter. Streets named after what they used to sell, and the lanes off them are where people live. More in the 36 streets.
Temple of Literature at opening, then cross the road to the Fine Arts Museum.
The mausoleum complex and the Imperial Citadel on a weekday morning, since the mausoleum keeps short hours.
Hoa Lo Prison, the French jail the Americans called the Hanoi Hilton.
Egg coffee at the café where it was invented in 1946.
Long Bien Bridge at sunset, on foot, with the trains going past.
The weekend walking street and night market, Friday to Sunday evenings.
A bicycle or a beer by West Lake.
One overnight market, Long Bien or Quang Ba, for the city most visitors sleep through.

That’s three full days at a reasonable pace, and the Hanoi itinerary puts them in order. On a weekend only, the 2-day Hanoi itinerary cuts it down without losing the good mornings.

Hanoi in the Morning: Hoan Kiem Lake Before Seven

If I have a friend staying for the first time, the first morning is always the lake.

By six the paths round Hoan Kiem are full: tai chi groups, ballroom dancing to a speaker on the pavement, women in matching outfits doing aerobics, men walking fast with their arms swinging, badminton strung across any gap wide enough. Nobody is performing for anyone. By half past seven most of them have gone to work, the traffic has filled in, and the lake turns back into the place tour groups are photographed in front of. The small wet market near the lake is usually packed away by seven too.

Ngoc Son Temple sits on its island in the lake, over the red Huc Bridge, and opens around seven. It’s small and fifteen minutes is enough, and it’s at its best before the groups arrive. Then breakfast. The Old Quarter does its best eating before nine: pho on Bat Dan, sticky rice on Bat Su for about 20,000 VND, bun cha later in the morning once the grills are going, all on low stools on the pavement.

Pho costs 40,000 to 50,000 VND in the Old Quarter in 2026, and my rule for the famous places is to go just after the breakfast crowd, when the queue’s gone and the broth hasn’t been topped up yet.

Thong Nhat Park, south of the centre, has the same morning crowd with fewer visitors, and Long Bien Bridge at sunrise is the other early option, though I prefer it at the other end of the day.

Best Things to Do — Morning exercise, quiet streets, then street-side breakfast

Things to Do in Hanoi Old Quarter

The Old Quarter isn’t really a list of sights. It’s a tangle of narrow streets north of the lake, a lot of them still named after what was once made or sold on them, Hang Gai for silk, Hang Bac for silver, Hang Ma for paper goods, and what you do there is walk, eat and look up. The interesting parts are in the lanes off the main streets, the ngõ, where it’s washing lines, motorbikes parked in hallways and someone’s grandmother on a stool.

Hang Ma is the street I go back to most, because it changes with the calendar: red and gold for Tết, lanterns and toys for the Mid-Autumn Festival, tinsel at Christmas, and costumes for Halloween now too. It’s crowded in the evenings and the prices at festival time start high, so I look at a few stalls before buying anything.

Dong Xuan Market, at the north end, is the biggest covered market in the city, three floors and a couple of thousand stalls, open roughly 6am to 6pm. It’s a wholesale market first, busiest from five to nine in the morning, and quietest in the early afternoon. Ground-floor bags with famous logos are what they look like, and prices are a conversation. I go for the food stalls by the entrance more than anything inside.

Two small things that help. The gold shops on Ha Trung change money at better rates than the airport or most hotels, and a lot of people who live here use them. And egg coffee, which was invented in 1946 by a bartender at the Metropole, Nguyen Van Giang, using egg yolk because milk was scarce, is still made by his family at Giang Cafe, down an alley at 39 Nguyen Huu Huan, for about 35,000 VND. Cafe Dinh, upstairs at 13 Dinh Tien Hoang with a view of the lake, was opened by his daughter and is about 30,000. I compared more of them in egg coffee shops.

For a slower way round, a cyclo or a scooter tour does the Old Quarter at a pace you couldn’t manage on foot, and scooter tours and cyclos has which ones I’d book. A day there on a tight budget is in the Old Quarter on $35 a day.

The Old Quarter Hoan Kiem North scaled Vietadvisor — Wandering the narrow streets, markets, and alleyways

Hanoi Old Quarter Vietadvisor — Wandering the narrow streets, markets, and alleyways

The Big Sights, and the Hours That Matter

These are the things to do in Hanoi that need planning, mostly because of opening days.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

Opens only in the morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, roughly 7:30 to 10:30 in summer and 8 to 11 in winter, with half an hour longer at weekends. It’s closed on Mondays and Fridays, and it shuts for about two months most years for maintenance, usually in the autumn; in 2026 it was September to early November. Shoulders and knees covered, hats off inside, no photos, no talking, and you file past without stopping.

The rest of the complex, the square, the stilt house and the One Pillar Pagoda, stays open when the mausoleum is closed.

The Imperial Citadel is a short walk away, a UNESCO site since 2010, and the ticket went up to 100,000 VND in 2025.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex 3 scaled Vietadvisor — A quiet walk through the historic complex

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex 2 scaled Vietadvisor — A quiet walk through the historic complex

The Temple of Literature & Arts Museum

At 58 Quoc Tu Giam, was Vietnam’s first university, founded in 1070, a run of courtyards with stone tablets carrying the names of the men who passed the royal exams. It’s 70,000 VND, open from 7:30 or 8am depending on the season, and it fills with school groups and graduation photos by mid-morning, so I go at opening.

Afterwards I’d cross over to the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc, about 400 metres away, 40,000 VND and closed on Mondays.

It’s the museum I send people to when they say they don’t like museums: lacquer, wood carving, wartime posters, cool, quiet and nearly empty. On Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday evenings the Temple of Literature also runs a night programme, 6:30 to 9:30pm, for 199,000 VND.

Temple of Literature 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Hoa Lo Prison & Museum of Ethnology

At 1 Hoa Lo, was built by the French in 1896 and later held American pilots, who named it the Hanoi Hilton. It’s open 8am to 5pm, and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings there’s a guided night tour from 7 to 9pm for 399,000 to 499,000 VND, which books up.

The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Cau Giay, about 8km out, is the one I’d take a Grab out for, with houses from the country’s ethnic groups rebuilt in the garden; it’s 40,000 VND and closed Mondays. The rest are compared in museums in Hanoi.

The water puppets

At Thang Long theatre, 57B Dinh Tien Hoang by the lake, are 50 minutes of puppets on water with a live band, 100,000 to 200,000 VND depending on the seat, and several shows a day from mid-afternoon. The good seats go early.

The Water Puppet Show 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Check Hanoi activity tickets on Klook

Hanoi Train Street: What’s Open in 2026

There are two train streets, about 1.7km apart, and that’s where most of the confusion comes from, since it’s still on nearly every list of things to do in Hanoi.

The famous one, along Phung Hung and Tran Phu in the Old Quarter, has been fenced off since 2022, and tour companies were told in 2025 not to bring people there (it is still officially available). The cafés along it still run, and staff will walk you through the barrier if you buy a drink, about 50,000 VND, which is how most people still end up there.

Enforcement comes and goes, and in early 2026 the government agreed to cut the passenger and freight trains on that stretch, with no date yet.

The other section, at Kham Thien off 224 Le Duan, south of the main station, is open, with cafés on the tracks and trains on the north-south line passing every day. That’s the one I’d go to.

The trains are often late, and every café writes its own timetable on a board, so I’d arrive early and expect to wait. Which café, the safe distance to sit back and the timings are in Hanoi train street.

hanoi train street 5 Vietadvisor — You can still watch trains pass in Hanoi

hanoi train street 2 Vietadvisor — You can still watch trains pass in Hanoi

Things to Do in Hanoi at Night: Walking Street and Weekend Night Market

Walking Street & Night Market

From 7pm on Friday until midnight on Sunday, the streets round Hoan Kiem Lake and a stretch of the Old Quarter close to traffic, from 6pm in winter. That’s the Hanoi walking street, and it’s the nicest thing about a Hanoi weekend: families out, children on rented electric cars, street performers, couples photographing each other by the lake, no horns.

The Hanoi weekend night market runs at the same time up Hang Dao, Hang Ngang and Hang Duong to the gate of Dong Xuan Market, from about seven until eleven or so. The stalls are mostly clothes and souvenirs and the snacks are better than the shopping.

The Old Quarter Hoan Kiem North 3 scaled Vietadvisor — No motorbikes, just food, music, and weekend crowds

Weekend Night Market in the Old Quarter 3 scaled Vietadvisor — No motorbikes, just food, music, and weekend crowds

The beer & food street

Ta Hien, the so-called beer street, is short and loud, with bars and plastic stools spilling into the road, busiest from seven to midnight and fullest Friday to Sunday. I’d go early in the evening for a glass of bia hoi, at around 10,000 VND it’s the cheapest beer in the city, and leave before the music war starts. If the police come through to clear the pavements, which they do, you pick up your stool and move.

For food after ten, Tong Duy Tan is where people who live here go, a street of noodle and rice places open late. St Joseph’s Cathedral is lovely lit up at night, and the café terraces facing it are a good place to sit.

Hanoi at night is generally safe to walk around. The things to watch are bag snatching from passing motorbikes and the traffic itself, so I keep my phone on the side away from the road. More on the late side of the city, from the bars to the 2am noodle stalls, is in Hanoi at night.

The Bia Hoi Junction Ta Hien Street 3 scaled Vietadvisor — Plastic stools, cheap beer, and late-night food

The Bia Hoi Junction Ta Hien Street 4 Vietadvisor — Plastic stools, cheap beer, and late-night food

Unusual and Non-Touristy Things to Do in Hanoi

This is where the local life is, and none of it is set up for visitors, which is the point.

Long Bien Market

At 189 Hong Ha under the bridge, is the city’s wholesale fruit and vegetable market, open from roughly 10pm until dawn, at its busiest somewhere between midnight and four. Trucks from all over the country unload, porters run past with loads twice their size, and it’s loud, muddy and fascinating.

It’s a workplace and you’re in the way, so I stand back, keep my camera polite, and don’t stay long. There’s a stall inside doing bún đậu that people who work there eat at.

Long Bien Fruit Market 3 Vietadvisor — Loud, muddy, and busy until dawn

Long Bien Fruit Market Vietadvisor — Loud, muddy, and busy until dawn

Quang Ba Flower Market

At 236 Au Co by West Lake, is the overnight flower market, from about 11pm or midnight to six or seven in the morning, busiest in the small hours and enormous before Tết and on 20 October.

The flowers come in from all over the north. It’s narrow, the delivery bikes move fast, and the sellers are quoting trade prices to people buying by the bucket, so if you buy a bunch, agree the price first.

Quang Ba Flower Market scaled Vietadvisor — Midnight blooms and fast bikes at Quảng Bá

Quang Ba Flower Market 2 Vietadvisor — Midnight blooms and fast bikes at Quảng Bá

The B-52 wreck in Huu Tiep Lake

In the lanes of Ngoc Ha village near Ba Dinh, is a piece of an American bomber shot down in 1972, still lying in a small pond between houses. It takes ten minutes and nobody charges you to look.

The ceramic mosaic mural along the Red River dike, kilometres of tiles covering Vietnamese history, is another free one, best seen from a Grab or a bike.

Further out, the craft villages are a half-day each: Bat Trang for pottery, where you can throw your own, the incense village at Quang Phu Cau with its fields of red sticks drying, Van Phuc for silk, and Duong Lam for an old laterite village an hour west. These are the places off the beaten path I’d actually send someone to, and none of them needs a guide.

Finding the B 52 scaled Vietadvisor — Free, quiet spots beyond the usual tourist trail

The B 52 Lake in Ba Dinh 5 scaled Vietadvisor — Free, quiet spots beyond the usual tourist trail

See all day trips from Hanoi Old Quarter

Hanoi Neighborhoods Beyond the Old Quarter

West Lake

West Lake is the biggest lake in the city, and where a lot of foreigners who live here end up. The loop is somewhere around 15 to 18km, flat, and the way to do it is a rented bicycle in the late afternoon, stopping for a coffee by the water and staying for the sunset.

Tran Quoc Pagoda, on its little spit of land on the east side, is the oldest in the city and prettiest in that light. The roads round the lake are narrow in places and the traffic isn’t always polite, so a weekday is calmer than a Sunday.

West Lake Ho Tay Vietadvisor — Coffee, sunsets, and the oldest pagoda in town

Tay Ho West Lake scaled Vietadvisor — Coffee, sunsets, and the oldest pagoda in town

Truc Bach

The small lake right next to it, is quieter and more residential, with lakeside snail and beer places and almost no tourists, and it’s where I’d point anyone who wants to stay somewhere calmer than the Old Quarter but still walk to it. Where to stay in Hanoi goes through the areas properly.

Ba Dinh, Dong Da and Cau Giay are where most Hanoians actually live, and the part of the city most lists of things to do in Hanoi skip, with dense networks of lanes, local markets and pho shops that never see a menu in English.

There’s nothing to tick off. Walking into a few lanes off any main road for an hour is one of the more interesting things to do in Hanoi, and it’s free.

Grab a bike to Truc Bach 2 scaled Vietadvisor — A calmer corner to walk and eat like a local

Grab a bike to Truc Bach 4 scaled Vietadvisor — A calmer corner to walk and eat like a local

Things to Do in Hanoi: Practical Questions

How many days do you need in Hanoi? Three is right for the city. Add a day for each trip out, and Ninh Binh is the day trip I’d choose first.

What can you do in Hanoi when it’s raining? The museums, the Temple of Literature, the water puppets, a cooking class, and long coffees. The Hanoi cooking class and a street food tour both run in the rain.

What are the best things to do in Hanoi with kids? The walking street at the weekend, the water puppets, West Lake on a bicycle and the Museum of Ethnology’s garden houses.

When is the best time to visit? October and November are the best months here, cool and dry. December to February is cold and grey, 13 to 17 degrees with no heating, and May to August is very hot.

Is it safe to walk around Hanoi at night? Yes, with ordinary care for the traffic.

Is Hanoi worth visiting? I think so, though it isn’t for everyone, and is Hanoi worth visiting goes through who it suits and who it doesn’t.

Fitting It All Into a Hanoi Trip

On a first trip I’d do the famous things to do in Hanoi in the middle of the day and keep the mornings and late evenings for everything else. Before booking anything, I’d look at which days of the week my mornings fall on, since the mausoleum is only open Tuesday to Thursday and at weekends, and the walking street only happens Friday to Sunday.

I wouldn’t go to the Old Quarter train street to be escorted past a barrier, I wouldn’t sit on Ta Hien past ten, and I wouldn’t spend a whole stay in the Old Quarter without a morning at the lake and an evening by West Lake.

Hanoi Local Life: Best Things to Do & Explore in 2027

Best Things to Do in Hanoi: The List I Give Friends

Hanoi in the Morning: Hoan Kiem Lake Before Seven

Things to Do in Hanoi Old Quarter