Nha Trang is the easiest beach city in Vietnam to do on your own. Its airport is 35 km from the sand. Most visitors need no visa or a cheap e-visa. Everything worth the trip fits into five days: a city with 1,000-year-old Cham towers, islands with living coral, a waterfall in the jungle and the hill town of Dalat two passes away. I lived in Vietnam for several months and came back to Nha Trang more than once. This is the plan I give friends, with 2026 prices in dong. Count roughly 26,000 dong to the dollar.
Getting There and When to Go
Cam Ranh International Airport (CXR) sits on a peninsula south of the city. There are no nonstop flights from Europe or North America. You connect in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet or Bamboo, and the domestic hop takes about an hour and costs 30 to 60 dollars. Direct international flights come from Seoul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and several Chinese cities. Citizens of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Nordic countries, Japan and South Korea get 45 days visa-free. Americans, Canadians and Australians apply for a 90-day e-visa online for 25 dollars, and it takes three to five working days.
Airport to center takes 40 to 50 minutes. Bus 18 runs to Tran Phu street for 65,000 dong, about every half hour from 5 am to 8 pm, with luggage in the hold. A metered Mai Linh or Vinasun taxi costs 350,000 to 450,000 dong. Grab is usually cheaper at 280,000 to 350,000, but you wait for the car outside the terminal. If you land late with children, a private airport transfer booked ahead means a driver with a sign and no negotiation.
Nha Trang’s weather runs opposite to the rest of Vietnam. Dry season runs from January to August. March to May is best for the sea, when the water is clear and flat. June and July are hot, up to 34°C, with almost no rain. Rain comes in October and November. Boats to the islands are cancelled when the swell picks up. I would not plan a trip for those two months. December and January are the transition: you can swim, and the showers are short.
Days One and Two, the City Itself
Nha Trang runs along a six-kilometer beach, and the center is walkable. I suggest giving the first two days to the city and the sea in front of your hotel, to shake off the flight.
Po Nagar Towers and Long Son Pagoda
Po Nagar’s towers stand on a hill above the Cai river. Cham builders raised them between the 8th and 13th centuries. Nothing in the city is older. Entry is 30,000 dong, open 6 am to 6 pm. Come at opening. Buses arrive by ten. Its main tower is still a place of worship. Cover shoulders and knees; robes are handed out at the gate.
From there it is a 15-minute taxi to Long Son Pagoda. Entry is free. Then 152 steps lead up to a white Buddha 24 meters tall with a view over the whole city. People on the steps offer incense or ask for a donation to “guard your shoes.” Decline politely; they are not temple staff.
Dam Market and Hon Chong
Dam Market is the round building in the old center, open from 5 am. Fish and fruit downstairs, clothes and souvenirs upstairs. Buy fruit here rather than on the seafront: mangoes cost 30,000 to 40,000 dong a kilo, twice that on the promenade. Bargaining makes sense on souvenirs, not on food, where prices are already low.
Hon Chong is a pile of granite boulders at the north end of the beach, entry 30,000 dong. It is worth exactly 20 minutes and there is nowhere further to walk. Cafes next to it look over the bay, and a coffee with condensed milk costs 25,000 to 30,000 dong instead of 70,000 on the seafront.
Mud Baths
Spend the evening of day two in a mud bath. Thap Ba next to the Po Nagar towers is the famous one, I-Resort across the river is the best kept. At I-Resort a shared mineral mud bath plus the pools costs about 350,000 dong, and a private tub for two starts at 600,000. A taxi from the center is 80,000 to 100,000 dong. After the mud come warm pools and a waterfall, and the whole thing takes three hours.
Day Three, the Islands
Four islands close off Nha Trang bay, and a boat day around them is the main reason people come. A classic route means snorkeling at Hon Mun, where the coral is healthiest, lunch at a fish farm, a swim at Hon Mot and a beach stop on Hon Tam. Group tours with lunch cost 500,000 to 700,000 dong per person and run from 8 am to 4 pm. Boats leave Cau Da port at 8:30, so hotel pickup is at 7:30.
Pick a tour that gives snorkeling at least an hour, not 20 minutes squeezed between lunch and a floating bar. The Hon Mun marine park snorkeling tour is built around the water rather than the party. Masks and snorkels are provided, but your own always fits better. A marine park fee of 22,000 dong is sometimes included in the price and sometimes collected on the boat.
Which islands are worth the stop and which are a floating bar is covered in our guide to the Nha Trang islands by boat. Vinpearl on Hon Tre island is a separate story. It is a theme park with a water park, an aquarium and a cable car across the sea. An adult ticket for VinWonders with the cable car costs around 900,000 dong, less for children under 140 cm. With kids, give it a whole day and take it instead of the boat tour, not on top of it. Adults without children usually do not need it.
Day Four, a Waterfall and a Beach in the North
Ba Ho waterfall lies 25 km north of the city. It is three cascades rather than one wall of water, and you scramble over boulders between them. Entry is 100,000 dong, and you need closed shoes; flip-flops are useless on the rocks. Water is cool in the morning. Groups arrive around noon. Leave by 8.
Further up the same road, 45 km from Nha Trang, is Doc Let beach. White sand, shallow warm water and an almost empty shore on weekdays. Entry is about 100,000 dong per person including a sunbed. A fishing village next door serves crab and prawns for lunch at 200,000 to 300,000 dong a kilo.
A rented scooter is the natural way to get here, the road is good and nearly straight, but you need an international driving permit with a motorcycle category. Without one, a half-day trip to Ba Ho waterfall or a car with a driver for the day at 1.2 to 1.5 million dong is simpler.
Day Five, Dalat or Bai Dai
Two options for the last day. First, Dalat, a hill town 135 km from the coast. Driving there takes three and a half hours over a switchback pass, so a day trip means seven hours in a car for six hours in town. Pine forests, French villas, Datanla waterfall with its toboggan, coffee plantations and a night market. Dalat is cool at 18 to 22°C, so bring a sweater. If you can spare a night there, the side trips from Nha Trang article explains why two days in Dalat beat one. Phuong Trang buses cost 180,000 to 250,000 dong one way and run hourly, and a full-day Dalat trip from Nha Trang skips the transfers and includes the entry tickets.
If seven hours on the road is not your idea of a holiday, the second option is Bai Dai beach next to the airport. It is long, wide, clean and has three or four cafes along the whole strip. From the center it is 40 minutes and about 300,000 dong by taxi. It pairs well with departure day: morning on Bai Dai, lunch at a beach cafe, then ten minutes to the terminal.
Where to Stay and What Five Days Cost
For a first visit I recommend the first or second row on Tran Phu street between Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and Nguyen Thien Thuat streets. From here Cau Da port is a 20-minute walk, Dam Market 25, and the sea is across the road. Further north is quieter and cheaper, but you will take a taxi to everything.
A fair guide to March prices: a clean three-star on the second row such as Lavender Nha Trang Hotel costs 25 to 35 dollars a night, a four-star with a rooftop pool like Prime New Hotel is 45 to 60, and the five-star Sheraton Nha Trang on the seafront starts at 130. In the rainy season all of this drops by a third.
A five-day budget for one person at a mid-range level of comfort:
- Hotel, four nights in a three-star on the second row: 120 to 140 dollars.
- Food, mixing street cafes and restaurants: 15 to 20 dollars a day. Pho costs 45,000 to 60,000 dong, a seafood dinner 250,000 to 400,000.
- Tours: islands 25 dollars, Ba Ho and Doc Let 30, Dalat 35 to 40.
- Transport: taxis around town 30,000 to 60,000 dong a ride, Grab on a scooter 15,000 to 25,000.
- Entry tickets: Po Nagar, Hon Chong, mud baths, the waterfall, about 500,000 dong together.
That adds up to 350 to 400 dollars without flights. Cash is needed almost everywhere. Agribank and VietinBank ATMs pay out up to 5 million dong per withdrawal with a 50,000 to 60,000 dong fee, and foreign Visa and Mastercard work in all of them. Gold shops around Dam Market change dollars at a better rate than the banks.
