We have 34 places to stay in and around Hoi An.
Most guesthouses and hotels in Hoi An are within easy walking distance of the historic old quarter but relatively few are within its immediate confines. Those that are tend to be overpriced.
Hoi An has excellent options for mid-range and top-range budgets -- you can get a hotel with the works for US$50-100 -- but backpackers and flashpackers will struggle. Decent dorms cost around US$10 and will be a good 10-minute walk from the town; flashpackers will need to spend more than US$20 to get an acceptable level of cleanliness and comfort, but you do usually get bicycle and breakfast included.
The town is enormously popular, with too many package tours, and prices reflect this. The lines between the traditional high season and low season have blurred and prices fluctuate at any time with demand. That said, with so much competition and more hotels opening, we noticed deep discounts off rack rates online. If you walk into a small family-run guesthouse, you may be able to bargain a little. Any more formal establishment and the opposite is true. The staff don’t have the authority to give discounts and will quote you the rack rate, when you can simply go online and book it for up to 50% off. So frugal travellers, it is definitely worth doing some comparison shopping.
Cua Dai Beach runs eight kilometres from the Cham island ferry port north to An Bang beach. Once the darling of Hoi An with its rough-grained white sand and restaurants and resorts, Cua Dai is now affected by severe coastal erosion and its disappearance has accelerated in recent years. Flash resorts have constructed their own protective walls and breakwaters; their rock walls aren’t the most pretty sight and it’s increasingly apparent that if your main purpose of staying at a resort is for the beach, this is not the place. Hotels here still deliver on the ocean views, swimming pool, restaurants and services -- however, expect a very small sized patch of sand, if any. Cua Dai has lost a bit of lustre but that means rates have dropped in recent years and there are discounts to be had.
Cua Dai Street runs for six kilometres from Hoi An town east, out to Cua Dai Beach. You’ll need transport to town and it’s also rather far from the ocean -- it isn’t a great location so the only reason you’d want to stay here is for the property itself, which is why we’ve covered just four excellent hotels in the US$40-80 range and one good backpacker dig.
Aside from Hammock Homestay (below), camping is available on the island. At Bai Chong, on the western side of the island, two kilometres south from the village Cham Restaurant charges 200,000 dong a night to rent a tent. This is by far the best beach camping option on the island and the restaurant can serve breakfast, lunch or dinner. There are also tents available to rent on Bai Ong, the beach a kilometre north from town. While this beach gets hundreds of day tourists, all shops close at 16:00 and by sunset it is completely deserted leaving you with no food options or company. We met a couple of backpackers who discovered this the hard way after paying 150,000 dong for a tent.
Visitors can still opt to do the basic homestay and you can easily find several once you get off the jetty and walk around Bai Lang village. The few we saw were a bit grim and long in the tooth. There are more homestay options in Bai Huong, the fishing village near the southern tip. They can be organised through Homestay Bai Huong, which helps travellers connect with one of nine small family homes with basic Western-standard facilities, set up to help the fishing villagers with tourist income. It’s a fixed price system of 120,000 dong per person, per night, extra for meals.
Cham Island's first guesthouse of quality