On a map, central Vietnam looks like a long weekend. Phong Nha, Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An sit on one stretch of coast, and none of them is far from the next. On the ground, the Hai Van range cuts that coast in two, the drive from Hue to Phong Nha takes most of a morning, and every change of hotel costs half a day. When a central Vietnam itinerary goes wrong, it is usually the order of travel, not the number of days.
The short answer to how many days you need: three days covers Hue and Hoi An, and five adds either the DMZ or Phong Nha. Seven covers the whole line from Phong Nha to Hoi An without rushing, and ten lets you slow down or add the places in between. Below are the four plans, the bases and drives each one uses, and what those drives cost with us wherever a leg has a fixed price.
Three decisions that shape any itinerary
Before choosing a number of days, settle three things. Together they decide whether the trip moves in one direction or doubles back on itself.
Where you fly in and out
Da Nang has the region's international airport. Phu Bai, 15 km from Hue, and Dong Hoi, the airport for Phong Nha, handle mostly domestic flights. That gives you three doors, and the trick is to fly into one and out of another. Into Da Nang and out of Dong Hoi, or the other way round, and no road is driven twice. Fly in and out of Da Nang and the last day of the trip is a drive back south. Check which flights run on your dates before you fix the plan. How the roads compare with the train, the bus and domestic flights is covered in our guide to getting around central Vietnam.
Which way round
North to south (Phong Nha, Hue, Hoi An) or south to north (Hoi An, Hue, Phong Nha): both work, and our fixed prices for the legs to and from Hue are the same in either direction. What matters is that Hue sits in the middle. Taken in order, the Hai Van Pass is crossed once. Taken out of order, for example Hoi An first, then Phong Nha, then back to Da Nang for the flight home, and you drive the Hue to Hoi An road twice. Let your flights choose the direction.
How many bases
Our rule of thumb is two nights per base. A single night means you arrive in the late afternoon, sleep, and spend the next morning packing; the place gets one evening. Three bases cover almost every plan in this article: Phong Nha for the caves, Hue for the monuments and the DMZ, and Hoi An or Da Nang for the old town and the beach. Phong Nha is in Quang Tri province (it was Quang Binh until 2025), and Hoi An is now part of Da Nang city. Everything else, from Bach Ma to Ba Na Hills, works better as a day trip from one of those three than as a fourth hotel. Short trips bend the rule, and where a plan below does, it says so.
Three days: Hue and Hoi An
Three days is enough for the two places most visitors come for, provided you accept that each gets a day and an evening rather than a proper stay. This is the plan where the two-night rule cannot hold: one night in each town is the price of a short trip.
Day 1, Hue. Arrive at Phu Bai and spend the afternoon on the Imperial City, Thien Mu Pagoda and Khai Dinh's tomb, the half-day combination explained in our guide to Hue's monuments, and which to pair. Keep the evening for what to eat in Hue.
Day 2, Hue to Hoi An. South over the Hai Van Pass: 3–3.5 hours of driving, plus short photo stops at the Lap An lagoon, Lang Co and the summit. Hoi An for the evening.
Day 3, Hoi An. The old town in the morning, then Da Nang airport, 40–50 minutes away.
It suits a first visit that is one part of a longer Vietnam trip. What you give up is the DMZ and Phong Nha entirely, and any slack: a late flight or a wet morning takes a third of the plan with it. It also runs in reverse, from Da Nang airport to Hoi An first and out of Phu Bai at the end, at the same car cost.
The drive itself, with each stop and what it costs, is in Hue to Hoi An by Private Car: Route, Stops and Cost.
If you would rather not change hotels at all, Hoi An can be done as a day trip from Hue. It is possible but long, because it puts the Hue to Hoi An drive in both directions on the same day.
Car cost: Phu Bai to a Hue hotel (200,000 / 250,000 VND), the three-site Hue city tour (700,000 / 800,000) and Hue to Hoi An (1,600,000 / 1,800,000) come to 2,500,000 / 2,850,000 VND per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026. Da Nang airport to Hoi An also has a fixed price, which we give on request because it is not on our Routes page yet.
Five days: add the DMZ or Phong Nha
Two extra days buy one more subject, and the choice is between the war history north of Hue and the caves further north still. The DMZ is a day trip from Hue and needs no change of hotel. Phong Nha is easier with a night there, and moves the end of the trip north. If you cannot decide, the airport you fly out of usually decides for you.
Variant A: Hue and the DMZ
Day 1. Arrive at Phu Bai, settle into Hue, eat in the evening.
Day 2. The five-site Hue city tour, a full day.
Day 3. DMZ day trip, about 1.5 hours each way: the Hien Luong bridge and the Vinh Moc tunnels.
Day 4. Hue to Hoi An over the Hai Van Pass.
Day 5. Hoi An in the morning, then out from Da Nang.
Three nights in Hue and one in Hoi An: one hotel for most of the trip, and the calmer of the two variants. Car cost: Phu Bai to Hue, the five-site tour (1,000,000 / 1,100,000), the DMZ day (1,750,000 / 1,950,000) and Hue to Hoi An come to 4,550,000 / 5,100,000 VND per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026. Adding Khe Sanh, about two more hours of mountain road, makes the DMZ day 2,150,000 / 2,350,000 and the total 4,950,000 / 5,500,000.
Variant B: Hoi An to Phong Nha
Day 1. Arrive at Da Nang, drive to Hoi An, the old town in the evening.
Day 2. Hoi An in the morning, then over the pass to Hue.
Day 3. The five-site Hue city tour.
Day 4. Hue to Phong Nha: 3.5–4 hours of driving, plus the time you spend at the DMZ sites on the way.
Day 5. A cave in the morning, then out from Dong Hoi.
This is the busier variant: three bases in five days, two of them for a single night. It works because the trip only moves north, and because the DMZ stops on the Hue to Phong Nha drive are included in the car fare; the entrance tickets at those sites are a separate matter. Day 5 depends on a flight out of Dong Hoi late enough to fit a cave in first. If there is none, add a sixth day. Car cost: Hoi An to Hue (1,600,000 / 1,800,000), the five-site tour and Hue to Phong Nha (1,800,000 / 2,000,000) come to 4,400,000 / 4,900,000 VND per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026. Of the airport transfers at either end, the one from Da Nang has a fixed price given on request; the one to Dong Hoi is not a fixed-price route.
Phong Nha can also be seen as a long day trip from Hue, which keeps you in one hotel. It is possible; a night there is simply easier.
Seven days: Hoi An to Phong Nha
A week is the length at which the region stops being a compromise. You see the whole line from the caves to the old town, spend two nights in each base, and drive each road once.
Day 1. Arrive at Da Nang, drive to Hoi An.
Day 2. Hoi An, a full day.
Day 3. Hoi An to Hue over the Hai Van Pass, with stops.
Day 4. The five-site Hue city tour.
Day 5. Hue to Phong Nha, breaking the journey at the Vinh Moc tunnels or the DMZ sites.
Day 6. Phong Nha: the caves.
Day 7. Out from Dong Hoi.
Reversed, with Dong Hoi in and Da Nang out, the plan works the same way and the car legs cost the same. If the monuments matter more to you than the beach, move a night from Hoi An to Hue. For the driving time of each leg and what the road is like, see the distances and times for each route in our transport guide.
Car cost: Hoi An to Hue, the five-site city tour and Hue to Phong Nha come to 4,400,000 / 4,900,000 VND per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026, with the DMZ stops included in the Phong Nha leg. The transfer from Da Nang airport has a fixed price given on request; the transfer to Dong Hoi airport is not a fixed-price route.
There is also a fixed-price car straight from Hoi An to Phong Nha, 3,300,000 / 3,800,000 VND, and on paper it is tempting. In practice it is the longest drive in the region, it passes through Hue without stopping there, and it saves almost nothing. Hoi An to Hue plus Hue to Phong Nha costs 3,400,000 / 3,800,000 VND: 100,000 more in a 4-seat car, the same in a 7-seat, and it buys you Hue. Take the direct car only if you have already seen Hue.
Ten days: slow down, or add the extras
Ten days gives you two choices.
Slow down. Take the seven-day line and add a night to each base: three in Hoi An, three in Hue, three in Phong Nha. The extra Hue day can go to a second round of tombs, or to the full DMZ day with Khe Sanh, after which the drive to Phong Nha can go straight through. The fixed-price legs stay at 4,400,000 / 4,900,000 VND; with the Khe Sanh day added, the total is 6,550,000 / 7,250,000 VND per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026.
Add the places in between. These are day trips rather than bases, and none of them is one of our fixed-price tours. We can arrange any of these four as a private car on request, priced on request:
Bach Ma — a national park in the mountains between Hue and Da Nang. The road up is rougher than the highway.
My Son — the ruined Cham temple sanctuary in the hills inland from Hoi An.
Ba Na Hills — a mountaintop resort west of Da Nang, reached by cable car, with a mock-French village at the top.
Lang Co — the bay at the northern foot of the Hai Van Pass. It is already a stop on the Hue to Hoi An drive; with more time it can be a slow day of its own.
Closer to Hue, the countryside to the east, with the 18th-century covered bridge at Thanh Toan and the rice fields around it, and the Tam Giang lagoon on the coast north of the city are the easiest additions from a Hue hotel.
What each of these places is like is in our Central Vietnam Travel Guide: From Phong Nha to Hoi An.
What the driving costs
Our prices are per car, not per person, so the cost per head falls with every extra traveller. There are two sizes: a 4-seat sedan or compact SUV, and a 7-seat MPV. Adding up the fixed-price legs in each plan above, per car, 4-seat / 7-seat, October 2026:
Three days — 2,500,000 / 2,850,000 VND.
Five days with the DMZ — 4,550,000 / 5,100,000 VND; with Khe Sanh, 4,950,000 / 5,500,000 VND.
Five days with Phong Nha — 4,400,000 / 4,900,000 VND.
Seven days — 4,400,000 / 4,900,000 VND.
Ten days, with the Khe Sanh day — 6,550,000 / 7,250,000 VND.
Three things sit outside these sums. Da Nang–Hoi An, Da Nang airport included, has a fixed price that is not yet on our Routes page, so we give it on request; the transfer from Dong Hoi airport to Phong Nha is not a fixed-price route. The day trips in the ten-day plan are priced on request. And this article does not price entrance tickets; the 2026 monument prices are in our monuments guide.
If you would rather keep one car and one driver for the whole trip than book leg by leg, that is possible too: ask us for a multi-day quote.
Prices change. Our Routes page always shows the current price for each leg and each city tour, and you can book from there.
How the season changes the plan
October to December is the rainy season. Rain adds 15–30 minutes to the drives above and occasionally closes the Hai Van Pass road, in which case the car takes the tunnel and you lose the views rather than the day. In those months, keep the longest drive away from your last day. February to April is the most comfortable time for long days outdoors. May to August is hot enough that a midday break belongs in the plan: sightseeing early and late, the drive or a rest in between.
For the rest of the preparation, from visas to what to pack, see our central Vietnam travel tips.
Four mistakes that cost a day
Crossing the Hai Van Pass twice. Flying in and out of Da Nang with Phong Nha in the middle means driving the Hue to Hoi An road twice; fly out of Dong Hoi instead, or leave Phong Nha for another trip.
A string of one-night stops. Each one costs a morning of packing and checking out, and a trip built from them turns into a series of hotel lobbies.
Hoi An to Phong Nha in one drive. It is the longest drive in the region, it skips Hue, and splitting it at Hue costs almost the same.
All seven tombs in one day. Three is a full day and more is a checklist; our monuments guide explains which tombs to choose.
Next steps
Once you know the order, the number of nights in each base and the size of your group, our Routes page shows today's price for a 4-seat and a 7-seat car on each leg, and you can book from there.
The blog collects every guide we have published so far, and the about page tells you who we are.
