Hoa Lo Prison 2027: Tickets, Hours and the Hanoi Hilton

Hoa Lo Prison is the surviving corner of the Hanoi jail the French called Maison Centrale, later the "Hanoi Hilton" of the American war. A day ticket is 50,000 VND (about US$2), children under 16 go in free, and it opens 8am to 5pm every day with no lunch break. Most people need 60 to 90 minutes.

It is worth it, with one warning. Most of the space tells the French colonial story, and the short American section shows the pilots as well treated. The gap between that and what they later wrote is the most interesting thing in the building.

Hoa Lo Prison Museum, Hanoi: tickets and opening hours

These are the prices on the museum's own daytime ticket notice, dated 3 March 2025 and still the published tariff when we checked in October 2026. Buy at the main gate; there is nothing to book ahead.

There is no lunch break. Older itineraries show it shutting from 11:30 to 13:30; the official notice says it runs straight through.

The audio guide is rented at the entrance. The museum publishes no price for it, and recent guides quote 30,000 to 100,000 VND, so carry 100,000 VND in cash. It earns its fee in the French section, where the panels assume you know who the prisoners were.

The Maison Centrale gate, where the day tickets are sold. Photo: Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; CC BY 2.0. Photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0.

Maison Centrale: the French prison

The Governor of Indochina approved the plans on 27 April 1896. According to the museum's history of the build, the finished jail covered 12,908 square metres inside walls 5 metres high and half a metre thick, with four watchtowers. Two pagodas were demolished for it.

Almost none of that is left. Most of the complex was demolished in 1993 for the Hanoi Towers, and the surviving southern section was listed as a relic in 1997. You walk through a slice of it.

The French-era blocks hold the communal cells: long concrete platforms with a single iron bar running along the foot, to which rows of prisoners were shackled by the ankle, the dark punishment cells and the guillotine.

The guillotine is the French machine itself, wooden frame, bench and metal basket, in a darkened room of its own. If you are visiting with young children, decide before you enter whether you will walk them past it.

The French guillotine, kept in its own darkened room. Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China; CC0. Photo: Gary Todd, CC0.

Two escapes get the most wall space. On 9 March 1945, in the chaos after Japan took control of Indochina from the French, more than 100 political prisoners got out, many through the prison sewer. One of them was Do Muoi. On 24 December 1951, 16 more, most of them under sentence of death or life, went out through the sewer under the death cells.

Five former inmates later led the Communist Party as General Secretary: Nguyen Van Cu, Truong Chinh, Le Duan, Nguyen Van Linh and Do Muoi. That is the museum's argument. Hoa Lo made the revolution's leaders, so its prisoners are shown as heroes, not victims.

A model scene labelled "Struggle against terrorism by the enemy". The figures are reconstructions, not relics. Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China; CC0. Photo: Gary Todd, CC0.

The same colonial history continues outdoors on a self-guided French Quarter walk, starting at St Joseph's Cathedral, about 650 metres north.

The Hanoi Hilton: American POWs at Hoa Lo Prison, Vietnam

Everett Alvarez, a Navy pilot shot down on 5 August 1964, was the first American held here, in the section the prisoners called Heartbreak Hotel. He was released in February 1973, after more than eight years. The best-known inmate is John McCain, shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and pulled out of Truc Bach Lake.

The American rooms are a smaller section near the end of the route. You will see a flight suit and helmet labelled as McCain's, photographs of prisoners at leisure and at Christmas, and a wall of release photographs from 1973.

McCain came back on 8 April 2009 and looked at that display. He told reporters the boots did not look like the ones he wore and his old name tag was not on the suit, according to the AP report of his visit.

The 1973 release wall: the Paris Peace Accords signing above, prisoners leaving for Gia Lam airport below. Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China; CC0. Photo: Gary Todd, CC0.

What the museum leaves out

The panels say the Americans were treated humanely. The men held there said otherwise after Operation Homecoming, which began flying 591 released prisoners out on 12 February 1973. They described rope bindings, leg irons, beatings and months of solitary, and PBS's history of the camps places some of the worst of it in specially equipped rooms at Hoa Lo itself.

None of this is on the walls. The US Air Force museum's account of the prisons is the quickest counterweight.

Hoa Lo was also one of at least ten camps. The Zoo opened in September 1965 and Camp Hope at Son Tay in May 1968, so not every story you have read happened in these rooms. The years after 1973, when it held Vietnamese prisoners until closing around 1990, are not covered at all.

It is a museum with a point of view, like the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. If you plan both, space them out.

Is Hoa Lo Prison worth visiting?

Yes, if you care how Vietnam tells its own history, or about the French colonial period. It is central, cheap, and done in under two hours.

Less so if you came only for the short, one-sided American story. On a tight day, weigh it against the Vietnamese Women's Museum, 600 metres away. The Vietnam Military History Museum has the aircraft and tanks, and needs its own trip across town.

Inside, it is cramped, and the courtyard has little shade. From May to September, go at 8am, carry water, and save the outdoor things to do in Hanoi for the evening.

The Hoa Lo night tour

The night programme, Sacred Night, is sold separately from the day ticket. At its 2020 launch with Hanoitourist it ran at 7pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for 45 minutes, led by museum staff through the cellars and cell blocks, with phones and photography banned.

Participants must be over 16, the exact age at which children stop getting in free by day. It was launched for domestic visitors, so ask whether an English session runs on your date.

No official fare is published. Resellers in 2025 and 2026 list themed nights at 399,000 to 499,000 VND, about US$16 to US$20. Ring the museum on 024 3934 2253, or use the contacts on the official Hoa Lo website, before paying anyone.

A museum print of what survives, with the newer buildings pressed up behind. Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China; CC0. Photo: Gary Todd, CC0.

Fitting Hoa Lo into a Hanoi day

The address is 1 Hoa Lo, Hoan Kiem district, about 1 km southwest of Hoan Kiem Lake.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum only opens in the morning, so do that first and Hoa Lo after lunch.

Phong Nha is an overnight sleeper train or bus south, and our Hanoi to Phong Nha route guide compares the options. Once you arrive, the cheapest way into the jungle is a guided day trek in Phong Nha-Ke Bang that runs all year.