20 Best Things to Do in Hanoi, Vietnam (With Prices)

The best things to do in Hanoi are a dawn lap of Hoan Kiem Lake, the Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, Hoa Lo Prison and a bowl of bun cha, plus a day in Ninh Binh. Most sights cost 40,000 to 100,000 dong, about 1.50 to 4 US dollars, and two full days covers the city.

The list below has 20 things in the order we would do them, with the ticket price, the time each one takes and the day it shuts. Prices were checked in October 2026 at about 26,000 dong to the dollar. Several Hanoi tickets more than doubled in January 2024, so any guide still quoting 30,000 dong for the Temple of Literature is out of date.

Things to do in Hanoi at a glance

Read the last column before planning. Monday is the worst day for sightseeing in Hanoi, because the mausoleum, the citadel and two of the museums are all shut. Use a Monday for the Old Quarter, the lake, Hoa Lo and food.

The 20 best things to do in Hanoi

1. Walk around Hoan Kiem Lake at dawn

By 5:30 in the morning the path around the lake is full of people doing tai chi, aerobics and badminton, and by 7:00 they have gone to work. The loop is about 1.7 km and takes 25 to 40 minutes. The red bridge leads to Ngoc Son Temple, which costs 50,000 dong and opens at 8:00. Our Hoan Kiem Lake guide has the map and the story of the sword.

2. Get lost in the Old Quarter

The 36 streets north of the lake were each named for the trade that worked there: Hang Bac for silver, Hang Ma for paper offerings, Hang Gai for silk. Many still sell the same thing. Go between 8:00 and 10:00, before the heat and the tour groups, and keep walking when a pavement turns into a motorbike park. We cover the area street by street in our guide to the Old Quarter.

3. See the Temple of Literature

Vietnam's first university was founded here in 1076, six years after the temple itself was built, and 82 stone slabs on the backs of carved turtles list the men who passed the royal exams between 1442 and 1779. Entry is 70,000 dong and the gates open from 8:00 to 17:00. Students in graduation gowns pose in the third courtyard most weekends. A lit evening tour runs on some nights for 199,000 dong.

The Khue Van pavilion dates from 1805 and appears on the 100,000 dong note. Photo: Zesus / Google Maps.

4. Queue for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

Entry is free, the queue moves fast and nobody is allowed to stop, talk or take photographs inside. It opens only in the morning, from 7:30 to 10:30 between April and October and from 8:00 to 11:00 the rest of the year, and never on Mondays or Fridays. Shoulders and knees must be covered.

The mausoleum also shuts for about two months every autumn for maintenance. In 2026 that closure runs from 4 September to 2 November, so it is shut until it reopens on 3 November. The square outside, the One Pillar Pagoda and the palace grounds stay open through it.

5. Walk the Presidential Palace grounds and the stilt house

Behind the mausoleum, a 40,000 dong ticket covers the gardens, the carp pond and the two-room wooden house on stilts where Ho Chi Minh lived from 1958 to 1969 instead of in the French governor's palace next door. The palace itself is yellow, enormous and closed to visitors. Allow an hour, and do it straight after the mausoleum because it shuts for lunch at 11:00.

6. Go inside Hoa Lo Prison

The French built it in 1896 to hold Vietnamese political prisoners. American pilots held here between 1964 and 1973 called it the Hanoi Hilton. Most of it was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a tower block, and the museum fills the corner that was kept. It is 50,000 dong, open 8:00 to 17:00 every day, and the audio guide is worth the extra money because the wall text tells one side with some enthusiasm.

7. Explore the Thang Long Imperial Citadel

This was the seat of Vietnamese power for most of 13 centuries and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2010. What stands today is a mix: an 1812 flag tower, a gate, excavated palace foundations and the D67 bunker where the North Vietnamese command sat out the American bombing. It costs 100,000 dong and shuts on Mondays. Skip it if old stones leave you cold, because there is less to look at than the ticket price suggests.

8. Watch a train pass on Train Street

The cafes along the track have been ordered shut, reopened and fenced off several times since 2019. In early 2026 the city proposed stopping passenger trains on this stretch, and on 27 February 2026 the Ministry of Construction and the city agreed instead to run fewer passenger trains and to stop freight trains through the street. Visitors still get in, but access depends on which section you try, and the authorities still tell tour operators not to bring groups. Check the current timetable and status in our Hanoi Train Street guide before you walk over.

9. Drink an egg coffee

Nguyen Van Giang invented it in 1946, when fresh milk was scarce and he was working the bar at the Metropole hotel. Whisked yolk, sugar and condensed milk sit on top of strong robusta, and it tastes closer to tiramisu than to breakfast. His family still runs Cafe Giang on Nguyen Huu Huan street, where a cup is roughly 40,000 to 60,000 dong. The other good addresses are in our list of the best egg coffee in Hanoi.

10. Eat bun cha for lunch

Bun cha is Hanoi's own dish: grilled pork patties and belly in a bowl of warm, sweet fish sauce, with cold rice noodles and a basket of herbs on the side. It is a lunch food and most stalls have sold out by 14:00. A set costs 45,000 to 70,000 dong. Pho is breakfast, at 50,000 to 80,000 dong a bowl, and the northern version comes with fewer herbs and a clearer broth than the one served abroad.

Bun cha is a lunch dish and most stalls have sold out by 14:00. Photo: Weetjesman, CC BY-SA 4.0.

11. Sit on a plastic stool with a bia hoi

Bia hoi is fresh draught beer, brewed that morning, about 3% alcohol and meant to be finished by closing time. A glass costs 7,000 to 15,000 dong, which is 30 to 60 US cents. The crossroads of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen is the famous spot and the loudest. Any corner with a steel keg and locals on low stools pours the same beer.

12. See a water puppet show

Puppeteers stand waist-deep in water behind a bamboo screen and work wooden figures on long poles, to live music. The art began in the flooded rice fields of the Red River delta about a thousand years ago. The Thang Long theatre beside the lake runs several 50-minute shows every afternoon and evening, usually from 16:10, with later slots at 18:30 and 20:00 on most days. Seats cost roughly 100,000 to 200,000 dong depending on the row, and resellers charge more. It is in Vietnamese and nobody needs the words. Buy at the box office the day before for the evening slots.

13. Join the weekend walking streets

From 19:00 on Friday to midnight on Sunday, the roads around Hoan Kiem Lake close to traffic. Families rent toy cars, teenagers play jianzi with a shuttlecock, and buskers set up every 50 metres. The night market runs the same three evenings along Hang Dao up to Dong Xuan Market. Go for the atmosphere and the grilled skewers. The clothes and phone cases are the same ones sold everywhere else.

14. Walk the French Quarter

South-east of the lake the streets widen and the buildings turn yellow. The Opera House opened in 1911 as a smaller copy of the Palais Garnier in Paris, and the Metropole hotel across the road has been taking guests since 1901. St Joseph's Cathedral, finished in 1886, is a ten-minute walk west. Our French Quarter walking tour strings them together in about two hours.

15. Spend two hours at the Museum of Ethnology

This is the best museum in Hanoi and the one most visitors skip, because it sits 8 km west of the Old Quarter. Vietnam has 54 recognised ethnic groups, and the museum's garden holds full-size houses built by craftsmen from several of them, including a Bahnar communal house with a 19-metre roof that visitors can climb into. Entry is 40,000 dong, 8:30 to 17:30, closed on Mondays. Allow 25 minutes each way by car.

The garden houses were built on site by craftsmen from the communities they come from. Photo: Robert Szeremeta / Google Maps.

16. Visit the Vietnamese Women's Museum

Four floors cover marriage customs, childbirth, street vendors and the women who fought in two wars, and the audio guide interviews are the strongest part. It is 40,000 dong, open 8:00 to 17:00, and a five-minute walk from Hoa Lo Prison, so the two fit into one morning.

17. Watch the sun go down over West Lake

West Lake is the largest lake in the city, with a shoreline of about 17 km. Tran Quoc Pagoda stands on a small island off its eastern shore, dates from the sixth century and is free to enter. The sky behind its red brick tower turns orange at about 17:30 in winter and 18:30 in summer. We compare this with six other viewpoints in our guide to the best sunset spots in Hanoi.

18. Cross Long Bien Bridge to Banana Island

The iron bridge over the Red River opened in 1902 and was bombed and patched so many times during the war that only part of the original span survives. Trains, motorbikes and pedestrians still share it. Halfway across, a staircase drops to a strip of farmland in the middle of the river, which our Banana Island cycling guide covers. Go early, wear closed shoes and expect mud.

19. See the tanks and aircraft at the Military History Museum

The museum moved in November 2024 from the city centre to a new 74-hectare site on Thang Long Boulevard, about 12 km west of the lake. The yard holds a MiG-21, captured American aircraft and the tank that broke through the palace gate in Saigon in 1975. It costs 40,000 dong, opens 8:00 to 11:30 and 13:00 to 16:30, and shuts on Mondays and Fridays. Older guides still send people to the former address on Dien Bien Phu street.

20. Throw a pot in Bat Trang

Bat Trang has made ceramics since the 14th century and sits 13 km south-east of the centre, across the river. Bus 47A leaves from Long Bien station and takes about 40 minutes. The village is free to walk around, and a session at a potter's wheel costs 50,000 to 150,000 dong depending on the workshop, plus a little more to have the piece fired. Bring cash, because almost no shop takes cards.

Free things to do in Hanoi

Seven of the 20 cost nothing: the lake at dawn, the Old Quarter, the mausoleum, the weekend walking streets, the French Quarter, Tran Quoc Pagoda and Long Bien Bridge. St Joseph's Cathedral is free as well, though the doors only open around mass times, early in the morning and again at about 18:00. A visitor who paid for every ticketed sight in the table above, with the cheapest puppet seat, would spend 530,000 dong, about 20 US dollars.

Things to do in Hanoi at night

Hanoi goes to bed early by Asian standards. Most bars in the Old Quarter stop serving around midnight, and the bia hoi corners empty before that. The best evenings are the cheap ones: the walking streets from Friday to Sunday, a puppet show at 18:30 or 20:00, then beer on Ta Hien.

Three of the heritage sites also run evening tours with lighting and actors. The Temple of Literature tour is 199,000 dong, the Thang Long Citadel tour is 300,000 dong on Friday and Saturday at 19:00, and the Hoa Lo Prison night tour, quoted at roughly 300,000 to 500,000 dong, has to be booked in advance through the prison's own page.

By 19:00 these stools fill the whole junction and a glass of bia hoi costs 7,000 to 15,000 dong. Photo: Google Maps.

Day trips from Hanoi

Ninh Binh is the one to choose with a single spare day. The boats at Trang An and Tam Coc pass through low river caves under the hills, and the 500 steps at Mua Cave give the view on every postcard. Our Hanoi to Ninh Binh guide compares the train, the limousine van and the bus.

Halong Bay as a day trip means five hours in a vehicle for four on the water. If that is all the time there is, read our notes on getting from Hanoi to Halong Bay first, then decide. Most people are happier with one night aboard.

Perfume Pagoda is a pilgrimage before it is a sightseeing trip. During the festival, from the sixth day of the lunar new year until late spring, the river is a queue of boats.

For caves, the options within a day of the capital are small and busy, and we list them honestly in our round-up of caves near Hanoi. The big ones are about 500 km south by road. Phong Nha has hundreds of known caves, and a 2026 expedition found 26 more. Reaching it takes an overnight train or a flight of about an hour to Dong Hoi, which our Hanoi to Phong Nha guide lays out. It is where we work, so we are biased. It is also where a guided day in a wild cave costs 1,950,000 dong with lunch, gear and porters included.

Where to stay in Hanoi

Ask for a room at the back in the Old Quarter. The difference between a street-facing window and a courtyard one is about two hours of sleep.

Getting around Hanoi

The centre is walkable, in the sense that distances are short. The pavements are used for parking and cooking, so most walking happens in the road. To cross, step out at a steady pace and do not stop or run. The motorbikes steer around a predictable walker.

For anything over 2 km use Grab, the ride-hailing app, which shows the price before you book. A motorbike seat costs about half the price of a car and gets through traffic faster. From Noi Bai airport, the orange 86 express bus to the Old Quarter costs 45,000 to 50,000 dong and takes about an hour, and a Grab car is 250,000 to 350,000 dong. The two metro lines are clean and cheap at 40,000 dong for a day pass. Neither reaches the Old Quarter yet.

The bridge opened in 1902 and still carries trains, motorbikes and pedestrians. Photo: Binh Nguyen / Google Maps.

How many days in Hanoi

Two full days is enough for the city. Put the mausoleum, the palace grounds and the Temple of Literature in one morning, since they sit within 1.5 km of each other, and Hoa Lo with the Women's Museum in another. A third day goes to Ninh Binh. Beyond four nights most visitors run out of sights and start repeating meals, which is not the worst way to spend a day here.

The weather matters more than people expect. December to February is grey and can drop to 10 degrees Celsius, with a fine drizzle that locals call mua phun. June to August reaches 35 degrees with afternoon downpours. October, November, March and April are the comfortable months.