Hoi An - The World’s Top 15 Attractive Cities by travelandleisure.com

The popular Travel Leisure magazine of the US has announced the top 15 tourist cities voted by readers in the world of which Hoi An ancient town of Vietnam ranks 8th. The vote is based on tourism, landscape, culture, cuisine, friendliness, shopping services, and the overall value of the city. Let’s explore how Hoi An attracts many tourists in the world with Asiapackagetravel.

Hoi An ancient town is located in the downstream Thu Bon river, Quang Nam province. Once as a busy international port in the 17th and 18th centuries, Hoi An still retains the harmonious beauty of the diverse traditional Asian cultures.

Tourism

Hoi An is one of the best places to visit in Vietnam and recently has become a tourist spot attracting millions of both domestic and foreign travelers each year. Parallel with the increasing number of tourist to the town, Hoi An also develops many tourism services to serve them as well as boost its credibility in the map of the world. Visiting Hoi An, travelers will immerse themselves in a peaceful and pleasant space with many unique attractions that nowhere in the world can offer.

The featured yellow color of the houses in Hoi An (hoianworldheritage.org.vn)

Landscape

Hoi An ancient town is a harmony between natural and human creations, a combination of old houses, bridge, river, boats, confetti flowers, green tree, and lights, etc. All of them has created a rustic yet colorful picture, bringing a breath of history of the region.

Embellishing for the featured yellow walls, red-tiled roofs, and square streets of Hoi An is the rich greenery, bonsai trees, and colorful flowers. In here, visitors can easily catch the confetti flowers, banana inflorescence, lotus, banana trees, and palms, etc along the roads, in every corner of the houses. It seems that in this small town, people and nature are living together. Hence, the climate here is also really fresh and cool, especially in the early morning and at night.

Let’s enjoy the fresh and cool atmosphere while walking around the ancient streets and watching the dreaming Hoai river. Also, biking along the streets of Hoi An is definitely an interesting experience that you should try once. In the evening, along Hoai river, travelers will see a lot of young people take pictures with the shining colorful lanterns. These lanterns are the unique feature of Hoi An. Besides that, they can also have a boat tour and drop the flower lights down the river.

Hoi An banh mi - a must-try specialty in the ancient town

Culture

Hoi An is famous for the beauty of traditional architecture and the harmony of houses, walls, and roads. Along with the ups and downs of history, the ancient town has still existing in almost intact appearance with the ancient and taciturn beauty of mossy style with more than 1000 architectural relics from streets, houses, communal houses, pagodas, shrines, family churches, and ancient well to the traditional food as the idyllic feature in character and soul of the local people.

Bridge pagoda is a pearl in the heart of Hoi An. Lying across the creek flowing into the Thu Bon river, the bridge was built in the late 16th century and also called the Japanese bridge. In the middle, there is a small shrine worshiping the Huyen Thien Great Emperor. It is quite unique with the harmonious combination between Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Western architectural styles.

Relaxing in the fresh atmosphere of Hoi An (hoian.gov.vn)

Besides Bridge pagoda, visitors can admire the traditional relics inside Tan Ky ancient house, Quang Dong and Phuc Kien communal houses. Tan Ky ancient house is over 200 years old. With the typical architecture of the old style, the ancient house has its own character and simplicity, expressing the interaction with other architectural styles of China and Japan. Quang Dong and Phuc Kien were initially built to worship the Holy Mother and Confucius. The rational use of wood and stone in structure and decoration has brought the imposing and unique beauty for them.

Cuisine

In Hoi An, tourists can taste several dishes creating a featured color for the Vietnamese cuisine such as chicken rice eaten with onion, papaya, aromatic vegetables, chicken heart, and liver; “banh mi” which is the harmony of ham, liverwurst, sausage, cheese, bacon, vegetables, and sauces; “cao lau” like Chinese and Japanese noodle but still featuring unique Hoi An style; or dumpling and “vac” cake with esoteric spices that make these dishes tasty only in Hoi An, etc.

Many activities on full moon festival (chudu24.com)

Besides, visitors can try many street foods here like sweet soups, shrimp pancake, bloating fern-shaped cake, and tube ice-cream, etc. There is also a kind of drink that everyone should not miss on hot summer days - “Mot” herbal tea. The drink is made of herbs and aromatics such as honeysuckle, cinnamon, lemon, and lemongrass, etc. With a glass of water decorated eye-catching and costing only VND 10,000, “Mot” tea is a favorite drink and a "check-in" destination of tourists coming to Hoi An.

Friendliness

People here are very friendly and hospitable. They have the motto that is not selling expensively to tourists, even when tourists come here to eat and spend money, they will say why they buy too much. Hoi An people's rusticity and simpleness are reflected in the ancient town itself. Through hundreds of years, Hoi An still maintains the street with old houses, mossy roofs mixed with the happy voice, laughter, and greetings of people.

Bridge pagoda - a symbol of Hoi An

Shopping services

The price level for a visit to Hoi An is quite cheap compared to other famous places in Vietnam and in the world, from the costs of transportation in the town, accommodation to shopping and eating. Furthermore, these services are standardized to meet the demands of travelers, including attitude, product and service quality, investment, and conservation. As a result, the number of tourist to Hoi An is increasing in recent years.

Mot herbal tea - an attraction in Hoi An (hoianvn.com)

Overall value

For Vietnam in particular and the world in general, besides the aesthetic value, Hoi An ancient town plays a necessary role in the conservation of cultural and historical values. Moreover, these values do not stop at being conserved, they are developed step by step and promoted its advantage to successfully attract visitors around the world. Tourism is the main product of Hoi An, contributing to the development of the town and Vietnam in the process of integration into the world.

With the important position in tourism, Hoi An ancient town is progressively expanding beyond the Vietnamese border to the world as a place of simple, peaceful yet brilliant and charming beauty. If you like this Vietnam tour, don’t hesitate to like and share with your friends. Hope to see you in many other wonderful journeys of our country. Thank you.