Three days is enough to eat your way through a port city and still get two proper days on Cat Ba Island. This plan splits the time half-day by half-day, and includes a version for when the boats are not running.
Most foreign travelers give Hai Phong ninety minutes and a bowl of noodles on the road between Hanoi and the islands, which undersells the best eating city in northern Vietnam. Below is a Hai Phong itinerary 3 days long, broken down half-day by half-day, with a bad-weather alternative for when the boats are not running. The whole plan is built around one constraint: the sea crossing to Cat Ba Island takes roughly half a day in each direction, so it has to be protected from everything else.
Hai Phong itinerary 3 days at a glance
- Day 1: arrive from Hanoi, walk the French-era center, eat your way through the evening, sleep in the city
- Day 2: cross to Cat Ba Island early, spend the afternoon on the Cat Co beaches, watch sunset from Cannon Fort
- Day 3: a morning boat into Lan Ha Bay, then back across to the mainland and on to your next stop
Getting there from Hanoi
Hai Phong is about 100km (60 miles) east of Hanoi on a fast expressway, so allow roughly two hours by road. Buses and limousine minivans leave throughout the day and midweek you can usually turn up and go. The train takes about two and a half to three hours and is slower but more pleasant, and it puts you in the center of the city rather than at a bus station on the edge of it. If you are flying up from Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City, Cat Bi airport is a few kilometers from the middle of town.
Day 1: the French-era center and a long evening of eating
Leave Hanoi early and you will be checking in by mid-morning. Eat a bowl of banh da cua before you do anything else: chewy reddish rice noodles in a clear freshwater crab broth, the dish this city is known for. Then walk the central strip past the Opera House, an early twentieth-century French building, and Quan Hoa, the five tile-roofed pavilions in front of it that have sold flowers for generations. The Hai Phong Museum is a Gothic stone block on Dien Bien Phu street, and Tam Bac Lake is the easiest stroll in town.
- Morning: travel from Hanoi, check in, breakfast of banh da cua
- Midday: the central strip, the Opera House, Quan Hoa and the museum
- Afternoon: Den Nghe temple and Dinh Hang Kenh communal house, both almost tourist-free
- Evening: shellfish tables from about 4pm, then banh mi cay and a walk around Tam Bac Lake
Day 2: crossing to Cat Ba Island
Go early. There are three ways across: a fast boat from the city, a drive over the Tan Vu to Lach Huyen bridge onto Cat Hai island followed by the Got to Cai Vieng ferry, or the cross-sea cable car. Arrive in Cat Ba town around midday, check in and eat seafood. Spend the afternoon at the three Cat Co beaches, which are linked by a walkway cut into the cliff, then climb to Cannon Fort in the late afternoon. It is the best view on the island and the fastest way to understand the shape of the whole archipelago.
- Early morning: leave the mainland, cross by fast boat, ferry or cable car
- Midday: check in to Cat Ba town, seafood lunch by the harbor
- Afternoon: Cat Co beaches one, two and three, plus the cliff walkway between them
- Late afternoon: Cannon Fort for sunset, then dinner in town
Day 3: Lan Ha Bay, then back to the mainland
This is the best morning of the trip. Take a half-day boat tour from Ben Beo pier out through the floating fishing villages, stop to kayak between the limestone towers and swim off a small beach. Lan Ha Bay is the same karst system as Ha Long Bay and was inscribed by UNESCO alongside it in 2023, but it carries a fraction of the traffic. Be back at the pier in the early afternoon, eat, then cross to the mainland with time to buy a jar of chi chuong, the fermented chili sauce the city puts on everything.
The weak point of this plan is the morning of day two. On a summer weekend the Got ferry terminal can swallow an hour of queuing, and losing the morning costs you the best afternoon on the island. Cross before 9am, or leave the car on the mainland and take the fast boat instead.
The bad-weather version
- Day 1: unchanged, the city center and an evening of street food
- Day 2: the Do Son peninsula, the pine hills above the river mouth, and a boat to Hon Dau island for its French-built lighthouse
- Day 3: the Bach Dang Giang memorial site at Trang Kenh in Thuy Nguyen, then lunch in the city before you move on
- Traveling just after Tet, swap day three for Con Son and Kiep Bac, now in Hai Phong city (formerly Hai Duong province)
Cutting it to two days
- Day 1: the city in the morning, Do Son in the afternoon, shellfish back in town at night
- Day 2: Bach Dang Giang in the morning, lunch in the city, then on to Hanoi or Ha Long
- Drop Cat Ba entirely. Two days cannot absorb the crossing twice and leave anything worth having
What to sort out before you go
- Book Cat Ba accommodation ahead, especially for summer weekends, when the island fills fast
- Check the marine forecast the day before and switch to the Do Son plan if a storm is named
- Confirm ferry or boat times the night before rather than asking on the morning
- Carry small notes for street stalls, ferry tickets and motorbike hire on the island
- Bring shoes with grip for the cliff walkway and the steps up to Cannon Fort
- Pack a light jacket for the morning boat, even in the middle of summer
