Getting from Hoi An to Da Nang: A traveler review

After a few wonderful days in Hoi An (it’s definitely one of the most picturesque places in Vietnam and I’d highly recommend adding it to your itinerary!), we were about to embark on the shortest journey during our entire time in Vietnam.

The minivan journey from Hoi An to Da Nang is only 50 minutes long, and before we knew it, we’d arrived in an entirely new city for the next few days.

Here’s what you can expect when traveling with April Adventure from Hoi An to Da Nang.

We booked our minivan from Hoi An to Da Nang a couple of days before we were scheduled to go, however, I would always recommend booking at least 3 days in advance when traveling in Asia as some popular routes sell out very quickly. 

Almost as soon as we’d received the booking confirmation email, I received a WhatsApp message from a member of staff at April Adventure confirming our upcoming trip. 

This happened quite frequently when booking transportation in Vietnam and I think it’s a really great way for transport companies to ensure that they have all the passenger’s details correct.

Ride on time

We were told that our minivan would pick us up in Hoi An between 12:00 pm and 12:15 pm and sure enough, it arrived exactly at 12:15 pm. Usually with bus and minivan journeys in Asia, we always stock up on plenty of snacks and water, but as this journey was supposed to be less than an hour, we didn’t bother.

Also, as predicted, the driver didn’t speak a word of English but that wasn’t really an issue as I just showed him our confirmation email and he loaded our backpacks into the van and then we were off.

As the journey was so short, nothing really significant or noteworthy happened; it really was one of the easiest and simplest journeys I’d ever been on in Southeast Asia.

There was no need for toilet breaks due to the remarkably short distance, so I just put my headphones in, loaded up an episode of Derry Girls on Netflix and enjoyed the journey until we arrived in Da Nang.

I should say that the minivan itself wasn’t the best quality. There were no seatbelts in the van and even though it claimed to have free Wi-Fi, there was no way to access it and no hotspot even showed up. Of course, this wasn’t the end of the world as we didn’t really need to access the internet on such a short journey, but it would have been nice to have it considering it was advertised.

There was no clear drop-off location once we got to Da Nang and as the driver couldn’t understand where we wanted to be, it was a little difficult to communicate our desired drop-off place.

Thankfully, there were a few other people in the minivan too and collectively, we managed to figure out a suitable place for everyone to disembark the van. 

The driver originally wanted to drop everyone off just next to the famous Dragon Bridge (pictured above), but it was on the wrong side of the river for everyone to get to their respective accommodations easily. We managed to convince the driver to go over the bridge and drop us off at the other side instead.

I couldn’t believe that the journey had only taken 50 minutes; it went by in a flash and if it wasn’t for the confusion with the drop-off location, it would have easily been the most seamless journey we experienced in Vietnam!