What to Do in Da Nang, Hoi An & Hue While Your Partner Plays Golf

Last updated: August 2026

Yes, it is worth coming. A golf trip through Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue gives a non-golfing partner three genuinely different places to spend the day — a beach city, a UNESCO trading port, and an imperial capital — all within a two-hour drive of each other. Tee times start early, so a golf day usually means you have from about 7am to 2pm free, which is enough for a cooking class, a tomb tour, or a long lunch and a spa.

How Much Free Time Does a Golf Day Actually Give You?

More than most people expect. Tee times in Central Vietnam are usually booked between 6:30am and 8:00am to avoid the midday heat, and a four-ball takes roughly four and a half to five hours. Add transfers and lunch at the clubhouse and your golfer is typically back at the hotel between 1pm and 3pm.

That is a full working day of free time, not a spare hour. GoGolfVietnam plans transfers for both halves of a couple, so the non-golfer is not stranded at the hotel waiting for a car — and this is the single most common thing people forget to ask about when they book golf separately from accommodation.

Da Nang Golf Days: What to Do While They Play

On days when your golfer tees off at Ba Na Hills Golf Club, Legend Da Nang or Montgomerie Links, you are based in Da Nang city or along the beach strip — all three courses sit within 20–30 minutes of the main hotels.

My Khe Beach is the default and it earns it. The beach runs for kilometres along the eastern edge of the city, sun loungers cost very little, and you can walk from most beachfront hotels. Mornings are calmest; by early afternoon the sea breeze picks up.

Ba Na Hills — the mountain resort, not the golf course. This trips people up constantly, so it is worth being clear: Ba Na Hills Golf Club sits at the foot of the mountain, while the Sun World resort with the cable car and the Golden Bridge is at the top. They are different places with the same name. The resort ticket for foreign adults is 950,000 VND (about $37) in 2026, or 750,000 VND for children; a combo with lunch buffet runs 1,300,000 VND. Budget a full day — the cable car ride alone is long, and it is genuinely cooler up there.

Spa and massage is the easiest half-day. Hotel spas and standalone spas along the beach road run roughly $20–60 for a 60–90 minute treatment depending on how upmarket you go. Our guests very often book this for the afternoon of a Ba Na Hills golf day, because that course is hot and the golfer wants the same thing when they get back.

If beach time is the main draw rather than an afterthought, our guide to pairing golf days with beach days in Da Nang covers how couples usually split the week.

Hoi An Golf Days: The Old Town Is 25 Minutes Away

Hoi An is where non-golfers tend to want more time than the itinerary gives them. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, it is compact enough to walk end to end, and it is roughly 25–30 minutes from the Da Nang courses — so this works as a day trip even when your golfer is playing back near the city.

Tailoring is the reason many people build in an extra Hoi An day. A first fitting takes maybe an hour, then you come back the following day for adjustments. That two-visit rhythm fits a golf trip well: fitting on one golf day, collection on the next.

Cooking classes run roughly $23–39 per person depending on whether the class includes a market visit and a basket-boat ride. Most run a morning session that finishes around lunchtime — almost exactly the window a golf day gives you.

The Thu Bon lantern boat is an evening thing, not a golf-day thing, and it costs from about $6 for a short ride with floating lanterns. Worth saving for a night when you are both free, because it is the one activity where couples consistently tell us they wish they had gone together.

Hue Golf Days: The Part Most Guides Skip Entirely

This is where a Central Vietnam golf trip stops being a beach holiday. If your golfer is playing Laguna Golf Lang Co or Golden Sands, you are within reach of Hue — the seat of the Nguyen dynasty from 1802 to 1945 and the strongest cultural day on the whole itinerary.

The Imperial Citadel (Dai Noi) costs 200,000 VND for foreign adults (about $8) and 40,000 VND for children aged 7–12. Allow two to three hours. It is walled, moated, and much larger than photographs suggest — sections are still being restored after wartime damage, which is part of what makes it interesting rather than a disappointment.

The royal tombs are the better half of the day for most people. Minh Mang is formal and symmetrical, Tu Duc is the one that feels like a garden estate, and Khai Dinh is the strange, ornate concrete one that looks nothing like the other two. A combo ticket covering the Citadel plus all three costs 530,000 VND (about $21) for adults and is valid two days — noticeably cheaper than buying separately.

The Perfume River ties them together. Dragon boats run from the city centre out to Thien Mu Pagoda, and a river trip is the least tiring way to see Hue if it is hot.

The Trade-Off You Should Know Before Booking

Hue is about two hours from Da Nang by road via the Hai Van tunnel. That is fine as a full-day excursion, but it does not work as a “pop over while he plays 18” trip — you will spend four hours in a car for maybe three hours of sightseeing, and you will get back later than your golfer.

So be honest about trip length. On a four or five-day trip, we would not send a non-golfer to Hue on a golf day; better to do Hoi An properly. On a week or longer, Hue is worth building the itinerary around — which is why GoGolfVietnam’s eight-day itinerary that finishes in Hue puts a night or two up there rather than treating it as a day trip.

What Does It Cost? A Non-Golfer’s Day-by-Day Budget

Prices below are per person as of August 2026 and will move with season and operator. They are here so you can plan a realistic daily spend, not as quoted rates.

Roughly speaking, a non-golfer can fill a day in Hoi An for under $50 including a cooking class and lunch, while a Ba Na Hills day or a full Hue tomb circuit will land closer to $40–60 before transfers and meals. That is well below what the same day of golf costs, which is worth mentioning to anyone worried the trip only works for one half of the couple.

Where Should You Base Yourself?

This matters more for the non-golfer than for the golfer, because the golfer gets driven to the course either way.

Da Nang gives you a beach outside the door, more restaurant choice, and shorter transfers to most courses. Hoi An gives you a walkable old town at night, which is the single thing people rate highest at the end of a trip — but it puts you 25–30 minutes further from the Da Nang courses each morning. Our breakdown of whether to base a golf trip in Da Nang or Hoi An goes through the transfer maths in detail.

In our experience, couples where only one plays golf tend to be happier in Hoi An; groups of golfers are almost always better off in Da Nang.

How to Build the Week So Both of You Get What You Came For

The pattern that works: alternate. A golf day followed by a shared day, rather than four golf days back to back while one person runs out of things to do.

On golf days, put the non-golfer somewhere that does not need the golfer — a cooking class, the tailor, the spa, the Citadel. Save the things you would both regret doing alone for the shared days: the lantern boat, dinner in the old town, the beach in the late afternoon.

An all-inclusive package covering both partners is usually the simplest way to handle this, because transfers, hotels and meals are already arranged for two people rather than one golfer plus an add-on. Our team can build non-golf activities into the same daily schedule so both halves of the couple have a car and a plan, though we book activities through local operators rather than running them ourselves.

GoGolfVietnam is a local golf tour operator based in Da Nang, arranging tee times, transfers and accommodation across Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue for golfers and the people travelling with them.

Frequently Asked Questions