16 Things to Do in Hanoi, From Someone Who Lives Here
I have lived in Hanoi for nearly forty years and I still get asked the same question every week: what are the best things to do in Hanoi if you only have a few days? Here are 16 things to do in Hanoi that I stand behind, with what each one actually costs, and with the one thing I would tell a friend before they went.
In this guide
The 16 things to do in Hanoi, one card at a time
Swipe sideways through the 16 things to do in Hanoi below. Prices are what you pay at the gate in 2026, not what a tour desk will quote you.
01 / 16Hoan Kiem Lake
By eight in the morning the lake belongs to tour groups. At six it belongs to people doing tai chi, playing badminton and catching up on gossip, and it is a completely different place. Walk the full loop before breakfast and you will have seen more of real Hanoi than most visitors see in a week.
02 / 16Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex
Arrive by half past seven or do not bother — the queue is long and the doors shut at 10:30. Knees and shoulders covered, no phones, no talking. The stilt house and the palace gardens behind the mausoleum are the part most people skip, and honestly the better part.
03 / 16X Space Immersive
This one is mine, so weigh it accordingly. Nine rooms of digital art and light — a mirrored dome, a light forest, an LED tunnel — inside Royal City, ten minutes from the Old Quarter. Nothing in it is historic.
04 / 16St. Joseph's Cathedral
Neo-gothic, 1886, and deliberately weathered — the city has never cleaned the facade and it looks all the better for it. Twenty minutes inside is plenty. The real reason to come is the square in front at six in the evening, when half the neighbourhood is out on plastic stools drinking lemon tea.
05 / 16Egg coffee at Café Giảng
Cà phê trứng — egg yolk whipped with condensed milk, poured over strong coffee. Giảng invented it in 1946 and is still down an alley at 39 Nguyễn Hữu Huân. Treat it as dessert rather than breakfast, and order one between two people: it is much richer than it looks.
06 / 16Vietnam Military History Museum
The new building out on the ring road opened in late 2024 and is on a completely different scale to the old one — aircraft and tanks parked outside, and a very large amount of walking inside. Go with time to spare, and be aware it is a national museum telling a national story.
07 / 16Trấn Quốc Pagoda
The oldest pagoda in Hanoi, on a causeway sticking out into West Lake. Half an hour before sunset is the time to be there and everyone knows it, so it will not be quiet. Combine it with a walk or a bike ride around the lake and it stops being a ten-minute photo stop.
08 / 16Thăng Long Water Puppet Theatre
An eleventh-century art form from the Red River Delta, performed by puppeteers standing waist-deep behind a screen. It sells out in high season, so book a day ahead. Fifty minutes is exactly the right length — long enough to be charmed, short enough that the children do not revolt.
09 / 16Ngọc Sơn Temple
The temple on the island in Hoan Kiem, reached by the red Huc Bridge that appears on every postcard of this city. It is small and it is busy. Come at seven when it opens, cross the bridge before the crowd forms, and you get the picture everyone else queues for.
10 / 16Beer on Tạ Hiện Street
Bia hơi is brewed that morning, has no preservatives and costs about 20,000₫ a glass from a keg; bottled beer on Tạ Hiện runs to the price above because you are sitting on the famous corner. Good fun until about nine, after which the street belongs to the bar touts.
11 / 16Thăng Long Imperial Citadel
Nine hundred years stacked on one site: Ly dynasty foundations, French barracks, and the underground bunker the North ran the war from in 1972. Quiet, rarely crowded, and the bunker on its own is worth the ticket. Ten minutes’ walk from the Mausoleum, so do the two together.
12 / 16Hỏa Lò Prison
The most useful ninety minutes you can spend here if you want the rest of the city to make sense. It is one-sided in places, as every national museum is, but the French colonial half is unflinching and genuinely well presented. If you only visit one museum in Hanoi, make it this one.
13 / 16Hanoi Train Street
I am including this because you will ask about it. The truth: the barriers go up and down depending on the month, and when it is open you are funnelled into a café and charged for a drink you did not want. Worth a look if you are curious, not worth rearranging a day for.
14 / 16Temple of Literature
Vietnam’s first university, founded in 1070, and the calmest place anywhere near the centre of the city. Come before ten. In May and June it fills up with graduates in gowns, which is either charming or a queue depending on your mood.
15 / 16Đồng Xuân Night Market
Weekend evenings only, and I will be honest: it is mostly cheap clothes, phone cases and crowds. Go for the food alley behind the market rather than the stalls themselves — bún chả, nem and quẩy nóng, at a third of the price of anywhere with an English menu.
16 / 16Bánh mì
Hanoi bánh mì is plainer than the Saigon version — pâté, cold cuts, chilli, cucumber, and no mayonnaise avalanche. Bánh Mì 25 on Hàng Cá is the one everybody names; the cart with no sign outside your hotel at seven in the morning is usually just as good and half the price.
A 2-day plan for the 16 things to do in Hanoi
Day one, around the lake. Hoan Kiem at six, then Ngọc Sơn Temple as it opens at seven. Bánh mì on the walk to Hỏa Lò Prison, which deserves the freshest part of your morning. St. Joseph’s Cathedral is ten minutes away. Egg coffee at Giảng in the afternoon, Tạ Hiện at six, water puppets at eight.
Day two, wider. The Mausoleum complex first thing — it closes at half past ten and on Mondays and Fridays it does not open at all — then walk to the Imperial Citadel next door. Temple of Literature after lunch. Trấn Quốc and West Lake for sunset. Evening at X Space, or the Military History Museum earlier in the day if the war is what brought you here.
That is most of the 16 things to do in Hanoi covered in two days. If you get a third, use it on Đồng Xuân and the food alley behind it, and then leave the city — Ninh Bình is two hours south and worth the trip more than anything left on this list.
Which of the 16 things to do in Hanoi I would skip
Three of the 16 things to do in Hanoi above are on the list because you will hear about them anyway, not because I would give a morning to them.
Train Street. Already on the list at number thirteen, and already qualified. On a two-day trip it is the first thing I would cut.
The night market stalls. Not the food alley — that stays. The market itself is cheap goods and crowds, and you will find better versions of everything in it two blocks away.
The hop-on-hop-off bus. Hanoi is a walking city with a traffic problem. You will see more in an hour on foot than in three hours from the top deck of a bus stuck on Hàng Bài.
Practical notes for the 16 things to do in Hanoi
These apply to all 16 things to do in Hanoi above, and to most of what you do in between them.
Carry small notes. Street food costs 30,000₫ to 90,000₫ and nobody at a plastic-stool stall wants to break a 500,000₫ note. Take 200,000s out of the ATM where you can.
Use Grab, not street taxis. The price is fixed before you get in and the motorbike option costs about a third of a car. It is also the fastest way through the Old Quarter at seven in the evening.
Museums close at lunchtime. Most shut between 11:30 and 13:30, and the Mausoleum closes for the afternoon entirely. Plan your food around that rather than arriving at a locked gate.
Crossing the road. Walk out slowly, keep a constant speed, and do not stop. The motorbikes are reading your trajectory and will go around you. Stopping halfway is the only genuinely dangerous thing you can do.
When to come. March to April and October to November are the two good windows. June to August is hot and wet, and January and February bring a fine grey drizzle that locals complain about far more than tourists do.
None of these 16 things to do in Hanoi needs booking more than a day ahead, except the water puppets in high season. Everything else you can decide over breakfast.
Plan your visit: start with the X Space Immersive visitor guide, discover what’s inside the eight rooms, check tickets and prices, or find more travel ideas on Vietnam Tourism.
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