TOP 21 best attractions in Nha Trang

The resort town of Nha Trang is locat­ed in the cen­tral part of Viet­nam, attract­ing tourists with its warm sea, clean sandy beach­es, min­er­al mud springs, com­fort­able hotels, night­clubs and restau­rants.

Who and why comes to Nha Trang

Nha Trang, locat­ed on the shores of the South Chi­na Sea, is a pop­u­lar Viet­namese resort with numer­ous attrac­tions. Tourists come to get acquaint­ed with Asian cul­ture, see Bud­dhist tem­ples, huge sculp­tures of ancient gods.

The best time to vis­it Nha Trang is from March to Octo­ber. At this time, the water in the sea warms up to 29 degrees, there are rarely rains and storms. Munic­i­pal and pri­vate beach­es are in excel­lent con­di­tion. The coastal zone is strewn with fine-grained yel­low sand. On the out­skirts there are rocky areas with pic­turesque boul­ders. For tourists, all con­di­tions have been cre­at­ed to engage in wind­surf­ing, div­ing, swim­ming and sun­bathing.

The resort town offers a ver­sa­tile enter­tain­ment pro­gram. Restau­rants and cafes are open on the cen­tral streets. In the evenings, dis­cos and theme par­ties are held in night­clubs and bars. There are beau­ty salons, mas­sage rooms, fit­ness cen­ters on the embank­ment.

To see how the Viet­namese live out­side the city, for­eign­ers take a trip along the Cai Riv­er. Trav­el com­pa­nies orga­nize boat trips in the com­pa­ny of an expe­ri­enced guide. On the tour you can explore the tra­di­tion­al life of the peo­ple, see unusu­al places, admire nature.

In Nha Trang it is nice to relax with the whole fam­i­ly. There are not only good beach­es and warm sea, but also excel­lent amuse­ment parks. With­in the city lim­its, guests will find mod­ern attrac­tions, an ocea­nari­um, a water park, and play­grounds for kids. Par­ents with chil­dren can go to the Khon Ba nature reserve, to the Baho water­fall, vis­it the islands of But­ter­flies and Mon­keys.

architectural landmarks

Bao Dai Villas

The archi­tec­tur­al com­plex, built at the begin­ning of the last cen­tu­ry for the emper­or of Viet­nam, includes 5 beau­ti­ful hous­es on the hills. The build­ings were designed by the French­man A. Creme, so Euro­pean colo­nial fea­tures can be traced in their appear­ance.

In the main palace there is a muse­um that tells how the impe­r­i­al fam­i­ly lived. On the ter­ri­to­ry there is a restau­rant and a five-star hotel for tourists. The hous­es are sur­round­ed by a lush trop­i­cal gar­den with ponds. Alleys are laid among the trees, bench­es are installed, flower beds are laid out.

Long Son Pagoda

One of the main attrac­tions of Nha Trang is the Long Son Pago­da. The Bud­dhist tem­ple, found­ed in 1886, ris­es at the foot of Mount Chai Thuy. The roofs and walls of the pago­da are dec­o­rat­ed with mul­ti-col­ored mosaics, the inte­ri­or is paint­ed with paint­ings on reli­gious themes.

From the pago­da along the hill there is a road to the stat­ue of Bud­dha, who is rest­ing on a lotus flower. The height of the sculp­ture is 24 meters. Around sit fig­ures of arhats — peo­ple who have reached nir­vana. Ahead are two stat­ues of drag­ons 7.5 meters long. The tem­ple com­plex hous­es a monastery and a Bud­dhist school, and the pago­da itself is sur­round­ed by a gar­den with fruit trees.

Cham Towers Po Nagar

On Mount La Lao ris­es a medieval tem­ple com­plex, con­sist­ing of tow­ers ded­i­cat­ed to dif­fer­ent gods. In the cen­tral tem­ple there is a stone stat­ue of Po Nagar: the ten-armed god­dess sits cross-legged. In front of the entrance to the sanc­tu­ary, the god Shi­va on a buf­fa­lo is depict­ed on the wall. Inside the tem­ples are altars of Hin­du gods, dec­o­rat­ed with can­dles and flow­ers.

Amitabha Buddha

The con­struc­tion of the reli­gious mon­u­ment began in 2002 and last­ed 10 years. Monks and Bud­dhists live in the sanc­tu­ary, wish­ing to improve and achieve spir­i­tu­al enlight­en­ment. There is a guest house and a Bud­dhist school on the ter­ri­to­ry.

Tu Van Pagoda

In the vicin­i­ty of Nha Trang there is a pago­da Tu Van — “Cleans­ing of sins”. Near the main entrance there is a boat on which the Bud­dha trans­port­ed the right­eous to a bet­ter world after the death. Quotes from Bud­dhist prayers are inscribed on her sail­boats.

Bud­dha stat­ues of var­i­ous shapes and sizes are placed along the road. An impor­tant attrac­tion of the tem­ple is a two-sto­ry tow­er made of shells and corals, dec­o­rat­ed with hand­made draw­ings and sculp­tures of deities. The Drag­on’s labyrinth is laid on the ter­ri­to­ry — a dark tun­nel 550 meters long rep­re­sents 18 lev­els of hell.

Cathedral of Christ the King

The Catholic Church in Nha Trang was built by French mis­sion­ar­ies in 1924. The Goth­ic-style stone church is dec­o­rat­ed with lancet arch­es, a rose win­dow and columns.

A clock is installed on the cen­tral square tow­er, and the inte­ri­or rooms are dec­o­rat­ed with stained-glass win­dows. They depict St. John Vian­ney, Joan of Arc, scenes from the life of the apos­tles and Jesus Christ. The cathe­dral is the res­i­dence of the bish­op.

The airport

One of the cen­tral attrac­tions of the resort is the air­port, built by the Amer­i­cans dur­ing the Viet­nam War. It is locat­ed near Nha Trang in the town of Cam Ranh. Air­craft make domes­tic flights around the coun­try and inter­na­tion­al flights.

Due to the large influx of tourists, the air­port is over­loaded, so it was decid­ed to build an addi­tion­al ter­mi­nal that receives 2.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year.

Museums

Ersin Museum

A muse­um of the French bac­te­ri­ol­o­gist Alexan­der Yersin has been opened on Tran-Fu Boule­vard. The sci­en­tist found­ed the first hos­pi­tal in Nha Trang, con­tributed to the emer­gence of a med­ical uni­ver­si­ty in the city and made a huge con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of world sci­ence.

The muse­um’s col­lec­tion includes let­ters, per­son­al items, diaries of Alexan­der Yersin, pro­duc­tion and research equip­ment.

Museum of Oceanography

Near the South Port, you can find the Insti­tute of Oceanog­ra­phy, which hous­es a muse­um that high­lights the work of the insti­tu­tion, and an ocea­nari­um. In the exhi­bi­tion halls of the muse­um there are trans­par­ent glass flasks with pre­served marine life.

Tourists get acquaint­ed with the fau­na of the South Chi­na Sea, study the col­lec­tions of algae, shells and corals. Stuffed birds and ani­mals are kept in the hotel room, as well as the skele­ton of a huge whale.

Ethnic Museum

On the embank­ment, the Muse­um of the His­to­ry of Khanh Hoa Province hos­pitably opened its doors. There are sev­er­al exhi­bi­tions in a small two-sto­ry build­ing. Tourists are shown archae­o­log­i­cal finds dat­ing back to the 2nd-3rd cen­turies, ancient ceram­ics, house­hold items, coins, and weapons.

In the muse­um, you can learn about the times of French col­o­niza­tion and see pho­tographs show­ing what Nha Trang looked like at the begin­ning of the last cen­tu­ry.

Museum of Impressions

A few years ago, a new enter­tain­ment muse­um opened in the city. The inter­ac­tive exhi­bi­tion was set up in a two-sto­ry house, where the main entrance is guard­ed by drag­on stat­ues. In the court­yard there is a gar­den with an arti­fi­cial water­fall, dec­o­rat­ed with tra­di­tion­al Viet­namese lanterns.

The rooms con­tain exhibits that are inter­est­ing to inter­act with. Tourists are offered to go into a room-shifter, run away from a vam­pire, dodge a rush­ing steam loco­mo­tive, try on a fairy or wiz­ard cos­tume. For the lit­tle ones there is a spe­cial play­room.

natural attractions

salt fields

Forty kilo­me­ters from the city there are salt fields, where Viet­namese work­ers work, extract­ing salt.

The area looks like a huge rice plan­ta­tion. It is poured with sea water and wait­ing for the liq­uid to evap­o­rate, leav­ing white crys­tals. Salt is col­lect­ed and sent for clean­ing and pack­ag­ing. Tourists come to the field to admire the unusu­al land­scape and take spec­tac­u­lar pho­tos.

Bajo waterfall

In the vicin­i­ty of Nha Trang there is a water­fall that falls from a height of 60 meters. Its water forms three lakes at dif­fer­ent lev­els. The road to the water­falls goes through the jun­gle and moun­tains along the riv­er. Along the way there are palm trees, fig trees, creep­ers, pines.

Song­birds and rare but­ter­flies live among the green­ery. It is bet­ter to go on an excur­sion to Bajo for peo­ple with good phys­i­cal fit­ness, as in some places the ascent is quite dif­fi­cult and the path is blocked by stones.

Cape Hongchong

To the north of Nha Trang is the Hon Chong Cape. Tourists are reg­u­lar­ly brought here on a sight­see­ing tour to show the Rock Gar­den. The attrac­tion is boul­ders of dif­fer­ent sizes, stand­ing along the coast. This is the per­fect place to dream in silence and admire the vast expanse of the South Chi­na Sea.

Cafes and sou­venir shops are open at Cape Hon­chong. There you can try nation­al seafood dish­es and buy stone paint­ings.

Orchid Island

Orchid Island is locat­ed in Nha Phu Bay near Nha Trang. This is a won­der­ful nature reserve suit­able for fam­i­lies. Deer, mon­keys, ostrich­es, ele­phants live in it. Ani­mals are not afraid of peo­ple and will­ing­ly accept food from the hands of trav­el­ers.

A tour of the island includes rid­ing ostrich­es, watch­ing a cir­cus show with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Himalayan bears, vis­it­ing reser­voirs with clean fresh water. But the main attrac­tion of the pro­tect­ed area is a flower park with orchids.

Monkey Island

Mon­key Island is locat­ed 20 km from Nha Trang. Once there was a mon­key nurs­ery, but after the insti­tu­tion closed, the ani­mals scat­tered around the island and bred in incred­i­ble num­bers. Now the ter­ri­to­ry has been turned into a tourist zone, with­in the bound­aries of which there is a for­est, a seashore, a restau­rant and sou­venir shops.

Guests can enjoy scenic walk­ing, elec­tric car rides, spa treat­ments and relax­ing on the beach. The tick­et price includes feed­ing the mon­keys and an inter­est­ing per­for­mance with their par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Thapba hot springs

Thap­ba springs were dis­cov­ered in 1994. Since then, they have attract­ed mil­lions of peo­ple who want to improve their health.

The clin­ic offers mud and min­er­al baths that strength­en the immune sys­tem, restore the func­tion of the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem, as well as the func­tion­ing of the ner­vous and endocrine sys­tems. Treat­ments using heal­ing mud have reju­ve­nat­ing prop­er­ties, so the flow of patients does not dry out all year round.

Parks and entertainment

Ecopark Young Bay

Young Bay Park, sur­round­ed by high moun­tains, attracts tourists with its scenery and vir­gin nature. There are rice fields, tur­bu­lent rivers, water­falls, trop­i­cal forests, lakes with fish. There is a small zoo for chil­dren. Chil­dren can look at piglets, bear cubs, croc­o­diles and hors­es, and at the same time ride ostrich­es.

Hot min­er­al springs, mud baths are avail­able for adults. Raglai vil­lage is pop­u­lar — in the set­tle­ment you can see shaman­ic rites and enter­tain­ment shows.

Central market

To feel the real Viet­namese fla­vor, tourists go to the Cho Dam mar­ket. This is the largest out­let in Nha Trang, focused on for­eign­ers. Here you can buy fresh seafood, fruits, pearl crafts, silk-embroi­dered paint­ings, leather shoes, belts, fash­ion­able clothes.

A vis­it to the mar­ket is a fas­ci­nat­ing excur­sion and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to try exot­ic dish­es, buy sou­venirs, and at the same time learn about the way of life of the Viet­namese.

Winpearl amusement park

Hon Che Island has the best amuse­ment park in Viet­nam. Tourists come here by boat or by cable car and imme­di­ate­ly get into the mag­i­cal world of five-star hotels, spas, restau­rants, shops.

The fresh­wa­ter water park gets rave reviews. It offers swim­ming pools, slides, water guns, boats, air mat­tress­es. An amuse­ment park oper­ates in the cen­tral part of Vin­perl: high-speed attrac­tions, play­grounds, karaoke rooms, roads for cycling, elec­tric cars and rollerblad­ing are installed in the open air.

Chi Nguyen Aquarium

There is an aquar­i­um built in 1971 on the island of Bon­ng­guyen. Its appear­ance resem­bles an old ship raised from the seabed. Inside are large and small aquar­i­ums. They are inhab­it­ed by sharks, moray eels, rays, jel­ly­fish, giant tor­tois­es.

Chi Nguyen Marine Aquar­i­um invites adults and chil­dren to a fun show with fur seals every day. Near the build­ing there is a beau­ti­ful park with foun­tains, bench­es and pools.