I am going to Vietnam for work and will have five days to travel around on my own after. At first I thought I'd try to visit both Hoi An and Nha Trang, but realized with my limited time it was going to be too crazy. So I decided to make Da Nang my base and do day trips to Hoi An, the Marble Mountains, and possibly Hue, with plenty of beach time.

Did I make a mistake with choosing China Beach as my beach time? I am looking for clean, sandy, and hopefully warm water (honestly don't know how the jet stream runs there and whether the water is warm or cold) with umbrellas and chaises longues to rent. Don't need much more than that, but don't want much less either.

If China Beach is terrible, can you recommend a beach I can day trip to from Da Nang?

I leave Friday! Eep!

I have not been to the Da Nang area in so long that I can’t comment on whether the beaches are still nice or the water is still clean (both were the case in the early 1990s, and “China Beach” is certainly pretty as I recall, but I know that there has been a lot of development along the coast since then and Da Nang is a major port so water quality may not be as good now; let’s just say it’s not one of their major priorities). For air and sea temps, see http://www.zoover.co.uk/vietnam/vietnam/danang/weather. These are in Celsius, but you can do a conversion. Does not look too bad.

It's been almost as long since I've been there, but I do remember a long stretch of wide beach, without too many people.

FWIW, Hue is not really a day trip from Danang. The trip there by car takes 4 hours each way (although I think there's now a tunnel that cuts an hour or two off that). It's a pretty drive, but not one you'd want to do in a day.

I do think Hue is worth visiting. You might spend a couple of days at the beach, then hire a car to take you over Hai Van pass to Hue for a couple more nights. There's a domestic airport in Hue, so you can take off from there.

I was at China Beach two months ago. Here are some pictures of the beach along with the drive over the Hai Van Pass from Hue to Hoi An: http://photo-url.com/China_Beach

I was there on a weekend just to see the beach, not to stay. It was cool and very windy, so there was almost no one there as you will see in the pictures. There are constant rip tides, at least in windter, that make swimming fairly dangerous which is why (from what I was told by my guide) the development has been slow. I saw very little development from a western perspective. However, China beach bay is 22km long, so it might not be obvious yet. I know there in one super deluxe resort: http://www.furamavietnam.com/ (there is a lot of general area information on this site you might be interested in)

It is a beautiful, unspoiled beach at least in December. This backpacker has some great pictures tht show a lot more people in the warmer months: http://www.ironwulf.net/2006/10/25/e...t-china-beach/ (he has a <i>fabulous</i> blog of central Vietnam).

I would definately go to Hue as well as Hoi An. There are pictures of both in my album that you can access from the China beach link at the beginning of the post.

Thank you for the feedback everyone! I am getting more and more excited. It sounds like Hue is a must do. I'd prefer to do Hue as a day trip, but I'll play it by ear. The hotel I've booked in Da Nang is cheap enough that I wouldn't mind paying a day there and not staying.

We stopped off at China Beach in May a few years ago and had a swim -the water was very warm. (At that time the shower facilities consisted of a guy you paid to wash you down with a garden hose, and that water definitely wasn't warm.)

We visited China Beach in November. Stayed at the Furama which is fantastic! The beach is wide and beautiful. It was windy and it rained late in the day, but the water was warm and the waves were beautiful.

Thank you for all the help everyone. I ended up staying at the My Khe Beach Hotel in (obvs) My Khe. At $30/night the price was right and it is literally across the street from the beach. The downside was the awful terrible mosquito problem with no mosquito net, but you can't have everything I suppose. The beach was lovely and clean and everything I wished for in a beach. I think eventually Da Nang will be a great base for touring the area, but for now it's not so easy for the person on her own and on the cheap. Still managed to get to Hoi An and Hue though, and had a great time overall. My pics of Da Nang and environs are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7707505...7604489168418/, and all Vietnam pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7707505...7604489359444/.

I'll eventually be blogging at http://travelathomeandabroad.blogspot.com.

PS Can somebody tell me how to code links on this forum? I've tried all the html formats I know and I get nothin'.