Da Lat to Halong Bay Drive: Road Trip Tips & Info

Travelers visit Halong Bay for an up-close look at its amazing limestone islands, rock formations and caves. Whittled away over centuries by wind and water, they’re breathtaking. Rent a kayak or a junk boat, or take a tour to explore.

If you’re planning this same drive and want to know all about it – how long it is, how long it takes, and where to stop along the way – read on. By the end of this post, you’ll know everything about the drive between Da Lat and Halong Bay.

How far is Halong Bay from Da Lat?

As the crow flies, it’s roughly 630 miles between Da Lat and Halong Bay. Luckily, we can’t skip over all the good stuff and have to drive – that means seeing some of the sights and countryside between these two points.

For driving, it is roughly 901 miles or 1450 km between Da Lat and Halong Bay. This may vary slightly depending on your start and end points.

Da Lat to Halong Bay drive hours

In terms of travel time by car, the 901 miles drive from Da Lat to Halong Bay takes 20 hours 24 minutes. Again, your final drive time depends on where you start in Da Lat and end in Halong Bay.

This is a really long drive, so it's not very realistic to drive nonstop. To get a better idea of how long this road trip would actually take, scroll down to calculate how many hours it would be if you drive with stops.

Da Lat to Halong Bay road trip

Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Da Lat to Halong Bay, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Halong Bay, and you need to stop along the way to rest. Plus if it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what we are perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Based on the length of this trip, we think you could spread out this fun road trip over a number of days.

Road trip: 3 days of driving

With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.

Travel time: 20 hours 24 minutes hours on the road with 3 overnights

Itinerary

Start at Da Lat.

Drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Khánh Hòa Province and stay for about 2 hours. Next, drive for another 4 hours then stop in Quang Ngai province. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Hương Thủy (Thừa Thiên Huế Province) and stay for about 2 hours. Next, drive for another 4 hours then stop in Ha Tinh Province. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Nghi Sơn Town (Thanh Hoa) and stay for about 2 hours.

Finally, drive for about 3.4 hours and arrive in Halong Bay.

Da Lat to Halong Bay airports and flights

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Lien Khuong Airport (DLI)

Arrival airport: Cat Bi International Airport (HPH)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 32 minutes

Getting to your destination: 35 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an example flight from DLI to HPH and figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 1 hour 17 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Da Lat to Halong Bay including time spent getting to/from the airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 4 hours 24 minutes

Flying non-stop from Da Lat to Halong Bay

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Da Lat and Halong Bay. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula.

Flight time from Da Lat, Lam Dong Province to Halong Bay, Quang Ninh Province is 1 hour 16 minutes under avarage conditions.

Our flight time calculator assumes an average flight speed for a commercial airliner of 500 mph, which is equivalent to 805 km/hr or 434 knots.

Actual flight times may vary depending on aircraft type, cruise speed, routing, weather conditions, passenger load, and other factors.