Halong Bay to Mui Ne Drive: Road Trip Tips & Info

Ancient civilization gets a tropical beach twist in Mui Ne, a resort town in southeast Vietnam. Formidable Cham towers seem to keep watch over the visitors who come here for the epic kitesurfing or to frolic along the sand dunes. Candy-colored fishing vessels bob gently in the waters of Mui Ne Harbor, where you can buy steamed seafood that’s literally fresh off the boat.

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 Halong Bay and Mui Ne.

How far is Mui Ne from Halong Bay?

As the crow flies, it’s roughly 697 miles between Halong Bay and Mui Ne. 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 964 miles or 1551 km between Halong Bay and Mui Ne. This may vary slightly depending on your start and end points.

Halong Bay to Mui Ne drive hours

In terms of travel time by car, the 964 miles drive from Halong Bay to Mui Ne takes 21 hours 41 minutes. Again, your final drive time depends on where you start in Halong Bay and end in Mui Ne.

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.

Halong Bay to Mui Ne road trip

Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Halong Bay to Mui Ne, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Mui Ne, 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: 4 days of driving

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

Travel time: 21 hours 41 minutes hours on the road with 4 overnights

Itinerary

Start at Halong Bay.

Drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Đường Trần Phú and stay for about 2 hours. Next, drive for another 4 hours then stop in Quốc lộ 1A, QL.1A. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Cách Mạng Tháng 8 and stay for about 2 hours. Next, drive for another 4 hours then stop in Quốc lộ 1A, QL.1A. Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 3 hours, then stop in Quốc lộ 1A, QL.1A and stay for about 2 hours. Next, drive for another 4 hours then stop in ĐT.716B. Stay overnight.

Finally, drive for about 0.7 hours and arrive in Mui Ne.

Halong Bay to Mui Ne 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: Cat Bi International Airport (HPH)

Arrival airport: Lien Khuong Airport (DLI)

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: 35 minutes

Getting to your destination: 2 hours 1 minute

Now finally, let's look at an example flight from HPH to DLI 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 Halong Bay to Mui Ne 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: 5 hours 53 minutes

Flying non-stop from Halong Bay to Mui Ne

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Halong Bay and Mui Ne. 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 Halong Bay, Quang Ninh Province to Mui Ne, Phan Thiet, Binh Thuan Province is 1 hour 24 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.