Best Places to Visit and Things To Do In Da Nang with Kids

Da Nang was our first stop on our return to SE Asia. After the somewhat stressful consequences of traveling long-haul with a baby and a five-year-old, we were excited to explore some things to do in Da Nang with kids.

If you’re wondering what to do in Da Nang, we hope you get some inspiration from our suggested activities, attractions, and places to visit in this very family-friendly city! We loved our 10 days in Da Nang (which preceded a 6-month stay in nearby Hoi An. Another very family-friendly Vietnam destination!).

We have also shared some great ideas for day trips, overnight trips, or multi-day trips from Da Nang or Hoi An.

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Our first day out exploring Da Nang city

Da Nang, Vietnam offers some great choices of family activities. First I’ll share some of the highlights of our first day out exploring Da Nang city and also some of the realities of travelling – just to keep it real.

The best bits

Being strong enough to explore the city on foot all day with 2 kids and a backpack in tow. With our 2 litres of water and the baby I was likely carrying around 10kg!

Having friendly locals offer to hold the baby so I could eat lunch hands-free. I said yes! Other friendly locals pushed Ayla on the swing at the park while I was tied up with the baby. You don’t need to have 10 arms to parent over here – the village steps in. Finding some decent city playgrounds for Ayla to have fun in and generally just spending time with my girls.

The frustrating bits

Walking around for over an hour in 30 degrees with 2 kids in tow looking unsuccessfully for a shop that sells Vietnamese mobile phone SIM cards. Ayla did so well with all the walking despite the frustration around this.

Having 8 or 9 grab drivers cancel on us throughout the day and keeping the kids happy throughout.

Changing 3 pooey nappies in undesirable locations. I guess I’ll have to get used to that.

So… We travel and we see and do amazing things. We also do the normal stuff like trying to figure out how to parent (constant challenges there at the moment), changing nappies, washing, etc. Our life is pretty simple though so we don’t have other stresses and strains that we might have with a traditional life.

Was our day out on the town worth it? Yes absolutely 100% and I can’t wait to do it all again.

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Celebrating my birthday in Da Nang

Yesterday I (Elly) celebrated 38 years earthside. My daughter asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said that a day of kind words and happy times with my family would be perfect. She asked if we could go to a Waterpark and we also thought that would be a cool idea.

My morning started early (5am with a jet lagged 5 year old excitedly waking the family up). It all began amazingly with coffee, flowers, a homemade card, pictures, homemade telescope (!) and chocolates – perfect choices for a travelling lifestyle where we don’t accumulate “stuff”. We even made a makeshift vase out of the potted plant at our Airbnb, and the chocolate bag with a bin liner inside!

Things deteriorated somewhat soon after that when it became apparent that a certain little person was still rather jetlagged. I soon found myself feeding the baby in the stairwell to allow things to cool off behind closed doors.

Plan B – Sunworld Da Nang (aka AsiaPark Da Nang)

We did a last minute cancellation of the Da Nang waterpark and I offered a plan b. We always actively include our daughter in decisions by giving her choices. The choices today were now : 1. Have a nap (one that actually involves sleep) and go to the local theme park later (which opens at 3pm each day). 2. Let daddy go to work and celebrate the birthday another day.

Well as much as she resists sleep and says its “boring” she chose option 1. And after about 2 hours sleep (a big deal for a girl who hasn’t day napped since she was 1) the day was looking much brighter!

As you’ll see from the photos we got to the theme park and had a fab time. This is the second theme park we’ve been to in Asia (the other was in Berastagi, Sumatra, Indonesia) and both have been super cheap and super empty! Sunworld Da Nang cost $17US for our whole family. That allowed us to ride to our hearts content (no lines!). The staff even had to join in on the 2 bumper car rides that Ayla and Colin did because its not quite as fun by yourself! ” />

Thanks family for a gorgeous birthday. I love you all too the moon and back a million times. What a lucky mama I am.

The fire breathing dragon – dragon bridge

Da Nang by night. We had a quiet day yesterday and waited till late afternoon to head out for a play on the beach and dinner nearby. We were saving our energy to stay out and see the fire breathing dragon!

Every Saturday and Sunday night at exactly 9pm the dragon on dragon Bridge breathes fire… And also water afterwards! We certainly felt the heat from the fire and it was a pretty unique thing to see (first time in my life anyway!)

A daddy daughter date at upside down world

Looks like Colin and Ayla had fun at upside down world yesterday while I tried in vain to get some work done (Romy decided it was a day of cat naps).

Ayla loves these places a lot more than we do. They’re basically illusion at places where you take fun photos in different rooms. Quite a few of them around SE Asia.

My Khe beach

Da Nang is super easy to get around and we’ve enjoyed a couple of visits to the beach already. It’s probably the cleanest beach we’ve visited in SE Asia so far and it’s a CITY beach so that’s pretty awesome.

There’s not a lot of shade or cafes right on the beach but you can rent a lounger for 40 000 Dong (about $1.70US) and there’s no time limit on it like we found there was when we did the same in Bali (for a much higher price).

The surf is family friendly too and there are areas marked and roped off for swimming. The sand is gorgeous and golden and we’ve also found a spot where Ayla can practice her gymnastics skills (I will too in due course!).

So all up My Khe beach gets the thumbs up from us. Hopefully a good sign of things to come with the Hoi An beaches.

Marble Mountains

A few shots from our girls day out at Marble Mountain yesterday. Only a 20 minute drive from the city centre in Da Nang, the marble mountains are a cluster of 5 mountains representing 5 elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth).

The scenery is beautiful and there are a number of caves you can visit as well as pagodas and natural stone formations. It’s busy… Definitely the most tourists we’ve seen in one place for a long time. But it’s understandable why that is, there’s a real beauty to the place and I’d definitely recommend it.

There’s an elevator that can be taken up to the main level where you can meander around and see a temple and pagoda and access some of the caves. The walk to this point is also very doable with a basic level of fitness.

The heaven gate lookout requires a bit of a scramble and the stone steps can be slippery in places. Climbing the steps up and down within most of the caves requires a lot of caution as some of them are very slippery.

Get some decent walking shoes

I’d highly recommend decent walking shoes or sandals. The number of people doing these things in flip flops astounds me (see our affiliate link to xero shoes – they’re our first choice for functional travel shoes and sandals that are made for feet!) .

In the main cave at the entrance to marble Mountain (one you pay 20 000 dong to get into – less than $1US) we were lucky to have a kind man help Ayla up and down the steps so I could concentrate on walking and keeping baby safe!

The entrance to the main area where you’ll find more caves, the temple and pagodas is 40 000 dong entry. Amazingly cheap for a fantastic day out in nature.

The Helio center

We had been told the Helio center was a good choice of things to do on hot days in Da Nang. However we soon found out that like many things for kids in SE Asia its only open in the evening. It opens from 5:30pm to 10pm every day so we agreed we’d have a quiet day yesterday before checking it out.

Throughout our time in SE Asia we’ve noticed that kids operate much later in the evening here – instead of bath and dinner at 5:30pm it’s out into the nightlife ” /> (and I think I was the only one there quietly trying to fall asleep at 9pm!).

The Helio Center is located right next to Sunworld (the theme park we visited last week), so much so that they could almost merge into one. We started with a local dinner at the food stalls outside and playing on the swings. There are a few amusement park rides and games out there but Ayla opted to go inside to the indoor play area.

We paid the equivalent of a few dollars and she could play to her hearts content on the bouncy castle, in the water play room, the ball pit and boat, with the dressups, in the pretend supermarket, restaurant and more. There were also a few other activities you could pay a little extra for such as painting sculptures.

She played in there till after 9pm and then wanted to do a little more but collectively we called out a night. There’s a whole room of arcade games, bowling, a movie theatre and another full play area… Hours more entertainment… But enough stimulation for one night!

Night time pop up play areas

Another example of night time activities for kids in Da Nang! We were meandering along the road about 8pm (on our way to see the fire breathing dragon on dragon bridge) and came across this wee spot… The perfect option to spend some waiting time.

These are basically pop up family areas where you can have something to eat or drink and the kids can jump on a ride, a bouncy castle, or do some crafts or pretend fishing! We’ve seen a couple of them in the city and there are probably plenty more.

Super cheap entertainment – 10 000 dong per activity… And also 10 000 per beer! Yep, that’s officially 43 cents per item folks.

We often get asked how we afford to travel full time… More on that another day but the short answer is that it costs much less for us to travel full time than it does for us to live in NZ. We are also able to have a better lifestyle while traveling for a fraction of what a comparable lifestyle back home would cost.

Well be producing a lot more blog and video content for you this year and we’ll cover off these sorts of questions in much more detail.

Cool off in a pool

Swimming… It used to be a daily thing for us in SE Asia. Mainly it was super easy in Malaysia because we had an awesome condo set up with a huge pool for 10 months! Ayla was only just 3 when we moved there and from simply playing in the water every day she learned to swim by herself within weeks (we skipped the floaties altogether).

Since then we haven’t had our own pool so the swimming has been less frequent but we try to swim regularly. I usually just look up public swimming pools in Google maps or go and ask at various villas about whether we can pay to use the pool.

This one is one I found in Google maps. My Google maps ventures are always a bit of a gamble. I try to check that they have recent reviews to confirm they actually exist but it’s no guarantee! When we showed up at this one I thought the public swimming pool listed must have been taken over by a huge hotel.

However we soon found out it was part of the hotel. The pool was up in the 4th floor and we paid about $4 for Ayla to use it. As a bonus there were comfy lounge chairs for me to breastfeed Romy. This is something that makes it easier to stay a little longer!

Son Tra Mountain

Son Trà mountain is a fantastic trip to do while in Da Nang. Its a stones throw away from the city but feels like a world away with its winding narrow roads and gorgeous natural scenery.

We packed up our bags to leave Da Nang and head to Hoi An. Since we were so close to Son Trà we asked the driver if he could take us on a tour there before we left. A tour around took us a little over 2 hours and cost $30US.

We went the long way around to the main sites (pagoda and lady Buddha), mainly because I don’t think the driver knew what we wanted! But that meant we got the full authentic experience navigating the tiny windy road along with enjoying the full beauty of it.

Yes, it was a hazy day but it had been hazy every day and we wanted to take the opportunity while we were there. Still beautiful and a wonderful end to our time in Da Nang.

We’re staying in Hoi An until at least the end of September, 2019. So there’s no doubt we’ll be back to Da Nang and surrounding areas again soon. We’ll add on any new activities we get to enjoy in the meantime.

If you’re travelling South East Asia with kids you might also want to check out The best things to do in Krabi and things to do in Singapore with kids.

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