Quy Nhon (Vietnamese: Quy Nhơn Vietnamese: [kwi ɲəːŋ] ) is a coastal city in Bình Định province in central Vietnam. It is composed of 16 wards and five communes with a total of 284 km2 (110 sq mi). Quy Nhon is the capital of Bình Định province.
As of 2019 its population was 457,400. Historically, the commercial activities of the city focused on agriculture and fishing. In recent years, however, there has been a significant shift towards service industries and tourism.
There is also a substantial manufacturing sector.
With hundreds of fishermen hauling in their daily catch each morning and kilometres of open-air beach restaurants, Quy Nhơn is a great city for fresh seafood. But beyond its well-earned fame as a year-round pescatarian paradise, it also offers the adventurous traveller the chance to try specialties little known outside Bình Định province. And for a small city, Quy Nhơn can boast of a surprisingly huge selection of vegetarian restaurants.
Compared to other Vietnamese cities, restaurants are informal and cheap. Customers usually sit directly on the street or inside the multi-use living room of the restaurant owner. In all but the most expensive places and a few mid-budget venues, tables and chairs are wobbly and often-broken contraptions made of cheap plastic and aluminium. Even nicer places are often set inside a semi-open garden rather than what you'd imagine as a more typical indoor restaurant. The price of any dish in Quy Nhơn is much cheaper than in bigger cities — an entire plate of shellfish costs less than one shell in Saigon — and you can easily fill yourself for just a few dollars in most restaurants and for less than a dollar in vegetarian places.
Still very far off the international traveller circuit, restaurants cater only for the tastes of local residents and Vietnamese tourists. As long as you stay away from the very few places marketed to international visitors, you'll almost always be the only foreigner anywhere you go as you discover steamed rice-cakes, guava-leaf pork rolls, fish-cake noodles, pots of shellfish simmering in lemongrass broth, scallops still in the shell grilled with peanuts and chili sauce over open fires, spit-roasted veal, goat skewers, snails cooked in herbs and coconut milk, and vegetarian dishes in homestay-style settings.
It's the stuff of underground foodie-fantasies: a coastal city with a wide range of locally-caught and freshly-prepared food choices, completely unspoiled by international chains and still undiscovered by mass tourism. Take a plunge into the local restaurant scene and you'll experience a side of Vietnam that you can't find anywhere else.
Cafes are the centre of social life in Quy Nhơn. They come in all sizes: huge and impressive, small and quaint, tiny and jammed between parked motorbikes in a family's living room. They're in every style: knee-high tables on street corners, outdoor gardens with wooden verandas, hipster joints infused with attitude, cubbyholes serving milk tea to teenagers on bamboo floors, tables set amidst bonsai forests. And with over 1,000 cafes for a city of only 300,000 people, you find them everywhere: on the beach, in the city centre, on the sides of the mountains, on median strips in the middle of streets.
Cafe hours can be tricky to predict. Most cafes are open in the prime hours in the late afternoon and evening, and many are also open in the early morning. But the exact hours vary a lot from place to place. Even at one cafe, the hours will vary from day to day based on customer flows, the weather, and the owner's schedule. Lunchtime is also hit-or-miss: some cafes always take a siesta break, some always work through lunchtime, and many just open or close based on the whims of the day. As a general reference, a typical schedule might be to open at 07:00 or 08:00 in the morning, close for a break from 11:00 to 15:00, then serve until 21:00 or so.
As for nightlife.... the answer is "no". Quy Nhơn has no real nightlife to speak of. There's one slightly dodgy neon-and-smoke-machine nightclub. Most restaurants open at night have beer — or will find some for you — and many cafes serve cocktails, but there's nothing like a bar scene where people mingle over drinks. The majority of places close by 22:00, and by midnight the city is almost deserted. So kick back in an open-air cafe or restaurant, lap up the sea views and ocean breezes, and enjoy the city's sleepy small-town vibe.
There are ATMs throughout the city, including the free ones, VP Bank, TP Bank and ACB for JCB and European Visa cards.
The biggest concentration of ATMs is found just north of the Coopmart on Trần Thị Kỷ between Nguyễn Tất Thành and Lê Duẩn streets. Six banks offer ATMs within a short distance from each other: Techcom, VietinBank, Agribank, Dong A Bank, ACB, Maritime Bank.
Foreign money can be exchanged at numerous bank offices throughout the city. Bills must be fairly new and in good condition; bills which are slightly worn or older than 10 years are often rejected. No passport required.
Several gold and jewellers shops in the centre also exchange dollars quickly and often at rates slightly better than the banks. They are also more willing to accept older or more worn bills, albeit at lower rates.
Almost all visitors to Quy Nhơn are local Vietnamese tourists, and the accommodation options cater to them in terms of hotel styles, food, and service. On the plus side, though, you will find prices that are significantly cheaper than in other beach cities in the country, no scams or higher rates for foreigners, and a personal friendliness that overcomes all language difficulties (well, many of them, at least).
Online reservations are available through the standard international booking websites. Hotel growth hasn't been massive, but it definitely has outpaced tourist numbers in the last decade, and even in the Tết holiday period or peak summer months, you will never have a problem finding a room for the night if you just ask around a bit.
| address= | lat=13.955 | l109.042222 | directi | ph | tollfree= | hours= | price= | wikipedia=Phu Cat Airport | wikidata=Q193408 | cThe main civilian airport serving Quy Nhơn and the Bình Định area today, was built in 1966–67 by the U.S. Air Force. }}
Phù Cát is served by carriers Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air, and Bamboo Airways with return flights from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
Getting there and away:
Cyclos have fallen out of favor and are barely anywhere to be found, not to mention that they did never cater for tourists in the first place.
Quy Nhon is a city of 457,000 people (2019), which stands in stark contrast to the commercialism and development of other Vietnamese cities like Da Nang.
There are a lot of reasons the city is still off the radar of international travellers, but give Quy Nhon a chance and you will discover a fabulous destination hidden in plain sight. Bordered on both sides by layers of mountains receding into the hazy distance, the natural beauty of Quy Nhon's waterfront has inspired poets for centuries and is still its most obvious attraction today. A sparkling promenade runs along the length of the city's 5-km beach. Just off the promenade, dozens of open-air restaurants with sweeping 180-degree ocean views grill, steam and stew seafood caught only hours before by local fishermen and serve it to customers sitting on tiny plastic stools set haphazardly amidst grass and trees. And everywhere in Quy Nhon, you will be charmed by the people.
Outside the centre, you will find dozens of tiny fishing villages and coastal bays, the most accessible and best-preserved 11th-century Champa ruins in Vietnam, panoramic views from mountain roads slicing high above the coastal cliffs, and pristine beaches with not a soul in sight for 10 km.
