The Ancient Town of Hoi An, Vietnam is (Almost) Too Pretty to Be Real

“You’ll love Hoi An, Migs. It’s like Penang, but much prettier. It almost doesn’t seem real.”

That was the message I sent my nephew Miguel after walking through Hoi An’s Old Town at night. We became enamored with the place the first time we saw it that morning. But at night, with its many colored lanterns all lit up, it transformed into something I wasn’t expecting. It looked magical, like something out of a fairy tale.

When doing research for this trip, I often read how Hoi An was the only city in Vietnam that tourists would spend a considerable amount of time in. After our first night here, it wasn’t hard to see why.

Hoi An is a city in Quảng Nam Province in Central Vietnam. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was one of the most heavily-frequented trading ports in Southeast Asia from the 17th to the 18th centuries. Many foreign merchants lived in Hoi An during that time, mostly Chinese and Japanese and later Europeans, creating a unique…