Hotel Review: Hoa's Place

Would I recommend it? Yes.

Who should stay there? Backpackers, young/solo/money conscious travelers, anyone who wants to be right on the beach.

I knew I wanted to stay at a place near the beach, outside of Da Nang proper. After a bit of research I decided on Hoa's Place...it was in my guide book (Lonely Planet 2010 edition) and the online reviews raved about the place. The actual hotel is made up of two parts: a central dining/recreation area where guests hang out, and the actual rooms. I'll come back to the dining/recreation area, but first a bit about the rooms. My advice is this: make sure you view your room before you agree to stay there. There are actually many clusters of rooms run by different families and the standards of cleanliness vary greatly. All the rooms are overseen by Hoa's Place because Mr. and Mrs. Hoa are the only ones who speak English, but the rooms are definitely not consistent. I was originally put into a very nice double room with A/C for $9/night, but it turned out that room was booked so they moved me to a different room. The second room was nowhere near as nice and didn't have A/C, but the price was lowered to $5/night. At first I thought it would be okay, but honestly the room sucked. Bugs galore- ugh. The fan worked, but was fixed way too high to cool me off when I was in bed (which was hard as a rock), and the bathroom was disgusting. I could barely sleep the two nights I was there because of the numerous mosquitoes and the fact that I was sweating non-stop. All that being said, I talked to lots of other cool people staying there and they all said their rooms were anywhere from “decent” to “pretty nice” to “very nice,” and given that my first room was in the “very nice” category I believe that the room options there vary widely. Just about everyone else seemed okay with their rooms, so I would just make sure the first room you look at is what you're getting.

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Now, the eating/hang out area is great...just an open air room really, but they have all sorts of maps/guide books/etc to look at, plus cards and other games. People hang out there at all hours of the day. The food system is super easy—you write down what you want from the menu, hand it to one of the staff, and then write it in the notebook where you keep track of everything you eat or drink. Simple as that. There is always water/soda/beer in the fridge that you can take, and prices are cheap. Dinner is served family style every night for 50,000 VND (about $2.50) and the food is really good. It's also a great way to meet other travelers, especially if you're traveling alone like I was. I met a bunch of really cool people, in particular a group of Americans teaching English in Beijing.

And of course, the best thing about the place is location. location, location. Miles of beach. Mostly deserted. 500 meters from your room. Enough said.