Cat Ba Island and Lan Ha Bay | A Quieter Alternative to Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is one of Vietnam’s most famous destinations, but just south of it lies Lan Ha Bay, a smaller, quieter bay with similar limestone karsts and emerald-green waters.

After doing some research, we quickly realised that we wanted to visit Lan Ha Bay rather than Ha Long Bay. We decided to spend a week on Cat Ba Island and take a one-night cruise through Lan Ha Bay during our stay.

Cat Ba Island is the largest island in the Cát Bà archipelago and the perfect base for exploring Lan Ha Bay. The island itself is also worth exploring, with its limestone cliffs, small beaches and lush green landscapes.

Here’s our experience of Cat Ba Island and Lan Ha Bay, along with some tips.

How to get to Cat Ba

How you get to Cat Ba Island depends on where you're travelling from. The most common routes are:

From Hanoi

The easiest option is to book a combined bus and ferry ticket. The bus takes you from Hanoi to the ferry terminal, after which you cross to Cat Ba Island and continue by bus to Cat Ba Town.

You can also arrange the journey yourself by booking a bus to the ferry terminal and purchasing a ferry ticket separately. Once you arrive on Cat Ba Island, you can take a local bus or taxi to Cat Ba Town.

From Hai Phong

If you're already in Hai Phong, you can take a ferry or speedboat to Cat Ba Island.

From Ha Long City

If you're visiting Ha Long Bay first, you can take a ferry from Tuan Chau to Gia Luan Harbour on Cat Ba Island. From there, you can take a taxi or local bus to Cat Ba Town.

Our tip  If you're travelling from Hanoi, book a combined bus and ferry ticket. It's the easiest way to get to Cat Ba without having to organise each leg of the journey separately.

• We booked through Cat Ba Express and paid $13 per person for the entire journey. They picked us up near our apartment, at a location of our choice.

Where to stay

Cat Ba is Vietnam’s largest island, with roughly half of it covered in forest and national park. Most visitors stay in Cat Ba Town, a lively harbour town with hotels, restaurants, and kayak and boat tours departing for Lan Ha Bay. Beyond the town, there are only a handful of small villages, such as remote Viet Hai and the old fishing village of Cai Beo.

We chose to stay in Cat Ba Town. It had plenty of restaurants to choose from, was where most boat tours leave from, and we’d heard from friends that it was a good base for exploring Lan Ha Bay. It was also the place where we could be fairly sure the WiFi would work. We don’t always love staying close to a connection, but when you work remotely, it’s something you have to plan around.

Cat Ba Town is a small town, but it has plenty of hotels, hostels and apartments to choose from. We picked a place on the edge of town, Rustic House & Coffee, and it was a good choice. It’s a short walk into town, there are enough restaurants nearby, and the area is pretty quiet, apart from the occasional karaoke party in the street.

A town that’s changing fast

We didn’t know it at the time, but we were glad we didn’t stay on 1/4 Street (Một Tháng Tư), the main road along the water. When we arrived, a large part of the bay in town was being filled in to make room for a major tourism development. Where there used to be water, there were now extensive construction sites, right next to the old waterfront.

Right now (2026), the bay has become a large new development area, with paved streets and the first new buildings already in place. It has almost doubled the size of the town.

What to do around Cat Ba Town

Explore Lan Ha Bay

The reason we stayed on Cat Ba, and the reason most people come here, is of course Lan Ha Bay. To experience as much of it as possible, we booked an overnight tour and spent a night on the boat. Looking back, it was a great decision. An overnight trip gives you more than enough time to enjoy life on board, explore the bay properly, and see both a sunset and a sunrise over the water.

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There are a huge number of tour providers, both in town and online. We almost got dizzy from the choice, and given the unusual review culture in Vietnam, it was hard to tell which provider to trust.

Reviews in Vietnam

In Vietnam, online reviews often feel less reliable because businesses frequently ask customers for a rating, specifically a five-star rating, sometimes in exchange for a free drink, a discount, or another small reward. Rather than simply encouraging honest feedback, this creates pressure to leave a positive review regardless of the actual experience. The practice is reinforced by fierce competition for visibility on platforms such as Google Maps, where a high rating can attract more customers and give businesses an advantage over competitors. As a result, reviews become part of the transaction rather than a genuine reflection of customer satisfaction.

In the end we chose Cat Ba Ventures, a company with an office on the main street. We were happy with the tour. It ran from 11:00 on the first day until 15:00 the next day, which gave us plenty of time on the water without feeling rushed. The guides were friendly and knowledgeable, and the group was a comfortable size, so it never felt crowded.

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We made several stops to swim and kayak, including a kayaking trip into a cave. We stopped in places where there were hardly any other boats, so it felt like we had the bay to ourselves. The food on board was good, the cabins were clean and had their own bathroom, and we learned a lot about the bay along the way.

The highlight for us was getting up early the next morning to watch the sunrise. It was quiet, the sky turned orange, and there was hardly anyone else around. It’s the main reason we’d recommend the overnight option over a day trip.

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  Sunrise over Lan Ha Bay

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Explore Cat Ba island

Lan Ha Bay might be the headline, but Cat Ba itself is worth your time. Beyond the harbour there are quiet coastal roads, a national park and viewpoints that reward a bit of climbing. Here’s how we explored it.

By bike

We rented bikes for a day at Cat Ba Cycling, and the island turned out to be a great place to explore on two wheels. If you’re used to a bit of cycling, it’s very doable. From Cat Ba Town, you can even ride all the way across the island to the Northern Pier.

This is also the direction we took. We cycled north, and near the entrance to Cat Ba National Park (here), we turned west and followed the coast back. There aren’t many roads on the island, which makes it fairly easy to find your way. In total, it was about 30 km and 500 metres of climbing, and the views along the way made every bit of it worth it.

By motorbike and on foot: Cat Ba National Park

For the national park, we combined two ways of getting around. We rented a motorbike from our accommodation to reach the entrance of Cat Ba National Park (here). The ride from town takes about 20 to 25 minutes. It’s a scenic ride, the roads are good and there isn’t much traffic.

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Be careful in some of the villages along the way. Dogs lie in the street and run around, so keep an eye out for them and be careful for your own safety too.

We explored the park on foot from the entrance. The entrance fee is 160,000 VND. There is a trail that leads up to a viewpoint. The climb is a bit steep at times, so good shoes are needed. The trail wasn’t very busy, but we did meet a few other people on the way. The view from the top is the reward for the climb. It looks out over the island’s unusual limestone mountains.