Con Dao islands, four days

At a glance

Duration

4 days, 3 nights

Party size

2 to 8, private

Starts

Ho Chi Minh City, Tan Son Nhat airport

Ends

Ho Chi Minh City, Tan Son Nhat airport

Effort

Easy — one boat day, short walks, no climbs required

From

USD 1,190 per person, land only

Who this is for

Con Dao is sixteen islands about 240 km off the southern coast, of which one, Con Son, has a town, a road and an airstrip. Since the provincial merger of July 2025 it is administratively part of Ho Chi Minh City, the former Ba Ria–Vung Tau province having been absorbed, which surprises almost everyone and changes nothing about how far away it feels. There is one main street, the restaurants close by about nine, and the loudest sound after dark is the sea against the seafront wall.

Two quite different things bring people here. The first is the prison complex: French and then South Vietnamese, in use from 1862 until 1975, and the burial ground at Hang Duong. For Vietnamese visitors this is the reason to come, and the archipelago is a place of pilgrimage rather than a holiday destination. The second is the national park, which covers most of the land and a large area of sea, and which is why there are turtles, reef and empty beaches. This trip takes both seriously and does not blend them into one cheerful package.

Four days is the right length: three nights gives you the historical sites without hurry, one full boat day, and a morning in reserve for weather. If you want an island with restaurants, a spa and things to do after dark, Phu Quoc is the trip you want and we will say so. If you want Con Dao inside a longer coastal journey, it sits at the end of the coast and islands route.

Day by day

Day 1

Fly to Con Dao, and the town on foot

The flight from Tan Son Nhat takes about an hour over roughly 240 km. Vietnam Airlines operates most of the schedule and Bamboo Airways the rest; fares run from about USD 47 to USD 130 one way depending on how far ahead you book and which month you fly. Co Ong airport is at the northern end of Con Son island, about 25 minutes from town on a road that runs along the shore.

The afternoon is the town itself, which takes an hour and rewards two. The French laid out a grid of low administrative buildings and tamarind avenues facing the bay, and most of them are still standing and still in use. The Con Dao museum gives the chronology you will want before tomorrow. After that, the seafront road at dusk, when the whole town appears to be out walking on it, and an early dinner: the island has perhaps a dozen proper restaurants and they stop serving around nine.

StayIsland hotel or beach resort, class as chosen, Con SonMealsLunch, dinnerTravel25 minutes, about 14 km from the airportOn foot3 km, flat, in town

Day 2

The prison complex and Hang Duong

Van Son pagoda in the late afternoon, above An Hai lake

The morning is the reason the island has a name in Vietnam. The complex was opened by the French in 1862 and remained a political prison, under different administrations, until 1975. You visit Phu Hai camp, the oldest of the camps, and the cell blocks known as the tiger cages: roofless stone pits overlooked by walkways from which guards could see down into them. The guide gives dates, capacities and the documented conditions, and does not perform. Photography is permitted; we ask that you take it quietly.

Hang Duong cemetery is a short drive on. It holds close to two thousand marked graves, many of them unnamed, out of a death toll across the islands that is generally put in the tens of thousands over more than a century. Vietnamese visitors come here after dark, and around midnight at the grave of Vo Thi Sau, who was executed here in 1952 at nineteen. If you want to be there at that hour we will take you, on the understanding that you are a guest at someone else’s act of remembrance. The afternoon is deliberately different in temper: Van Son pagoda on the hill above An Hai lake, and then Dam Trau beach for the last two hours of light.

StaySame hotel, second nightMealsBreakfast, lunchTravelAbout 30 km across the day, all short legsOn foot3 km, flat, plus about 60 steps up to Van Son pagoda

Day 3

A day on the water

Turtle nesting on Bay Canh, June to September, by park permit only

A wooden boat leaves the pier at about 08:00 for the islets. The usual run is Bay Canh and Tre Lon, with two or three snorkelling stops over shallow coral and a beach lunch. Be told what the reef is and is not: it is shallow, patchy, and has been damaged by bleaching in recent years like most reefs in the region. There are good stands of hard coral, plenty of small fish and often turtles in the water. It is not a world-class dive site and we will not describe it as one.

The park charges a fee for the islets and limits landings, so the boat day is arranged through the national park rather than around it. Between roughly June and September, green turtles come ashore to nest on Bay Canh, and a limited number of permits allow visitors to stay overnight at the ranger station and watch a nesting under the rangers’ instruction, with hatchling releases at dawn. The accommodation is a bunk in a basic hut and the permits go early; if you want this, tell us when you enquire and not afterwards.

StaySame hotel, third night, or the Bay Canh ranger station if you take the optionMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel10 minutes to the pierOn foot1 to 2 km on sand, plus swimming

Day 4

The west of the island, and the flight back

Whether the morning is free or full depends on your flight, and the schedule is thin enough that we will know only when the airline releases times. If there is a morning, we use it on the western side: Ben Dam port, where the ferries from the mainland come in, the road over the saddle with the whole bay below it, and either the short forest path down to Ong Dung bay, about a kilometre each way over roots and stones, or an hour more on a beach.

Transfer to Co Ong for the flight, which puts you back at Tan Son Nhat in the early afternoon or the evening. If you are connecting to an international flight the same day, leave a wide margin: this is the one route on our southern programme where weather cancels flights outright, and the alternative is a ferry and a long drive rather than a later plane.

Stay—MealsBreakfastTravelAbout 30 km, including the transfer to the airportOn foot2 km, including a rough forest path if you take Ong Dung

What it costs

Con Dao is expensive for what it is, and the reason is supply rather than luxury. Almost everything on the island arrives by boat or plane, there are only a few dozen places to stay above guesthouse level, and the national park caps the number of boats and landings. A room here costs noticeably more than the same room on the mainland coast, and the gap between the Comfortable and Exceptional columns is wider than on any other trip we run in the south, because the top of the market on this island is genuinely at the top of the market in Vietnam.

We leave the flight out of the headline price on purpose. Fares between Tan Son Nhat and Con Dao swing from about USD 47 to USD 130 each way depending on the month and on how early you book, and folding that into a package price would mean either quoting the worst case or quietly taking the difference. We book the seats at cost and show you the ticket. What a Vietnam trip costs explains how we treat domestic flights across all our routes.

Included and not included

Pictures from this route

Who this trip is not for

This island suits fewer people than the photographs suggest, and we would rather lose the booking.

• Anyone looking for an island holiday with nightlife, shopping or a wide choice of restaurants. Con Son town has one main street, kitchens close around nine, and there is no bar scene at all. That is the appeal, and it is also a genuine problem for some people.
• Travellers on a tight budget. Rooms, food and boat charters all cost more here than on the mainland because everything arrives by sea or air, and there is no cheap version of this trip that we would be willing to sell.
• Anyone who wants to treat the prison complex as a photo stop. It is a memorial and a burial ground, Vietnamese families come here to mourn relatives, and a guide who is asked to make it entertaining will decline.
• People travelling between October and December who cannot absorb a cancelled flight or a rough sea. The boat day is the first thing lost in a swell, and there is no indoor alternative programme on an island this small.
• Divers expecting a top-tier reef. The coral here is shallow and patchy and has suffered bleaching. The water is often clear and there are turtles, but if reef quality is the point of the trip you should be going elsewhere.

Getting to Con Dao

There are exactly two ways on and off these islands, and the difference between them is a whole day of your trip. Everything below is the practical position as we book it; the ferry operators change their schedules seasonally and the airline releases its timetable in blocks, so we confirm the actual times about six weeks out.

Flying is what almost everyone should do. The route from Tan Son Nhat to Co Ong is about 240 km and takes roughly an hour, with Vietnam Airlines carrying most of the schedule and Bamboo Airways as the alternative. The ferries matter for two reasons: they are the fallback when the weather closes the airport, and the crossing from Tran De in Soc Trang is short and cheap enough that travellers already in the Mekong Delta sometimes use it deliberately. Tran De port is about 30 km from Soc Trang town, so add that leg on.