№ 01When Hoi An floods, and how often

Hoi An sits on a river delta a couple of metres above sea level, at the point where the Thu Bon river meets the sea. It has flooded for four hundred years. The old houses have trapdoors in their upper floors and pulley systems for lifting furniture, because this is not a disaster here — it is a season.

The window runs from late October to mid-December, with October and November the peak. In a typical year the town goes under two or three times; in a bad year more. The trigger is heavy rain upriver in the mountains rather than rain in Hoi An itself, which is why the town can flood on a day that looks merely grey from your window.

№ 02What the 2026 season is forecast to look like

2025 was an extreme year, and it is the wrong baseline for planning a 2026 trip. Vietnam’s National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting expects this season to be quieter than average:

El Nino years in central Vietnam tend to bring less total rainfall than La Nina years. That is genuinely good news if you are booked for November — but it is a seasonal average, not a promise about your week. Fewer rain episodes does not mean none, and a single storm landing on a high tide still floods the Old Town.

№ 03What a flood day actually looks like

It is less dramatic and more inconvenient than the photographs suggest. The water usually arrives overnight. You wake up, the lane outside the hotel is a canal, and someone is paddling a metal boat down it past the shopfronts.

On the worst days of the 2025 season the central streets sat under one to one and a half metres of muddy water and the market under about half a metre, with the river gauge reading 1.78 m on 27 October and rising past the highest official alarm level. That is the top end. A more ordinary flood puts thirty to sixty centimetres through the riverside streets and leaves everything two blocks back dry.

Then it goes. The water falls almost as fast as it rises — usually within a day or two of the rain stopping upriver. Shopkeepers sweep the mud out, the chairs come back down off the tables, and the town reopens with remarkable speed. What takes months rather than days is the drying-out: riverside hotels can need two or three months to get the damp out of ground-floor rooms.

№ 04Which streets go under first

Flooding in Hoi An is very predictable, because it is simply a matter of height above the river. Learn this and you can judge a hotel’s address before you book.

№ 05Where to stay, and where not to

If your dates fall in the window, this is the single decision that determines whether a flood is an anecdote or a ruined trip.

• Avoid ground-floor rooms on or near Bach Dang and the An Hoi riverside. The views are the reason those rooms exist and the reason they flood.
• Look at Cam Chau, Cam Thanh, Tan An or the An Bang beach road — all a short ride out, all higher or better drained, all still ten minutes from the Old Town.
• A first-floor room beats a ground-floor one anywhere in the centre, even in a hotel that has never flooded.
• Check the hotel has a generator. Power cuts are common during storms; the better places run generators and keep the water hot.
• Book flexible rates for late October and November. The premium is small and the option is worth having.

Our guide to where to stay in Hoi An breaks the areas down in more detail.

№ 06Riding a motorbike in flood season

This is the part we know best, and the part where a bad decision costs real money.

Never ride into standing water you cannot see the bottom of. On a scooter the air intake sits low; once water reaches it, the engine draws water instead of air and stops — and if it stops that way, the damage is usually terminal. Vietnamese riders will tell you a bike can wade, and a local on a Wave who knows exactly how deep that particular lane gets probably can. On a rented automatic, in water of unknown depth, over a road surface you cannot see, you cannot.

Practical points for the season:

• Park high, overnight, every night. If the forecast is bad, leave the bike where the hotel staff tell you to — they know which corner of the yard stays dry.
• Electric bikes and floodwater do not mix. A soaked battery pack is both a repair bill and a fire risk. If you have an e-bike and the water is coming, park it high and leave it.
• If the bike does go under, do not try to start it. Starting a flooded engine is what turns a cleanable problem into a rebuild. Call us and leave it alone.
• Ride the beach road, not the river road. The route out to An Bang and Cam Thanh usually stays open long after the Old Town lanes are impassable.
• Rain gear beats a poncho on a bike in November. A poncho catches the wind and the sleeves fill.

Our wet-weather riding tips cover the technique side, and what insurance does and does not cover is worth reading before the season rather than during it.

№ 07What still works when the town is under water

More than you would expect, and this is the part that surprises people.

Getting in and out of Hoi An is usually fine. The road to Da Nang and the airport runs on higher ground and stays open unless a typhoon is actually crossing the coast. Flights, trains and buses carry on. It is the last two kilometres into the Old Town that stop, not the region.

Hotels keep running. The good ones have generators, so power and hot water continue even when the grid goes down. WiFi is the thing that tends to fail.

Restaurants and cafés outside the flood zone stay open, and much of Cam Chau, Tan An and the beach road carries on as normal. The Old Town shops shut for a day or two and then reopen.

№ 08What to do on a flood day

A flood day is a lost day only if your whole plan was the Old Town.

Go inland or up. My Son is on high ground and often perfectly dry when Hoi An is not. Marble Mountains and Da Nang are usually unaffected. The Hai Van Pass is a bad idea in heavy rain, but the run to Da Nang along the coast road is normally fine.

Do the indoor list. A cooking class booked that morning, the museums, a long lunch, a tailor fitting, a massage. Our rainy day in Hoi An guide is the full version of this list.

Or lean into it. Hiring a boat to be paddled down Bach Dang while the shopfronts drift past at eye level is a genuinely extraordinary hour, and it is a thing almost no visitor gets to see. Agree the price first, wear something you do not mind losing, and do not get in a boat that looks overloaded.

№ 09Should you cancel? The honest answer

No — not on the basis of the season alone. Here is how we would actually think about it.

The wider point is that Hoi An in November is cheap, empty and green, and most visitors get a few grey days and no flood at all. Our month-by-month weather guide sets the season in context if you are still choosing dates.

№ 10FAQ

Flood depths, river-gauge readings and affected streets follow Vietnamese press reporting of the 2025 season and are examples of a severe flood rather than a typical one. The 2026 outlook follows the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting and is a seasonal forecast, not a prediction for any given week — check current warnings before and during your trip. Anh Khoa rents motorbikes, e-bikes and bicycles in Hoi An; the riding advice here is general and does not replace local instructions on the day.