№ 01The four ways to get there without riding

My Son is 38,2 km south-west of Hoi An, about an hour each way. If you are not on a bike, you have four options and they are genuinely different days, not different prices for the same day.

The honest summary: the shuttle bus wins on price and loses on timing, the tour wins on understanding and loses on flexibility, and the private car wins on everything except cost. Which matters most depends on whether you came to see My Son or to understand it.

№ 02The shuttle bus: price, times and what is included

This is what most people mean by the bus to My Son. It is a shared minibus that collects from hotels or a central pickup point in Hoi An, drives you out, waits, and brings you back. No guide, no commentary, no lunch.

• Price: roughly 200.000–300.000₫ return per person. The spread is almost always about whether the My Son entrance ticket is bundled in.
• Departure: around 08:00, sometimes 08:10 depending on the pickup run.
• Return: the bus leaves My Son around 13:00.
• Journey: about an hour each way on flat provincial road.
• What is not included: the 150.000₫ entrance ticket unless stated, food, and any kind of guiding.

That gives you roughly three hours on site, which is more than a tour allows and enough to walk every group at a civilised pace. The catch is the departure time, which is covered in section six because it deserves its own explanation.

One more thing about the pickup. Shuttle operators quote a departure time, not a pickup time. If your hotel is at the start of the collection run you may be on the bus at 07:30 and still sitting in Hoi An at 08:15 while it fills. If you are last, you get an extra forty minutes in bed. Neither is a problem once you expect it, but it is the single most common complaint in shuttle reviews, and it is almost always this and not the bus itself.

Hotels inside the old town pedestrian zone are a separate case. Vehicles cannot enter at certain hours, so the pickup point may be a corner two or three streets away rather than your door. Ask where exactly when you book, not on the morning.

№ 03The public bus, honestly

There is a public bus, it is very cheap, and almost nobody who tries it does it twice. Fares run about 30.000–150.000₫ depending on the route and how the conductor reads you, and the last service back from My Son usually goes around 17:00.

What the fare does not tell you is the shape of the day. The public route is not a straight line from Hoi An to the gate. You are looking at a connection, a wait, and a walk at the far end, and none of it is signposted in English. Add a driver who may or may not stop where you expect, and you have spent four hours of a day trip on logistics to save 150.000₫.

Take it if the journey is the point and you have a whole day with nothing after it. Otherwise the shuttle costs about the price of two coffees more and removes every one of those problems.

№ 04Guided tour vs shuttle bus

This is the choice that actually changes what you get, and price is the least interesting part of it.

My Son is not a place that explains itself. The towers are labelled with letters and numbers, there are almost no interpretive signs, and the difference between a group that was a royal funerary complex and one that was a treasury is invisible unless somebody tells you. Most people who walk it unguided leave having seen brick.

A tour typically gives you two to three hours on site with a guide, and often includes the entrance ticket and the Cham dance performance timing. A shuttle gives you three hours and silence. If you have already read up on the Champa kingdom, the shuttle is better value. If you have not, a guide is the difference between ruins and a story.

If you want to compare what is running right now, prices and reviews sit side by side on the My Son tours and shuttle listings — worth sorting by rating rather than by price, because the cheapest shuttle listings tend to be the ones with the thinnest review counts. We keep a separate page of shuttle and group-tour listings for My Son. To be clear about what we do and do not run: Anh Khoa rents motorbikes in Hoi An. We do not operate the shuttle buses or the tours — those links go to the companies that do.

№ 05Private car, and when it makes sense

A private car with driver runs from around 800.000₫ return and stops being extravagant the moment there are three of you. Split three ways it lands close to a tour seat each, and it buys the one thing no shared option can: you choose the departure time.

That matters more at My Son than at most sites, for reasons in the next section. A car that leaves Hoi An at 06:00 puts you at the gate before the coach groups. A car that leaves at 14:00 puts you there for the late light with the site emptying around you. Neither is possible on a shuttle.

№ 06The timing problem nobody mentions

My Son opens at 06:00 and closes at 17:00. The shuttle buses arrive around 09:00. So does everything else.

Between roughly 09:00 and 11:30 the site holds most of its daily visitors at once, in full sun, in the narrowest part of the valley. The brick reflects heat, the good photo angles have queues, and the guided groups stack up at the same four towers. Arrive at 07:00 or after 15:00 and it is a different place entirely — the same ruins, a fraction of the people.

The shuttle bus cannot give you either window. That is not a reason to avoid it; it is a reason to know what you are buying. If the quiet hours matter to you, the honest options are a private car or your own bike.

№ 07What it all costs, side by side

For one person, return from Hoi An, including the 150.000₫ entrance ticket:

The numbers land closer together than most people expect. Once the entrance ticket is in the total, the gap between the cheapest and the most comfortable option is a few hundred thousand dong — which is why the deciding factor is usually the timing and the guiding, not the fare.

№ 08Riding it yourself instead

Worth saying plainly: the ride out to My Son is flat, easy and genuinely pleasant. It is 38,2 km of rice road with no mountain pass and no highway, and it is the one option that lets you leave at 06:00, stay until you are done, and stop at Tra Kieu on the way back.

We cover the exact route, the turns and the road conditions in My Son by motorbike from Hoi An. If you would rather understand what you are looking at before you go, the Cham temples explained covers who built the place and why the towers carry letters.

№ 09What the shuttle day actually looks like

Useful to picture it before you book, because the shape of the day is fixed and the brochure never spells it out.

Three and a half hours sounds generous and is. The valley is walkable in ninety minutes at a brisk pace, so most people finish with time for a performance and a drink. The failure mode is the opposite: arriving at 09:00 with no plan, walking the whole thing by 10:30, then sitting in the heat for two hours waiting for a bus.

Use the performance times as your structure. Walk the far groups first while everyone else clusters near the entrance, catch the 10:30 show when the sun is at its worst, then finish the near groups on your way back out. That sequence turns dead waiting time into the shaded part of the day.

№ 10What to bring, and what catches people out

• Cash for the ticket. 150.000₫ per foreign adult, 100.000₫ Vietnamese. Card acceptance at the gate is unreliable and there is no ATM at the site.
• More water than feels necessary. There is a drinks stall near the entrance and nothing once you are among the towers. The valley holds heat.
• Real shoes. The paths between groups are uneven brick and packed earth, and there are shallow steps everywhere. Sandals are survivable, flip-flops are not.
• Sun cover. Almost no shade between the groups, and the peak shuttle window is the harshest part of the day.
• Rain layer in wet season. October and November showers arrive fast. The buggy is open-sided.
• Something to read on the way. An hour each way with no commentary, and the background makes the visit far better.

Two things that genuinely catch people. First, the buggy from the gate to the temples is included in your entrance ticket, so nobody should be charging you for it separately. Second, the return bus leaves from the car park, not the temple area — allow fifteen minutes to walk or ride back out, because a missed shuttle means a taxi at several times the fare.

№ 11Frequently asked questions

Updated August 2026. Shuttle fares, departure times and the My Son entrance ticket follow current operator and Hue Monuments arrangements; schedules shift for public holidays, so confirm on the day if the timing is critical. The 38,2 km distance was measured on Google Maps driving directions from Hoi An old town to My Son at 15.7688, 108.1193. This page contains one affiliate link to GetYourGuide; if you book through it we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.