Fun Things To Do In Phu Quoc

Phu Quoc is a small island in Southern Vietnam. It is west of Saigon and sits by the border of Vietnam and Cambodia and is just an idyllic little island. I first went to Phu Quoc back in 2017, and while it already had a lot of tourist facilities, this has grown exponentially since. Luckily there are still a lot of fun things to do in Phu Quoc any time of the year. As usual with travel around South East Asia, I recommend avoiding travel the first week of October. Some people say to also avoid travel during the Lunar New Year, but depending on where you go you can experience some great celebrations.

How To Get To Phu Quoc

There are a few ways you can reach Phu Quoc island. You simply can fly to Ho Chi Minh and from there hop on the plane to Phu Qouc. This is the most convenient way for those who travel from abroad and don’t have a lot of free time.

If you are already in Vietnam for example, you can travel from Ha Tien to Phu Quoc by ferry, which costs 12$ and takes around an hour to get to the final destination.

Fun Things To Do In Phu Quoc

Cody and I like to stay in a beachfront bungalow called Phu Quoc Kim located right on Long Beach, not too far away walking distance from Duong Dong town. It is a great location to be based out of, and the proprietors are lovely people.

Our favorite thing to do in Phu Quoc is simply lounge by the beach, sipping a cocktail or some Leo beer and just enjoying the good weather, but if that’s all this list is about there would not be much useful information would there? Thus I present you 5 fun things to do in Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam.

Bai Sao Beach

This is a beach on the east side of the island. In English it means White Sand beach, and they are not wrong. It is a very long beach with extremely soft white sand. Along the promenade there are a few restaurants serving food and drink, so you can spend the entire day here just relaxing. The water is more shallow than that of Long Beach so it is good for kids. The only negative is that Bai Sao beach is on the east and not the west, so you can’t get a good sunset here. I recommend heading back to the west for a cocktail watching the sun go down.

There is unreliable public transport going this way, but you can take a grab taxi for fairly cheap. This beach is also a stop on many day excursions so if you take one of the many tours chances are you’ll be able to see Bai Sao beach.

Duong Dong Night Market

If you are looking for some delicious seafood, then the night market is your best bet. At least when taking about sheer variety. The street is a few blocks long and completely lined with 2-3 (sometimes 4) story restaurants all specializing in different seafood dishes. They also have a few cart hawkers selling things like coconut candy and rolled ice cream for dessert.

We always seem to make the mistake of ordering too much…I guess we eat with our eyes when checking out the menus. Two of our favorite things are just some simple grilled chili lime shrimp, and the grouper hot pot.

Vietnamese hot pot is different than the Chinese version, so you’ll receive more of a clear soup with far less oil. Great for keeping that beach body!

Take A Tour Around Phu Quoc

As I mentioned with Bai Sao beach, there are a lot of day trip/ excursion companies on Phu Quoc and they are all reasonably priced. In fact, it is usually cheaper just to take a package tour than hire a taxi to drive you all over the island. I’m generally against packaged tours since they seem to me like a cheat way of traveling, but with Phu Quoc it’s just so comprehensive. Especially since Cody was adamant about going to the fish sauce factory.

Apparently the best fish sauce in the world comes from Phu Quoc and Cody wanted a bottle to bring back home. They sell them all over Vietnam so there’s no NEED to go there, but it is cool to learn how it is made overall.

The morning tour we took also took us to a pepper farm, bee farm, a pearl farm (that’s the most touristy part in my opinion, as they probably just wanted people to buy jewelry), a temple, and to finish, Bai Sao Beach for lunch before dropping us off back by our bungalows. The entire thing was about $13 a person, so I was quite happy with how much stuff we got to see!

Night Fishing

If you like fishing, you’ll love this night time version. A ton of boats in Duong Dong are offering this service so it won’t be hard to find one at all. It is about $5-10 a person depending on the boat, and you are provided with fishing line and bait.

Why at night? Because you’re squid fishing. The boat with aim floodlights at the surface of the water which help draw the squids up towards toward your hooks. If you do happen to catch something they’ll prepare it for you to eat, or bring back to land. I didn’t catch anything but a few other girls on the boat did, as well as the captain, so we all got to taste some delicious calamari!

Fun Things To Do In Phu Quoc

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