Hanoi Old Quarter | Self-Guided Audio Walking Tour
1 hour and 30 minutes
About this experience
Hanoi's Old Quarter is not really a neighbourhood. It is a commercial code, and once you can read it you cannot stop. Hang means goods. Traders came in from the craft villages around the city, clustered by trade, and named their streets after what they sold. The silversmiths were summoned from one village in 1461, and their guild house still stands on Hang Bac, dedicated not to silver but to the ancestor of all hundred crafts. On the second floor of a silk merchant's shop, at a family dining table, Vietnam's Declaration of Independence was written. Ten stops in a loop: Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple, Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square, the Kim Ngan guild house, the ancient house at 87 Ma May, Hang Buom, the O Quan Chuong gate, Dong Xuan Market, Hang Ma, Bach Ma Temple and 48 Hang Ngang. Self-guided, so the walk is yours. 10 stops, 2.4 km, about 1 hour 30 at an easy pace, narrated in English with a live GPS map. No group, no guide, no set arrival time.
- Experience type
- Day tour or activity
- Duration
- 1 hour and 30 minutes
- Guide
- English
- Audio guide
- English
- Categories
- Walking tour · Cultural and theme tours · City tours
What's included
Self-guided audio tour, narrated stops Audio guide in English 10 stops, 2.4 km, 1.5 hours Stops at Ngoc Son Temple, guild house on Hang Bac, a tube house on Ma May Walking directions between all tour stops Interactive GPS map, live position, route Phone browser access, no app needed Lifetime access to repeat the tour, flexible start, self-paced, no group
What's not included
Live guide, and there is no group Entry or admission fees, optional and paid on site Smartphone and earphones, bring your own charged Mobile data, or the tour downloaded before you set off Food and drinks Transport Tip or gratuity Food and drinks Entry or admission fee
Please note
To start the tour, enter the ticket code from your confirmation on the Roamer redemption page linked there. Do this before you set off, while you still have signal. The tour then opens in your phone browser, with no app to download. Best time: Mornings before about 10:00 are cooler and the guild streets are loading rather than selling, which is the version of this walk with the fewest people in it. Late afternoon gives the best light on the gate and the market facade. Since 1 July 2026 a low emission zone bans every road vehicle, electric ones included, from the southern core of the Old Quarter between 19:00 and midnight on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the streets further north close to traffic on the same nights as walking streets. A weekend evening is the quietest this walk ever gets. The ticketed heritage houses reopen 19:00 to about 21:00 on those evenings, so you lose nothing indoors except 48 Hang Ngang, which is closed all weekend. Four sites on this walk charge 20,000 VND by e-ticket: Dinh Kim Ngan, 87 Ma May, 22 Hang Buom and Bach Ma Temple. All are open every day, 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:30 to 17:30, with an extra evening slot from about 19:00 to 21:00 at weekends. They were free until December 2025, so older guides will tell you otherwise. Every stop on this walk is narrated from the street, so none of them is required. 48 Hang Ngang is free but open 08:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday only. If seeing the room where the Declaration was written matters to you, walk this on a weekday. Ngoc Son Temple is 50,000 VND, open 07:00 to 19:00 Monday to Thursday and 07:00 to 22:00 Friday to Sunday. The lakeside view of The Huc bridge, which is the shot everyone wants, costs nothing. The block immediately east of the lake, between Dinh Tien Hoang and Ly Thai To, is a hoarded 2.14 hectare building site, the East Hoan Kiem square and park project. The lakeside promenade itself is still walkable, but the shore south of the bridge is hoarding for the next few hundred metres. At the end, Hang Ngang runs into Hang Dao and straight back to the square and the lake, about 250 metres. Number 38 Hang Dao is Dinh Dong Lac, a seventeenth-century silk-market communal house that is now a lacquer and silk showroom with the worship hall kept upstairs. It is open 08:30 to 20:00 and there is no ticket desk. Dong Xuan night market runs along Hang Dao, Hang Ngang, Hang Duong and Dong Xuan on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, which pairs naturally with a late-afternoon start. Old Quarter traffic is constant and does not stop for pedestrians. Only the Friday to Sunday evening window clears it, and only on the streets inside the scheme. Cross at a steady, predictable pace and let riders steer around you rather than stopping dead in the road. Pavements are often narrow and partly taken up by parked motorbikes and stacked goods, so you will sometimes be walking in the road. A city clearance campaign has been running since December 2025 and these streets were among the first targeted, so it is better than it was. Keep close to the kerb line and keep one earbud out. All ten stops are narrated from the street. Nothing on this walk requires you to buy a ticket or go indoors, and GPS arrival does not work reliably inside the buildings anyway. 48 Hang Ngang is closed Saturday and Sunday, which is the one collision with the best-time advice above. The stop is written to be heard from the pavement. Temples and communal houses on this route are active places of worship. Cover shoulders and knees, keep your voice down, and do not photograph people at prayer. Public transportation nearby
Itinerary
- 1Day 0
Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple: The Lake of the Returned Sword
Hoan Kiem lakeside promenade by The Huc bridge, Dinh Tien Hoang street, Hanoi
The lake at the heart of Hanoi, where a legend about a borrowed sword has an actual body in a glass case.
- 2Day 0
Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square: Where the Grid Begins
Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square, at the Hang Dao and Cau Go junction, Hanoi
The square at the lake's north tip, named after a school that taught people to read, at the mouth of a quarter you also have to learn to read.
- 3Day 0
Dinh Kim Ngan: The Ancestor of Every Trade
Hang Bac street, outside Dinh Kim Ngan at nos. 42-44, Hanoi
The silversmiths' guild house on Hang Bac, whose dedication tells you what the richest trade on the grid thought of itself.
- 4Day 0
87 Ma May: The Shape of a Trading House
Ma May street, opposite the ancient house at no. 87, Hanoi
A restored merchant house five metres wide and twenty-eight deep, the physical unit every single-trade street was built from.
- 5Day 0
Hang Buom: The Merchants Who Came From Further
Hang Buom street, outside the Cantonese assembly hall at no. 22, Hanoi
The Cantonese assembly hall at 22 Hang Buom, where a second merchant nation ran its own courts inside the grid.
- 6Day 0
O Quan Chuong: The Last Gate of the Rampart
Dao Duy Tu street, at the O Quan Chuong gate, Hanoi
The last surviving gate of the old city rampart, with an order to its own guards still set in the wall.
- 7Day 0
Dong Xuan Market: Count the Arches
Dong Xuan street, facing the south front of Dong Xuan Market, Hanoi
The biggest covered market in Hanoi, where the guild logic was finally consolidated under one roof, and where you should count.
- 8Day 0
Hang Ma: The Street That Kept Its Trade
Hang Ma street, between Hang Duong and Hang Ga, Hanoi
The street of paper burned for the dead, and an honest look at what it actually sells today.
- 9Day 0
Bach Ma Temple: The Horse That Drew the Line
Hang Buom street, outside Bach Ma Temple at no. 76, Hanoi
The oldest temple in the quarter, guardian of the city's eastern approach, built on a legend about where a wall should go.
- 10Day 0
48 Hang Ngang: The Dinner Table
Hang Ngang street, at no. 48, Hanoi
A silk merchant's house where Vietnam's Declaration of Independence was written, at the family dining table on the floor above the shop.
Meeting point
Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple, Hanoi Hoan Kiem lakeside promenade by The Huc bridge, Dinh Tien Hoang street, Hanoi, VN
Pick up
Pickup is not provided.
Cancellation policy · Hanoi Old Quarter | Self-Guided Audio Walking Tour
Standard Viator policy
- Cancellation 0–24 hours before departure: 100% cancellation fee.
- Cancellation 24–24000 hours before departure: 0% cancellation fee.
Good to know
Operated by Roamer and sold by AGORA. Your voucher and booking reference arrive by email straight after payment.