Region / Cam Ranh và Cam Lâm / 36 km from Nha Trang as the crow flies
The bay is the reason Cam Ranh exists: a deep, sheltered harbour that navies have wanted for a century, with an airport on its northern shore and a resort strip along the beach outside it. I pass through it every time I fly, and I have spent enough weekends on its edges to know that the interesting parts are not the resorts.
One thing first. Tours to Binh Ba and Binh Hung islands were banned by the province in June 2026. I explain why I am not writing a guide to either, and what I do instead.
Hotels and hard practical facts for this area live on Cam Ranh Guide, which I also write.
Binh Ba and Binh Hung sit inside the security belt of the Cam Ranh naval base. On 4 June 2026 the province ordered every tour to them stopped, for Vietnamese and foreigners alike, under a 2025 Prime Ministerial decision that repeats one from 2015. So this site will not tell you how to get there: it tells you what the order says and where I go instead.
The working side of Cam Ranh bay is a morning on a motorbike: Ba Ngoi market before eight, when the boats have landed; the salt pans south of the town while the light is low; the lobster rafts seen from the road out to Binh Lap; and a lunch you price by the kilo before it is cooked. No boat, no island, and no camera pointed at the navy.
Between November and March Bai Dai is windy, mostly unswimmable and nearly empty, and it is the season I like it best. The beach is public and free from the gaps between the resorts, the tide covers the bathing areas for about half the year, and the kite riders rig at the windy northern end. This is the beach from the public access points, not from a resort.
The memorial on the Bai Dai boulevard commemorates the 64 Vietnamese sailors killed at Gac Ma reef on 14 March 1988. It is free, sober and worth an hour on the way to the airport. The reef lies in Truong Sa, a special zone of Khanh Hoa since 2025 that no ordinary traveller can reach; the hall beneath the memorial is as close as you get.
Binh Lap is the legal answer to the Binh Ba question: a narrow peninsula on the south side of Cam Ranh bay, reached entirely by road, about 50 km from Cam Ranh airport by the May 2026 guides, with a string of small shallow bays, lobster rafts and homestays. It is not named in the June 2026 tour ban. Two days is the right length.
this region other regions places in these posts
The bay, the airport strip, the salt, the lobster rafts, and the islands you can and cannot visit.
Straight-line distance from the Nha Trang beachfront to Cam Ranh: 36 km. Road distances are longer and are quoted in the posts from their sources.
