Province-wide /Mountains and waterfalls
With one free day I would go to Ba Ho between January and May and scramble to the third pool. Yang Bay is the park for a family, a rainy day or a hot spring, where the fall is the least of it. Ta Gu is the best waterfall of the three, 40 m in one drop and free, but about 100 km away over the Khanh Son pass and worth it only with a night in To Hap.
With one free day from Nha Trang I would go to Ba Hồ between January and May, pay the 135,000 VND, and scramble to the third pool. Yang Bay is the one for a family, a rainy day or anyone who wants a hot spring with their waterfall: a paid park, 200,000 VND at the gate in 2026, where the fall itself is the least of it. Tà Gụ is the best waterfall of the three and the hardest to reach, 40 m in one drop, free, about 100 km away over the Khánh Sơn pass, and worth it only with a night in Tô Hạp.
That is the whole answer. The rest is the detail behind it, the smaller streams people ask about, and the table.
Ba Ho is a stream off the 660 m Hòn Sơn peak that drops through forest into three stacked pools in Van Thuan hamlet, now Nam Ninh Hoa commune, 25 km north of the city and 40 to 45 minutes on the bike; the signed turn is about ten minutes past Long Phu port on Highway 1. The operator sells one ticket for the walk, the pools, a swimming pool, kayaks, water bikes and a skywalk: 135,000 VND an adult on its own site when I checked on 15 September 2026, with no holiday surcharge. A tour site lists 185,000 VND with the skywalk and a 400 m zipline as extras, so expect the price to move. Hours are 08:00 to 16:30.
The first pool is a walk. The third is about a kilometre of boulder scrambling, and the granite is slippery whether or not it has rained. January to May is the season, when the water is clear and the rock is dry; in the October to December rains the trail can flash-flood, and I stay away. Outside food is not allowed in the restaurant area. The month-by-month version is Ba Ho waterfalls: the season that decides it.
Yang Bay is a 570 ha park run by Khatoco at the foot of the mountains in Khánh Phú, now part of Khanh Vinh commune, 40 to 45 km west of the city and 60 to 90 minutes by road. The gate price in 2026 is 200,000 VND for an adult and 140,000 VND for a child between 1 m and 1.4 m, free under 1 m, with online and promotional prices of 170,000 to 180,000 VND. That covers the waterfall and stream bathing, the Ho Cho hot mineral spring, the 500-year-old three-trunked sacred tree, a crocodile farm, animal shows, flower fields, a Raglai music performance at 10:45 and the internal shuttle. It opens 07:30 to 17:00. Mud treatments at 300,000 VND, a herbal bath at 200,000 VND, rafts and kayaks at 100,000 and 50,000 VND per half hour, and glamping at 1,200,000 VND a unit for two are extra.
After three visits my view is that the waterfall is the least of it: it is modest, and after a dry spell it is a trickle. The tree, the hot spring and the 10:45 performance are why I take people, and they are why the park works in the rain when Ba Ho does not. I skip the animal shows. Yang Bay after three visits has the detail and the reservations.
Ta Gu drops more than 40 m in a single white ribbon off the Hòn Bà massif into a pool in Sơn Hiệp, now Khanh Son commune; its older name is Thác Ngà, the ivory fall. Getting there is the point and the problem: Highway 1 south to Ba Ngoi in Cam Ranh, then provincial road 9 (DT 656) over the 600 m Khanh Son pass to To Hap, about 100 km from Nha Trang, then 10 to 15 km and about half an hour more to the road end, and a couple of hundred metres of forest path with stream crossings and steep rock. Entry is free; a cleaning fee of about 10,000 to 20,000 VND a person is quoted. There are no shops, so carry water and food.
The flow is strongest in the June to September rains, which is also when the rock is at its worst; the dry months give clear water and safe footing. Day visitors from Nha Trang are advised to set out by 05:00 and leave the falls by 16:00. I would not do it as a day. The pass is the only sealed road in, it closed in a storm on 6 November 2025 and was under landslide repair in September 2026, and the plateau deserves the night. The Ta Gu waterfall hike is the walk itself.
Chùa Suối Đổ is a hillside pagoda on Hoang Nguu mountain a little over 30 km south of the city, more than a hundred cement steps beside a stream that drops in falls and pools. It is fullest in September and October, when the current is too strong to bathe in, and it is a pagoda walk with water attached rather than a waterfall. Khanh Vinh has streams the province lists, Suối Mấu, Ê Đu, Zi-ông and Salawen and a hot spring at Khánh Thành, but I have found no published distance, fee or road for any of them, and I would not send anyone without one.
Hon Ba, the 1,578 m mountain with Yersin’s house, has streams along its 37 km summit road, but under the pilot rules that began at Tet 2024 you go up with a tour rather than on your own, and I found nothing from 2025 or 2026 on the road or the rules; Hon Ba, the mountain where it gets cold explains. If you want all of it at once, one operator runs a guided 38 km, three-day trek from Ta Gu over the range to Yang Bay, 3,500,000 VND a person in September 2026, graded as its hardest. I have not done it.
| Waterfall | Road distance from Nha Trang | Entry, 2026 | Season | Effort | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ba Ho | 25 km, 40 to 45 minutes | 135,000 VND official; 185,000 VND on a tour site | January to May | About 1 km of boulder scrambling | Swimmers with half a day |
| Yang Bay | 40 to 45 km, 60 to 90 minutes | 200,000 VND adult, 140,000 VND child at the gate | After rain for the fall, dry for the trails | Flat, with a shuttle | Families, rainy days, the hot spring |
| Ta Gu | About 100 km via To Hap | Free; 10,000 to 20,000 VND cleaning fee quoted | Dry months for footing; June to September for volume | 200 m of stream crossings after a long ride | Riders with two days |
| Suoi Do | A little over 30 km | None published | September and October for water | More than 100 steps, about 20 minutes | A pagoda walk with a stream |
| Hon Ba streams | About 60 km by road | 30,000 VND quoted, with a tour | Dry months | 37 km of summit road | People going for the cold, not the water |
One free day in the dry season: Ba Ho, leaving the city by 07:30 to be at the gate when it opens at 08:00, the third pool before the tour groups, and a late lunch of nem nướng in Ninh Hoa on the way back.
One free day in the rain, or with children: Yang Bay, at the gate for 07:30, the hot spring first while it is quiet, then the tree and the 10:45 performance, and the ride back down QL27C before the afternoon cloud comes over the pass.
Two days and a motorbike: To Hap on day one over the Khanh Son pass, Ta Gu in the afternoon, the cloud sea over the valley at about 05:30 the next morning, and back over the pass by mid-morning. It is day 5 of the seven-day loop for a reason, and October to December is the wrong time for all three.
Ba Ho, 25 km north, in the dry season from January to May: three stacked pools reached by about a kilometre of boulder scrambling, 135,000 VND on the official site in September 2026. The granite is slippery and the trail can flash-flood in the October to December rains.
For a family or a rainy day, yes: the 2026 gate price covers the hot mineral spring, stream bathing, the 500-year-old sacred tree, the crocodile farm, the 10:45 Raglai performance and the shuttle. For the waterfall alone, no; it is small, and Ba Ho is closer and cheaper.
Highway 1 south to Ba Ngoi in Cam Ranh, then provincial road 9 (DT 656) over the 600 m Khanh Son pass to To Hap, about 100 km from Nha Trang, then 10 to 15 km to the road end and a short scramble. Entry is free, with a 10,000 to 20,000 VND cleaning fee quoted; leave by 05:00 or stay the night.
Ta Gu runs strongest from June to September and Suoi Do in September and October, but those are also the months of slippery rock and flash floods. For safe footing at Ba Ho and clear pools, January to May is the season.
Not under the pilot rules that began at Tet 2024: visits to the 1,578 m summit go through tours booked with travel companies, Kong Forest or the reserve board, with a fee of 30,000 VND quoted. I found no 2025 or 2026 source on the road or the rules.
Read on 15 September 2026. Prices, hours and rules change; these are the pages the figures came from.
North first: Doc Let and the Hon Khoi salt, Dam Mon and Mui Doi, Dai Lanh and the old Ca pass road. Then west to the top of the Khanh Le pass, south over the Khanh Son pass to To Hap and Ta Gu, down to Cam Ranh bay and Binh Lap, along the Nui Chua coast road to Phan Rang, and 95 km of Highway 1 home. Not between October and December.
February to May is when I tell friends to come: dry, the sea between 25.5 and 29 degrees, under 70 mm of rain a month. June to August is hot and fine, September turns, and October and November are the two months to avoid unless you like rain. The highlands and the dry south run on different rules.
Hon Ba is the 1,578 m mountain south-west of Nha Trang where Alexandre Yersin built a research station in 1915 and where Tuoi Tre measured 17 to 20 degrees in June 2024. Since a pilot scheme at Tet 2024 the summit is reached with an organised tour, not independently, and I found no 2025 or 2026 statement on whether the 37 km summit road is open.
Ta Gu is a 40 m single-drop waterfall in Son Hiep, Khanh Son, 10 to 15 km from To Hap and about 100 km from Nha Trang. The walk from the road end is a couple of hundred metres over stream crossings and steep wet rock; no source I found requires a guide for the falls, entry is free with a small cleaning fee quoted, and in the wet months the leeches find you.
