Region / Ninh Thuận / 79 km from Nha Trang as the crow flies
Ninh Thuan was its own province until 1 July 2025, when it became the southern third of Khanh Hoa. It is the driest place in Vietnam: vineyards, sheep, salt, a coast road around a national park, Cham towers that are still in use, and a bay called Vinh Hy that I have watched change over two years.
It is two hours south of Nha Trang and feels like a different country. I treat it as one.
Hotels and hard practical facts for this area live on Cam Ranh Guide, which I also write.
The season is the north-east monsoon, roughly November to March, with the strongest and steadiest wind in December and January. My Hoa, a flat beach over 4 km long on DT702 north of Ninh Chu, is the established spot, with four kite centres counted there in 2019. No My Hoa lesson price is published anywhere I could find.
Walk it. The 1904 lighthouse on its 178 m hill is about 1.5 km from the car park across sand and rock, and the lift to the top by jeep, 20,000 to 30,000 VND a trip on a 2026 travel-agency page, is a different product from the 700,000 VND dune tour. There is no entrance ticket, only parking. Go at first light; there is no shade and no water on the walk.
Vietnam's only grape country is worth seeing: trellised rows in the driest corner of the country, with fruit that is sweetest in August and September. The wine sold in the gardens is a farm product made from table grapes, sweet and closer to a cordial; buy grapes, raisins and the green apple instead. Thai An is free to walk, 07:00 to 18:00.
Hang Rai is a raised shelf of fossil coral on the DT702 coast road, run as the visitor site of Nui Chua National Park, and it is not for swimming. Go at first light on a falling tide for the water sheeting off the terraces, and between December and March for the green moss. I never found an official fee; travel sites quote 30,000 to 35,000 VND.
The towers, the pottery village and the weaving village sit within about 12 km of central Phan Rang, so one motorbike day covers all three: Po Klong Garai when it opens at 07:30, Bau Truc late morning while the potters are working, My Nghiep after. The only ticket is at the towers, a travel-site figure of 20,000 VND in 2026.
In kilometres the coast road is no longer than the highway: about 60 km from Phan Rang to the Binh Lap peninsula against roughly 60 km on QL1. In hours it is a different day, with a pass, a bay, a coral shelf, a grape village and almost no fuel. Ride it between January and August and give it the whole day.
The bay has not changed: the boats still go out over the coral from the association office at published 2026 prices. What changed is everything around it: the province it belongs to, the rules for the islands next door, and how many people now know the coast road.
this region other regions places in these posts
The dry south that joined the province in 2025: Vinh Hy, the Cham towers, the vineyards, the dunes.
Straight-line distance from the Nha Trang beachfront to Ninh Thuan: 79 km. Road distances are longer and are quoted in the posts from their sources.
