I have chosen to stay in this city for many years and will likely continue to do so for quite a while longer as long as the government will have me.
One of the main reasons why this city is so livable for expats is because there is an international airport here, and immigration building/ consulate/ whatever-they-call-those-things where you renew visas, and because this is a tourism hot spot that ensures that plenty of languages are spoken and foreigners are catered to, to a certain degree.
Of course, one of the main reasons why this area is so popular is because of the beach and it draws in loads of people every week from all around the area. I moved here initially because of the presence of the beach. I am here to tell you today that the beach in Da Nang is nothing special and I rarely use it at all. I haven't been in the water at all in 2023 and we may just end up going an entire year before that changes. I see no reason to ever go in the water honestly. It just isn't very nice.
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Now when you look at that picture you might be thinking to yourself that Gabe is a liar! That beach looks incredible! Well for one thing that photo comes from the official Vietnam travel authority so it is definitely cherry-picked and photoshopped. What the beach is actually like is very different, especially when you get closer to the ground.
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For one thing the water clarity is not very good. We all want to see that aquamarine blue water that is so iconic with tropical areas and we simply do not have that here. With the right filters and PS abilities sure, you can make it appear that way, but that is not what it is really like.
This beach also has a tremendous amount of rules and one of them is that you can only swim in dedicated areas. This means that everyone is crammed into these tiny areas like the one pictured above and especially during peak hours this means you are basically just running into people, especially kids, all the time. This is not my idea of fun and it is a big reason why I don't even bother to go down there very often.
Also, there are virtually no waves here outside of certain times of day and even during peak wave season (whatever the hell that means) the waves a joke compared to other parts of the world.
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When I first moved here I thought I was going to get into surfing and after just one season I realized that this is never going to happen. While there are technically waves here, just like anywhere else in the world, they are embarrassingly small. I had a bit of experience with surfing in other countries where the waves were actually big. Like big enough to hurt you if you weren't a strong swimmer big. The waves here are a friggin joke. They are almost non existent. The surfing companies will still bring people out there to have a try at it, but if you get waves that are more than 2 feet tall it is a good day, and it will only last for an hour or so.
For me, waves are essential to beach fun and we simply don't have them here.
So what is the allure of this beach exactly? I can't really put my finger on it. I think that the reason why it is popular here is based almost exclusively on the fact that it is easily accessible from other countries and areas that don't have beaches at all. There are direct flights from major Asian cities here every day and of course a lot of the customer mix are city slickers from Hanoi and Saigon. I don't think that very many people actually come to a vacation here for the "amazing beach" though because it isn't amazing.
I think what they do come here for is because it is cheap, there is a ton of good restaurants, and it is easy to access from many places nearby like Korea, Japan, and China. There are other, much better beaches in Vietnam, but they are many hours from the nearest airport. I suppose convenience is what brings people here because everyone hates sitting in a taxi for 4 hours after you have already been sitting on an airplane for that long already.
Point being, there is nothing special about the beach here in Da Nang. Sorry!