Da Nang Easy Riders - Following Da Lat & Nha Trang

DA NANG, VIETNAM – The story of Da Nang Easy Riders came after the motorcycle-tour scenes that had already developed in Da Lat and Nha Trang. In the early 2000s, those two cities were the places most closely associated with Easy Rider-style tours. Da Nang later became another centre for the trade, helped by its position between Hue and Hoi An and its growing importance as a transport hub for Western travellers…

Da Lat and Nha Trang Came First

By the beginning of the 2000s, motorcycle touring was already established in Da Lat and Nha Trang.

Da Lat had its small group of early Easy Riders, many of whom had their own personal knowledge of Vietnam’s history and the Central Highlands. Nha Trang developed a separate motorcycle-tour scene, with riders taking foreign guests on longer journeys towards places such as Lak Lake, Buon Ma Thuot, Kon Tum and Da Lat.

From my experience travelling and working in the motorcycle-tour business during those years, I did not see Da Nang riders operating the same long-distance routes in the Central Highlands and southern Vietnam at that time.

The Easy Rider model was already there.

Da Nang came later.

That does not mean nobody in Da Nang was riding motorcycles with tourists before then. It means that the organised Easy Rider-style business that later became associated with Da Nang was not, in my experience, one of the original centres of the trade.

A New Opportunity in Central Vietnam

Da Nang had something that made it particularly suitable for motorcycle tourism: location.

The city sits between two of Vietnam’s most important historic and cultural destinations for foreign travellers – Hue and Hoi An.

For many Western visitors, Da Nang itself was not necessarily the main reason for coming to Central Vietnam.

They wanted to see Hue.

They wanted to see Hoi An.

But the practical journey often brought them through Da Nang.

Travellers could arrive by train, bus or later by air, stay in or pass through Da Nang, and then continue north to Hue or south to Hoi An.

For a motorcycle guide, that created a natural meeting point.

A traveller arriving in Da Nang could be offered a completely different way to reach those destinations.

Instead of sitting on a bus, the guest could ride through the mountains, along the coast and through the countryside.

The journey itself became part of the destination.

The Hai Van Pass

The geography of Da Nang was particularly well suited to this type of touring.

The Hai Van Pass provided a natural motorcycle route between Da Nang and Hue.

The road climbed away from the coast, crossed the mountain and descended towards Lang Co and Hue. For foreign riders, it offered something very different from travelling by train or bus.

There were mountain bends, sea views, changes in weather and plenty of places to stop.

From Da Nang, the route could also run south towards Hoi An before continuing into rural Quang Nam.

For a new Easy Rider business, these routes were obvious.

They were close enough for short tours but also connected to longer journeys through Central Vietnam.

Following an Established Idea

The riders who later worked in Da Nang were entering a market in which the basic idea had already been demonstrated elsewhere.

Da Lat had shown that Western travellers were interested in exploring Vietnam by motorcycle with local guides.

Nha Trang had developed its own version, particularly around longer journeys through the Central Highlands and along the coast.

Da Nang riders followed this established model and adapted it to their own geography.

That is an important distinction.

The development of Easy Riders in Da Nang should not necessarily be described as one organisation expanding from Da Lat or Nha Trang.

Different local riders and groups developed their own businesses.

But the Easy Rider-style motorcycle tour itself was already an established concept by the time the Da Nang scene became visible.

The routes changed.

The people changed.

The business model became more local.

The 1990s Claims

There is another part of the story that deserves some caution.

Some Easy Rider operators in Da Nang today say that they started in the 1990s. Those claims appear on their own websites and promotional material.

However, I have not seen enough independent contemporary evidence to establish that there was a continuous Da Nang Easy Rider operation dating back to the 1990s.

That is different from saying such people were definitely not operating.

It simply means the date should not be presented as proven history without supporting records.

This matters because the history of Easy Riders in Vietnam has often been passed from one person to another through stories rather than through written records.

A rider tells a traveller when he started.

The traveller remembers the story.

Years later, the story becomes part of a company’s history.

Eventually, a claimed starting date can look like an established historical fact.

The early years of the trade deserve a more careful distinction between personal recollection, company claims and independently documented history.

Why Da Nang Grew

Whatever the exact starting date of individual groups, the conditions for motorcycle tourism in Da Nang were strong.

The city was developing rapidly as a transport and tourism centre.

Hoi An was becoming an increasingly important destination for international visitors. Hue was already one of Vietnam’s major cultural attractions. The Hai Van Pass connected them by one of the country’s most memorable mountain roads.

And Da Nang sat in the middle.

A foreign traveller did not necessarily have to plan a motorcycle tour months in advance.

They could arrive in Da Nang, meet a rider and decide to travel by motorcycle.

That flexibility suited the independent Western travellers who were becoming increasingly common in Vietnam during the 2000s.

The Easy Rider name also helped.

By then, many travellers had already heard about motorcycle tours in Vietnam. Some knew the name from guidebooks, other travellers or recommendations.

For local riders in Da Nang, the name provided an established identity for a service that was becoming easier to sell.

A New Easy Rider Centre

Over time, more riders entered the business.

One group became several.

Several became many.

Different companies and teams appeared, offering day trips, overnight journeys and longer motorcycle routes through Central Vietnam.

The destinations naturally reflected Da Nang’s position.

Hoi An. Hue. Hai Van Pass. My Son. The countryside of Quang Nam. The mountains further west.

Some tours later extended much farther south and north.

The result was a new Easy Rider centre in Central Vietnam.

But it was a different chapter from the original Da Lat story and from the early Nha Trang motorcycle-tour scene.

Three Places, Three Developments

Looking back at the development of the trade, I see three important stages.

Da Lat was one of the earliest places where the Easy Rider identity became strongly associated with motorcycle tourism.

Nha Trang developed its own scene and became an important starting point for longer motorcycle journeys into the Central Highlands and along the coast.

Da Nang came later and took advantage of a different geographical position, connecting the major tourist destinations of Central Vietnam.

The three scenes were related because they offered the same basic experience: travelling through Vietnam by motorcycle with a local guide.

But they were not simply one organisation operating in three cities.

Each developed its own riders, routes and businesses.

That is the part of the history that is often lost when the Easy Rider name is treated as if it belonged to one single group.

The story was more complicated.

It grew city by city, road by road, and rider by rider.

And in Da Nang, the opportunity came from being in exactly the right place – between the places Western travellers wanted to visit, with the roads that allowed them to experience the journey by motorcycle.

Nam Ngo
11 September 2026