In the golden sunlight pouring down like honey during early summer days, it’s really worth a visit for both Da Nang people and tourists to take community-based trips to watch the sunrise or sunset, listen to birdsong or immerse themselves in the land full of fruit and vegetables. In reality, taking tours to community-based tourist spots around Da Nang has merged as a highly attractive trend that many tourists are embracing.

Visitors experiencing comfortable and close-to-nature feeling at the An Nhien Farm, Hoa Ninh Commune, Hoa Vang District

“Good wine needs no bush”

Hoa Vang District boasts great potential for the development of community-based ecotourism. Included are pristine natural landscapes, and diverse terrain with plain, midland and mountain forest.

For those who love nature, plants and flowers, the An Nhien farm is an ideal retreat on weekends. In a 3-hectare campus located in the middle of green mountains in Hoa Ninh Commune, Hoa Vang District, the An Nhien farm staff are ready to guide you to a vast areca garden full with the trees of jackfruit, oranges and mangoes, plus lovely minimalist houses featuring flowers-covered roofs which look like Mongolian-style huts.

Over the past three years, this inviting place has attracted many families or groups of young travellers who long for peaceful moments on short vacations.

With the guidance of The An Nhien farm, you can get to know organic farming experience, catching worms in a clean vegetable garden for instance. At the Carpentry Workshop fully equipped with sawing and chiselling machines, you can create beautiful small wooden items by yourself and bring them home as souvenirs.

At night, the whole campsite is enlivened with decorative lights and a BBQ party is served in the melodious music. With a guitar, you can freely sing through the night. The night is spent sitting around the campfire under a starry sky, cooking on the open fire and joining in conversations about the day’s events.

In the morning, stepping out of tents, you can see glimmering rays of sunlight shining the ground and penetrating through each leaf. In the mountains, you will see misty layers and the air will be as cold as in the Central Highlands where birds chirp all year round. Such a retreat in its true sense for all!

Currently in Hoa Vang District, in addition to An Nhien farm, the Yen Retreat in Hoa Bac Commune and Source Village in Hoa Bac commune are gearing up a tourism model running in harmony with the nature.

In addition, the Tuy Loan organic vegetable growing village usually welcomes many kindergarten and primary school pupils. The usual tranquil atmosphere of this vegetable growing area is pierced by the distant laughter and gossips of the children who are introduced by experienced farmers to different steps of tending to vegetables such as collecting seaweeds, hoeing the soil, sowing the seeds, and harvesting the vegetables.

Not too far from the city centre, the La Huong vegetable village, nestled in Hoa Tho Dong Ward, Cam Le District, also welcomes guests who look for interesting farming experience.

Developing the community based tourism model

In addition to the traditional trend of domestic tourists who want to experience self-sufficient travel at multiple destinations in a single low-cost trip, there is a growing tendency of tourists exploring culture in rural areas inhabited by ethnic minorities.

For the time being, the demand for relaxation is not high, but it will inevitably increase once community-based tourism sites come into operation and provide recreational entertainment products.

The municipal administration has approved the in-principle investment policy of developing inland waterway tours connecting the city inner with some community-based attractions in Hoa Vang District such as Cam Ne, Hoa Tien, Tuy Loan - Thai Lai and Para An Trach.

Also, local relevant agencies are mulling over developing the Cu De - Truong Dinh route which is scheduled to start from Lien Chieu District to Hoa Lien Commune, Hoa Vang District in service of the city's tourism enrichment targets.

The rest stops along the route are expected to guide passengers to a number of current highly-inviting sites in Hoa Vang District such as Yen Retreat, Source Village, cable-stayed bridges. From here, the visitors can go through villages of Loc My, Ta Lang and Gian Bi in Hoa Bac Commune.

In addition to trips to time-honoured traditional craft villages in this suburban district, it is good idea to promote trekking journeys during which travellers access survival skills training, fly camping and culinary experience in jungles.

Reporting by HOANG NHUNG – Translating by A.T