Con Dao island travel information

A beach in Con Dao

Con Dao Archipelago, situated 200 kilometers southeast of southern Vietnam, contains fourteen islands. Rich tropical forests, long white beaches, and coral reefs greet visitors arriving by helicopter from Ho Chi Minh or boat from Vung Tau at Con Son island, the largest in the archipelago. The drive from the airport to a small village passes through hills with breathtaking scenery. 

Con Dao is an ideal place for Vietnam tours of exploring land-and-sea biodiversity, for it is one of Vietnam's most important natural areas. Declared a protected site in 1984, Con Dao was given national park status in 1993; in 1997, authorities expanded the park’s boundaries to include a major marine zone. 

The park has over 880 plant species, 144 animal species, and more than 1,300 marine species. Marine species include marine turtles (green, hawksbill, leatherback and loggerhead), giant clams (Tridacna spp.), and dugong, which is an endangered mammal than is similar to the manatee and is found in Vietnam only at Con Dao in addition, Con Dao has globally significant land species, such as long-tailed macaque monkeys, hairy-footed flying squirrels, giant black squirrels, Indian pythons, and nicobar pigeons. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indochina Programme has worked with park staff since the early 1990s to protect the se endangered species and to raise environmental awareness within the local community. 

Visitors can see marine turtles while visiting the second largest island, Bay Canh, during the turtles' nesting season, which is between bay and September. The can also visit a large mangrove forest on the opposite side of the island, which can be reached after a five-minute - walk. Another attraction tours destination is the mountain lighthouse on the island's eastern tip. 

Visitors wishing to see the marine environment can snorkel in the large bay just outside the village. If the tide is right, the can walk about a kilometer up the beach in the morning and then swim back with the tide as it comes in. Although typhoon Linda severely damaged the coral reefs in 1997, new corals are settling on the large tabular corals that flipped over during the storm. Visitors equipped with snorkels can see squids, sea urchins, different kinds of groupers, parrot fish, butterfly fish, surgeon fish, soldier fish, and many others. The density of coral reef fish and giant clams is the highest in Việt Nam. Sea grass beds, which are important grazing grounds for dugongs, are north of the coral beds. Swimmers who go there may be lucky enough to see the dugongs. 

Discover the marine environment

In addition to its beauty, Con Dao is famous as the ''Prison Island''. The French built thirteen prisons there, the former Southern regime later took over the prisons. Over 20,000 Vietnamese - mostly political prisoners - died at Con Dao. Helpful guides will take visitors on an interesting tour to some of the prisons. The French and subsequently the Americans and the former regime in the South kept prisoners in a small, concentrated area and otherwise closed the island for one hundred years. An a result, the island's forests and marine habitats are well preserved compared to many areas in Vietnam, making Con Dao both a great historical site and a Vietnam tourist destination for adventure and nature.

- Islands in Vietnam -