Field notes: A visit to the Con Dao islands
We’ve been shouting about the Con Dao islands for a while, but they still don’t make it on to many people’s Vietnam itineraries. When Lorna Parkes, executive editor of the National Geographic Traveller, visited with us, she was immediately taken with this tiny archipelago. Here, she kindly shares her thoughts on why the Con Dao islands should make it into your Vietnam trip.
While the southern island of Phu Quoc has become a regular feature on Vietnam itineraries, there’s an archipelago even further south that still hardly gets a look in: Con Dao. There are 16 islands in this small group, but only one that’s inhabited. Home to a small scattering of hotels and a tiny airport serviced by domestic flights, the main island of Con Son is only just beginning to catch the eye of developers. For now, it remains a laidback base for exploring the archipelago.
Here, green turtles crawl ashore to lay their eggs on the pristine sands and bang nut trees climb the islands’ mountainous slopes, hiding cave shrines and looming over the ruins of fortress-like prisons that once earned Con Dao the dubious nickname of ‘hell on earth’ during French occupation and later the Vietnam War. With equal attraction for nature lovers and history enthusiasts, here’s five reasons why this petite island chain is worth your time.
1. Turtles
Vietnam’s most important turtle breeding zone is in the Con Dao National Park and there’s nothing more magical than having the opportunity to watch hatchlings being released into the frothy surf, while barefoot on the beach. The most common species here is the green turtle, which can grow to more than one metre. Little was known about these 200-million-year-old creatures’ movements in Con Dao’s protected waters until a mother was discovered in the dead of night, burying her eggs on the stretch of sand fronting the luxury Six Senses resort in 2017 (!)
The chances of survival if left to nature are just one in 1,000, so within a year the resort had been granted a licence to run a turtle conservation programme. A stay at one of Six Senses’ 50 sea-fronting lodges doesn’t come cheap, but guests arriving between April and December have the immense privilege of being able to watch the turtle tots emerge from their paper-thin shells and scuttle down to the South China Sea.
2. War history
2025 marks the 50-year anniversary of reunification, which means war history sites are in the spotlight more than ever - and Con Dao has some unusual claims to fame. Each year, thousands of Vietnamese make a pilgrimage to Con Son’s Hang Duong cemetery to lay chrysanthemums, lotus flowers and paper tributes at the grave of Vo Thi Sau – a resistance fighter who became the youngest woman to be executed on Con Dao in 1952, at just 19 years old. Her decorated plot - surrounded by hundreds of unmarked war graves marked with the Vietnamese flag’s yellow, five-pointed star - is a surprisingly jubilant place where all are warmly welcomed and encouraged to burn a stick of incense.
Slightly more sobering are the mildewed prison fortresses, now protected as national monuments. Set up in the 19th century during the French Indochina era, they were later taken over by the Americans during the Vietnam War. Without wanting to sound too morbid, they’re fascinating monuments to visit – even if only to gain a better understanding of the conflicts, both external and internal, that Vietnam has faced over the past two centuries.
At Phu Tuong prison, nicknamed the Tiger Cages, visitors can climb up to see the tiny cells from a viewing platform where prison guards would have once tortured the inmates below. It’s a reminder of the period when Con Dao was called ‘hell on earth’ by the resistance fighters who feared interment and interrogation here at the very edge of Vietnam’s southern borders. Across the road from the jail, on the edge of Con Son’s main town, the Con Dao Museum adds further context to the archipelago’s role in the wars and Vo Thi Sau’s importance.
3. Temples & local legends
While Vo Thi Sau is often described as the spirit of the islands, Phi Yien is Con Dao’s other leading lady. An advisor to Vietnam’s King Nguyen Anh in the 19th century and beloved by the local people, she has been enshrined in legend thanks to a story that tells of her rescue by tigers and apes after being imprisoned in a mountain cave by the emperor. Her crime? Giving him military advice he didn’t want to hear. The mountain where she was supposedly interred rises like a stubborn thorn in front of Con Son’s harbour, and small boats sometimes drop hikers there.
Once a year, in late November, her life is celebrated with an elaborate festival where all are welcomed at the temple dedicated to her - An Son Mieu - on the anniversary of her death. Originally built in 1785, the shrine was destroyed by the French when they occupied the islands in the late 19th century and then eventually restored by islanders in 1958, by which time she’d become deified by local folklore. The temple’s inner sanctum is crowded with statues of Lady Phi Yien depicted as a milky white goddess. Van Son Tu – nicknamed ‘cloudy hill’ by locals - is another temple worth visiting. Join the Vietnamese pilgrims who buy bunches of long-stalked white lotuses for Lady Phi Yien and carry them up steep mountainside staircases to the hilltop pagoda overlooking Con Son’s shoreline. The incense-perfumed temple is considered special because of its lofty location; on the side closest to the island’s mountains, it’s said the gods are said to protect the land, and on the side facing the bay, the gods protect the sea.
4. Eco-tourism
The sandy beaches of Con Son can be windswept and wild from November to January, but are remarkably empty year-round compared to those in many other Southeast Asian islands. Beach-combing, clam collecting, snorkelling and kayaking are all options for travellers to Con Dao in calm weather. But the mountainous ridge across the island is equally inviting – and local authorities are in the process of improving infrastructure for nature tourism such as hiking.
One worthwhile walk is to Bang Beach on Con Son’s north coast – an area almost completely devoid of development because of a lack of road access. Travellers can buy a ticket to enter the national park and then follow forest paths into the mountains, passing a 19th-century French Catholic cave shrine carved into the cliffs where locals can sometimes be found praying to Maria in front of a blue-and-white rock altar. Expect to find rust-coloured forest crabs and immense jungle creepers along the path over the hump of the island, which then descends to empty wave-lashed shores roamed by the island’s black squirrels.
5. Seafood specialities
Flying into Con Dao from the mainland, you might see the archipelago’s flotilla of brightly painted fishing boats bobbing like scattered confetti on the water. Catch of the day is usually squid, and the best place to try this local speciality is at one of the floating fish restaurants offshore from Con Son’s petite harbour. If you’re lucky, you might get to see the dormant trawlers and their workers up-close before boarding one of the small boats that transfers diners over to the restaurants. Plump crabs, giant spiny sea snails, Con Dao clams and a profusion of fish are on the menu; the side of choice is chilled seaweed served over ice. Seafood not your thing? Try the island take on banh mi in Con Son town instead – local street-sellers make the bread for this classic Vietnamese pork sandwich with coconut flour.
Lorna Parkes is executive editor at National Geographic Traveller (UK) and travelled with us to Vietnam.
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About Field notes
Field notes are personal snapshots from our team’s travels - whether it be journalists or Inside staff members - it’s real moments, real places, real experiences. They go beyond the guidebooks, capturing the little details that make a destination special: the steam curling from a street-side bun cha noodle stall, the laughter of locals sharing a festival tradition, the hush of a forest temple at dawn. Through firsthand stories and sensory insights, Field notes bring you closer to the heart of a place, just as we experienced it.