Đồ Sơn is the closest beach resort to Haiphong, on a narrow peninsula about twenty kilometres south of the city. It was a fashionable seaside escape during the French period; the colonial-era hotels and villas still stand among newer Vietnamese hotels along the seafront.
The beaches themselves are not the cleanest or finest in Vietnam — the water is brown from the sediment-rich rivers, and the strip is busy in summer — but it is a popular weekend escape for Hanoians and Haiphongers. The lighthouse on the southern tip and the cliff-side casino (one of the few legal casinos in Vietnam) are the unusual attractions. The buffalo-fighting festival in the lunar eighth month is a famous local tradition.