I want to tell you about the cycle of discovery.
It applies to every city in Southeast Asia that becomes popular with nomads and expats. It applied to Chiang Mai. It applied to Canggu. It is currently applying to Da Nang, which is somewhere between the second and third time it has been discovered depending on how you count.
The cycle goes like this.
Phase One — The Actual Discovery
A small number of people find somewhere genuinely good before anyone is writing about it. The accommodation is cheap because nobody has adjusted prices for foreign demand yet. The cafés are run by locals for locals and the coffee is excellent and costs thirty cents. The coworking infrastructure doesn't exist yet but the internet at the café on the corner is fast enough. The city does not know it is supposed to be a digital nomad hub and is therefore just a city, which is exactly what makes it good.
These people tell other people. Not publicly — in messages, in small group chats, in the specific way that people share information about good places when they want the place to stay good.
Da Nang had this phase. It was genuinely good before it was known to be good.
Phase Two — The First Discovery Article
Someone writes about it. The article is usually titled something like "Why Digital Nomads Are Moving From Bali To Da Nang" or "The Vietnamese City That Nobody Is Talking About" — except now everyone is talking about it because the article exists.
The article is not wrong. The things it says about Da Nang are accurate. The beach is real. The mountains are twenty minutes away and they are real. The internet infrastructure is genuine and improving. The cost of living is significantly lower than Bali or Chiang Mai for comparable quality. The food is extraordinary and has been extraordinary since before anyone was writing articles about it.
The article sends the first wave of people who read articles before choosing where to go. This wave is fine. It is not huge. The city absorbs it without major disruption.
Prices begin adjusting slightly.
Phase Three — The Second Discovery
The first wave writes their own content. Blog posts. YouTube videos. Reddit threads that get bookmarked and shared. The content is sincere — these people genuinely like Da Nang and genuinely want to tell people about it. The effect is the same as the article regardless of intent.
The second wave is larger. It includes people who specifically searched for "digital nomad destinations 2024" or "alternatives to Bali" and found the content from the first wave. It includes people who saw Da Nang appearing on multiple nomad ranking lists simultaneously and concluded that this convergence was evidence of something.
Coworking spaces open. Accommodation options expand and prices adjust again. The café on the corner has a menu in English now. A Facebook group exists. Several Facebook groups exist.
The city is no longer undiscovered. It is discovered and functional and a reasonable choice for a specific kind of person. This is fine. This is actually good. Infrastructure helps.
Phase Four — The Sponsored Article In A Major Publication
This is the phase Da Nang is currently in.
In late 2025 the Globe and Mail ran a piece positioning Da Nang as Asia's best kept secret for digital nomads in 2026. The piece mentions world-class infrastructure, coastal living, and prices that make Canggu look ridiculous. It was, according to the byline structure, distributed content — which is the publishing industry's term for a press release that has been formatted to look like journalism.
When a city appears in the Globe and Mail as a hidden gem, the city is no longer a hidden gem. This is definitional. The Globe and Mail has a significant readership. The article has been indexed by search engines. The secret, to the extent it ever was one, has been comprehensively out for some time.
This is not a criticism of the article. The things it says about Da Nang remain accurate. The beach is still real. The infrastructure is still improving. The cost of living is still lower than comparable alternatives.
It is an observation about the cycle. Phase Four means the place has been fully discovered. Phase Five is the backlash article, currently being written somewhere, about how Da Nang has been ruined by digital nomads. That article will also be partially accurate.
What Da Nang Actually Is In 2026
A good city. Not a secret. Not ruined. Good.
The An Thuong neighbourhood has an established nomad community that has been there long enough to have its own social infrastructure — the people who know each other, the cafés with reliable power and fast wifi, the coworking spaces that are actually worth the money, the landlords who understand what remote workers need and price accordingly.
The beach is twenty minutes from the city centre depending on traffic. The Marble Mountains are a short ride away and worth the trip even after you have done it several times. The food — the bánh mì, the mì Quảng, the bánh xèo — is genuinely among the best in a country with an extraordinary food culture.
The internet is fast by Vietnamese standards which are fast by Southeast Asian standards. The cost of living is higher than it was three years ago and lower than Bangkok or Bali for equivalent quality.
The visa situation is the same as everywhere else in Vietnam — 90-day e-visa, quarterly run to Bangkok or Siem Reap, the polite fiction that the laptop is for personal use. There is no Da Nang specific solution to this because Vietnam has not formalised one yet.
The People Who Should Come
People who want an established nomad community without the Bali prices and the Bali crowds. People who want a beach that is large enough to not feel crowded even in peak season. People who want Vietnamese food rather than an international menu designed for people who are nervous about Vietnamese food.
People who have read the articles and adjusted their expectations accordingly — who understand they are coming to a discovered city with discovered-city infrastructure and discovered-city prices, not a secret that they are the first to find.
People who are done with the concept of the hidden gem and are comfortable choosing a place because it is good rather than because it is obscure.
The People Who Should Not Come
People who are coming because an article called it Asia's best kept secret and who will be disappointed to discover that several thousand other people also read that article and made the same decision.
People who need the psychological reward of being early. Da Nang is not early anymore. If early is important to you, Da Nang is not your city in 2026. I cannot tell you which city is — partly because I don't know and partly because the moment I write about it the cycle starts again.
The Next Discovery
It will happen. It always happens.
Some smaller Vietnamese city, or a neighbourhood in a larger one, is currently in Phase One. The people who found it are telling other people in messages rather than articles. The café on the corner costs thirty cents. The accommodation has not adjusted for foreign demand.
In eighteen months someone will write the first article. In three years the Globe and Mail will discover it.
I will be here when that happens. I will have been here the whole time.
Andrew — No Refunds •••