11th Da Lat Flower Festival: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Da Lat)

Twelve days of flowers on the plateau

Da Lat grows flowers for a living. The hillsides around the city are terraced with greenhouses, and their white plastic roofs reflect the light across whole valleys. The Flower Festival brings that crop into town.

The 11th edition runs from December 19 to 31, 2026. It opens at Lam Vien Square, and displays, markets and cultural events then spread across Da Lat and the wider Lam Dong province. The festival has been held since 2004, usually every couple of years, so each edition is a big occasion for the city.

Lam Vien Square and the lake

The opening ceremony is at Lam Vien Square. This is the broad paved plaza on the southern shore of Xuan Huong Lake, the crescent-shaped lake at the centre of Da Lat. Two large glass structures stand on the square, and you can see them from across the water:

• a giant artichoke, a nod to the region’s best-known crop
• a dome shaped like a wild sunflower (dã quỳ)

The lakeside promenade links the square to the rest of the centre. Walk it clockwise and you reach the Da Lat Flower Park (Vườn hoa Thành phố) on the north-east shore. Head uphill from the square’s western side and you come to Da Lat Market and the streets around it. Displays in the centre tend to cluster along this lake loop. The full circuit takes a couple of hours on foot at an easy pace.

December weather at 1,500 metres

Da Lat sits at about 1,500 metres. December falls in the dry season, so days are usually clear and mild. After dark, though, the temperature drops quickly.

Locals wear puffer jackets, beanies and scarves on winter evenings. A warm layer matters most for anything that runs late, such as the ceremony or the night market. Mornings often start with mist over the lake and the pine-covered hills, and it usually burns off by mid-morning.

The season adds flowers of its own. Wild sunflowers turn the roadsides and slopes yellow in late autumn and early winter. Pink mai anh đào cherry trees often begin to bloom around the turn of the year.

Getting around town on festival nights

Da Lat runs on motorbikes, and Grab works across the city for both bikes and cars. On festival evenings, traffic around Xuan Huong Lake and Lam Vien Square slows to a crawl. Many visitors take a Grab to somewhere a few streets away and walk the last stretch.

A few habits make the days easier:

• Paying: street vendors and small cafés take Vietnamese dong in cash, or a bank-transfer QR code taped to the cart. Foreign cards work in hotels and larger restaurants, but not reliably at stalls.
• Tipping: tipping is not expected at street stalls. Leaving small change in sit-down restaurants is appreciated but optional.
• Photos: families dress up to be photographed with the displays. People usually wait their turn at the popular backdrops rather than walking through someone’s shot.
• Rooms: the dates run into Christmas and New Year, a peak domestic holiday. Visitors usually secure accommodation well before they travel, and central hotels near the lake fill first.

Entry arrangements for the opening ceremony and individual programmes sit with the festival organiser in Lam Dong. Street sellers and hotel desks are not the source for them.

Eating between the displays

Da Lat’s food suits the cold. As evening comes on, stalls spread across the steps and streets around Da Lat Market, and this area becomes the night market (chợ đêm). Plastic stools fill every flat surface.

What to order:

• Bánh tráng nướng: rice paper grilled over charcoal, topped with egg, spring onion and dried shrimp, then folded. Visitors call it “Da Lat pizza”.
• Sữa đậu nành: hot soy milk in a glass, often with a bánh bao (steamed bun) on the side.
• Bánh căn: small rice-flour cakes cooked in clay moulds and served with fish-sauce dipping broth.
• Artichoke tea (trà atisô): sold in bags all over the market and an easy thing to take home.

Strawberries, avocados and dried fruit are piled high on the market stalls, all grown in the valleys nearby.

Beyond the city centre

Festival events reach past the lake into Lam Dong province, and the flower farms make good half-day trips. The flower villages around Thai Phien and Van Thanh, just outside the centre, are where much of the cut-flower trade is grown.

Other spots close to town:

• Da Lat Cathedral: the “Chicken Church”, named for the rooster on its spire. It is especially busy over Christmas.
• Domaine de Marie: a pink French-era church and convent on a hill west of the centre.
• Crazy House (Hang Nga): a twisting concrete guesthouse and gallery south of the lake.
• Valley of Love and Tuyen Lam Lake: pine forest and water, a short drive out.

Lien Khuong Airport is about 30 km south of the city, roughly 40 minutes by road. Many visitors also come up by sleeper bus from Ho Chi Minh City or Nha Trang.