Best Day Trips from Yangon: 3 Options
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Travel advisory: Myanmar has been under military rule since the February 2021 coup, with an ongoing civil war, and overland travel safety and access can vary. Most governments currently advise against all or most travel, so check your own government’s current guidance before booking anything, and favor small, local, independent operators for any day trip you take. This guide is for if and when it’s safe and ethical to go, not a push to book now.
Yangon has three genuine day-trip options within a few hours’ reach, plus two well-known onward destinations that get marketed as day trips but really aren’t. Here’s what’s actually doable in a single day, and what needs an overnight instead.
1. Bago (Pegu)
The easiest and most rewarding day trip, about 91km and roughly two hours northeast of Yangon. Bus fare runs around 3,000 MMK hourly from Aung Mingalar terminal, the train about 1,150 MMK, and a round-trip taxi roughly $40-50 (verify, likely stale). Bago was once the capital of the Hanthawaddy and Toungoo kingdoms, and its sights reflect that history: Shwemawdaw Pagoda, Myanmar’s tallest at roughly 114 meters, taller than Shwedagon; the huge Shwethalyaung reclining Buddha, dating to 994 CE; the reconstructed Kanbawzathadi Palace; and Kyaikpun, four back-to-back seated Buddha images. Watch for a known bus scam where the driver stops a few kilometers before the city, claims it’s “inaccessible,” and tries to get passengers off early; stay seated. There’s also an inconsistent unofficial combined entry fee around 10,000 MMK (verify).
Search Bago day tours on Viator (check the current advisory before booking, and favor local operators).
2. Thanlyin (Syriam) and Kyauktan
Across the Yangon River via the Thanlyin Bridge, this town carries Portuguese colonial history back to the early 1600s, tied to the trader Filipe de Brito. See the hilltop Kyaik Khauk Pagoda, and continue to nearby Kyauktan for the Yele Paya, a small pagoda on a mid-river island reached by a short boat crossing. Access and pricing for the boat crossing are niche and worth confirming locally before you go (verify).
3. Twante
A delta pottery town west of the city, reached by ferry or via the 1881 Twante Canal (or the Twante Bridge). It’s a living pottery craft you can watch in person, plus the town’s own Shwesandaw Pagoda; the writer George Orwell served as a colonial police officer here, for what it’s worth to literary-minded visitors.
| Day trip | Distance | Time | Main draw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bago | ~91km | ~2hr | Myanmar’s tallest pagoda |
| Thanlyin / Kyauktan | Across the river | ~1hr+ | Portuguese history, island pagoda |
| Twante | West of the city | ~1hr by ferry | Delta pottery |
What About Golden Rock or Bagan?
Both get marketed online as Yangon day trips, and neither really is one. Golden Rock (Kyaiktiyo) and Bagan both need an overnight to do properly, and both may carry additional access or safety considerations beyond what applies in and around Yangon itself, so don’t build either into a single-day plan.
Whichever day trip you pick, bring cash. ATMs and cards are unreliable to nonfunctional outside Yangon’s biggest hotels, let alone in Bago or Twante, so carry enough kyat for transport, food, and entry fees before you leave the city.
Check the US State Department Myanmar advisory or UK FCDO advice before you go. For a full day-by-day plan that includes these trips, see our 5-day Yangon itinerary or the Yangon travel guide .