Phu Quoc Cable Car — Ride the World's Longest Sea Cable Car to Hon Thom Island

What Is the Phu Quoc Cable Car?

The Phu Quoc cable car is a gondola system that stretches 7.9 kilometres across open ocean, connecting the southern tip of Phu Quoc Island — at a point called An Thoi — to a smaller island named Hon Thom, which translates roughly as Pineapple Island in Vietnamese. Operated by Sun World, Vietnam's largest entertainment infrastructure group, the cable car was inaugurated in 2018 and immediately set a Guinness World Record for the longest non-stop triple-rope cable car system over the sea.

This is not a mountain cable car. There is no rock face below you, no cliff, no ground visible anywhere during most of the crossing. Beneath your gondola is the Gulf of Thailand — green, brilliantly lit by sun, and stretching to the horizon in every direction. The nearest comparison is an aircraft window at low altitude, except that you are moving slowly and in near-silence, giving the ocean below time to register in its full scale and colour.

What Does "Hon Thom Cable Car" Mean?

The cable car is sometimes referred to as the Hon Thom cable car (after its destination island), and sometimes as the Phu Quoc cable car (after the island it departs from). Both terms refer to the same system. The official name, as operated by Sun World, is the Sun World Hon Thom Cable Car. When searching for tickets, either term will lead you to the correct attraction.

Why This Is the World's Longest Over-Sea Cable Car

The claim to fame is straightforward and measurable: 7.9 kilometres of uninterrupted cable spanning open ocean. Before the Phu Quoc cable car opened in 2018, no cable car system in the world had crossed that length of open sea in a single, non-stop route. The Guinness World Records organisation certified the achievement, and the title has remained unchallenged since.

Engineering Behind the Record

The technical achievement is significant. A triple-rope monocable gondola system of this length requires towers engineered to withstand not only the weight of the cables and cabins but also the lateral forces of salt-laden ocean winds and tropical storm conditions. There are eight towers spanning the route, each rising from concrete foundations set into the seabed. The tallest tower stands approximately 175 metres above sea level — higher than a 50-storey building. The cables are tensioned to account for thermal expansion in Vietnam's tropical climate, where temperature differentials between seasons can affect cable length by several metres.

Guinness Record Specifications

What to Expect During the Cable Car Ride

The boarding process at An Thoi station is efficient — gondolas arrive continuously, and each group of up to eight passengers is loaded smoothly. The departure is gradual: the cabin swings gently outward from the platform and begins its climb above the southern Phu Quoc shoreline. Within 90 seconds, the land below has shrunk to a strip of green and the ocean opens beneath you in every direction.

Aerial Ocean Views

The visual experience of the Phu Quoc cable car is unlike any other aerial transport in Asia. Below and around you, the Gulf of Thailand lies in tones that shift from jade-green near the shore to a deep cobalt at the horizon. The An Thoi Archipelago's smaller islands appear as scattered green dots, their white beaches visible from altitude as bright borders between island and sea. Fishing boats trace white wakes across the surface, and on clear days, the Cambodian coast is faintly visible to the north-west.

The Glass Cabin Experience

Standard gondolas have solid metal floors and panoramic glass windows on all sides. Some cabins are fitted with a partial glass floor panel — if you are assigned one of these, the experience of looking directly down through 175 metres of air to the ocean surface is visceral and unforgettable. There is no option to select a glass-floor cabin specifically; assignment is random at the time of boarding. Request one from the boarding staff — they will accommodate where possible.

Island-Hopping Feel

The approach to Hon Thom Island in the final two minutes of the ride gives the crossing a sense of genuine island discovery. The island's interior rises from dense tropical forest, its beaches become visible as crescents of white against the treeline, and the Sun World Nature Park's water slides are faintly visible cutting through the hillside. The gondola descends to the receiving station with the smoothness of the entire system — no jarring, no swing, just a quiet mechanical deceleration and a soft stop.

Best Time to Visit the Phu Quoc Cable Car

The Phu Quoc cable car operates year-round, but the conditions of the crossing vary significantly by season. Two factors determine the quality of the experience: weather (visibility and sea state) and crowd levels.

Dry Season: November to April

This is unequivocally the best period. The northeast monsoon brings dry air, low humidity, and consistently clear skies across the Gulf of Thailand. Ocean visibility from altitude is at its sharpest — the colour contrast between the turquoise shallows and the deep ocean is most dramatic in December to March. Winds are steady but moderate. Temperatures hover between 25°C and 30°C, comfortable for spending time on Hon Thom Island after the crossing. This period does attract higher visitor numbers, particularly around the Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tet, usually January or February).

Sunset Timing — The Most Important Factor

If you visit during the dry season, the single most important planning decision is timing your return cable car crossing for 30 minutes before sunset. The westward-facing gondola on the return leg from Hon Thom to An Thoi carries you directly into the setting sun over the Gulf of Thailand. The light turns the ocean surface from turquoise to beaten copper, the smaller islands below become black silhouettes, and the sky in the west builds through orange to deep crimson. This is the most photogenic moment of the entire Phu Quoc cable car experience and the one that generates the most shared images. Sunset in Phu Quoc falls between 6:00 pm and 6:30 pm depending on the month — plan your Hon Thom activities accordingly to be in the gondola queue by 5:30 pm at the latest.

Wet Season: May to October

The southwest monsoon brings heavy rain, reduced visibility, and rougher sea conditions. The cable car operates during light to moderate rain, but service may be suspended during heavy storms or high winds. Crowd levels are significantly lower. If you visit in this period, mornings (8:30–11:00 am) are the most likely to offer a weather window with reasonable visibility before afternoon storms build.

Phu Quoc Cable Car Ticket Price & Packages

Ticket pricing for the Phu Quoc cable car is structured by Sun World into several tiers, depending on whether you want the cable car alone or a combined package that includes access to Hon Thom Nature Park and its water park.

Which Ticket Makes Sense?

If you are travelling with children who enjoy water activities, the full-day Aquatopia combo is the obvious value choice — the water park alone would cost a comparable amount, so adding the cable car is effectively free. For couples or adult-only groups who primarily want the cable car crossing and the Hon Thom beach experience, the cable car plus nature park combo is sufficient. The cable car only ticket is rarely the best value unless you have a very specific time constraint.

How to Reach the Cable Car Station at An Thoi

An Thoi is the southernmost port settlement on Phu Quoc Island, approximately 27–30 km from the main town of Duong Dong in the north-west and 15–18 km from Phu Quoc International Airport. Several transport options connect the island's other areas to the cable car station.

Hon Thom Island — What's on the Other Side of the Cable Car?

The cable car crossing is genuinely spectacular, but Hon Thom Island is not merely a destination to photograph and return from. Sun World has developed the island into a substantial nature and entertainment park, and the island's natural beaches are among the quietest and most beautiful in the entire Phu Quoc archipelago.

Aquatopia Water Park

The primary family attraction on Hon Thom is Aquatopia, a water park with over 20 slides, pools, and aquatic play installations. The slides range from gentle family chutes to high-speed tube rides with drops that exceed 15 metres. The park is designed within the island's natural landscape, with the surrounding jungle and ocean visible from most attractions, giving it an environmental atmosphere that many purpose-built water parks lack. Aquatopia is included in the full-day combo ticket and runs to approximately 5:00–6:00 pm.

Exotica Park and the Wooden Roller Coaster

For visitors who prefer land-based thrills, Exotica Park on Hon Thom houses what is marketed as "The Anger of the Wooden Snake" — a large wooden roller coaster that winds through the hillside forest above the waterline. Wooden roller coasters are rare in Southeast Asia; the structure and ride character differ fundamentally from steel coasters, with a rougher, more unpredictable ride profile that coaster enthusiasts prize. The coaster's elevated sections provide views over the island's treetops and the ocean beyond.

Hon Thom Beaches

Away from the park infrastructure, Hon Thom's natural beaches are the island's most underrated asset. The southern and eastern shorelines are largely undeveloped — fine white sand, warm shallow water, and a degree of quiet that is increasingly hard to find on Phu Quoc's more developed main beaches. Snorkelling in the waters around Hon Thom and the nearby smaller islands (Hon Roi, Hon Mot) can be excellent, with visibility reaching 5–10 metres on calm, clear days. Basic snorkelling equipment can be rented on the beach.

Phu Quoc Cable Car vs Other Famous Cable Cars in Asia

For travellers considering cable car experiences across the continent, here is how the Hon Thom cable car compares to the region's other notable aerial systems.

The fundamental distinction between Phu Quoc and every other cable car on this list is the terrain. Mountain cable cars — Langkawi, Genting, Jade Dragon — cross rock and vegetation. The Phu Quoc cable car crosses open ocean for 7.9 km with no land beneath you for virtually the entire crossing. The psychological experience of this is different in a way that is difficult to describe until you are in it — the absence of any safety net below, the scale of the water, the silence of the crossing. It is less like a theme park ride and more like a slow-motion aerial voyage.

Phu Quoc Travel Itinerary — 4 Days from Arrival

This itinerary places the cable car on Day 2 as the centrepiece of the trip, allowing Day 1 for arrival, orientation, and the northern beaches, and Days 3–4 for the rest of the island's highlights.

Phu Quoc Trip Cost from India — Realistic Breakdown

All costs below are per person, based on two adults travelling together in a mid-range budget. Indian travellers typically fly into Phu Quoc via Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or Hanoi, with a domestic Vietnamese connection to Phu Quoc International Airport.

For grouped or family travel, Vietnam tour packages from Hyderabad and other Indian cities are available through TourPackages.asia, combining Phu Quoc with mainland Vietnam destinations like Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Ho Chi Minh City.

Is the Phu Quoc Cable Car Safe?

This is the most common question asked by first-time visitors before booking, and the answer is an unambiguous yes. The Phu Quoc cable car is built and operated to international engineering standards, and it has maintained a strong safety record since opening in February 2018.

Engineering Safety Standards

The cable car system uses a triple-rope monocable system — one haul rope and two grip ropes. This design provides redundancy: if one rope were to become compromised, the cabin remains attached to the remaining system. The towers, cables, and gondolas were engineered by Doppelmayr, an Austrian company that is among the world's most respected cable car system manufacturers with decades of installations in high-demand, high-exposure environments globally.

Operational Safety

Sun World operates the cable car under Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism licensing, with mandatory periodic technical inspections. The system is equipped with automatic brake systems that engage if cable speed deviates from the operational envelope. Gondolas are locked to the cable by mechanical grip mechanisms that cannot release accidentally. Weather monitoring systems at both stations allow operators to suspend service before conditions reach any risk threshold.

Practicalities for Nervous Travellers

If you experience anxiety about heights or confined spaces, the following is useful context: the gondola is spacious enough for eight passengers, with unobstructed views in all directions. You cannot feel the height the way you might on an exposed cliff edge — you are enclosed in a glass-and-metal structure with no opening to the air. The ride is smooth, quiet, and mechanically stable. The sensation of height is a visual one, not a physical one. Most visitors who arrive nervous leave having found the experience far less frightening than anticipated.

Photography Tips for the Phu Quoc Cable Car Ride

The cable car crossing offers some of the most unusual aerial photography opportunities available to a general tourist anywhere in Vietnam. But the specific conditions — moving gondola, glass surfaces, intense tropical light over reflective water — require some adjustments to standard shooting habits.

• Shoot towards the western horizon during the return crossing. The return journey from Hon Thom to An Thoi runs broadly westward. In the late afternoon, this puts the sun ahead of you and produces the characteristic orange-over-blue colour gradient that defines the best Phu Quoc cable car photographs. The golden hour here lasts barely 25 minutes — be in the gondola before 5:45 pm.
• Place your lens or phone directly against the glass. Any gap between the camera and the glass allows internal reflections from the gondola interior to appear in your image. Pressing the lens flat against the glass eliminates reflections almost entirely.
• Use HDR mode for high-contrast scenes. The combination of bright ocean surface and dark tower silhouettes creates high dynamic range conditions that a single exposure struggles with. Most smartphone cameras handle this better in HDR or auto-computational photography modes.
• The downward shot at tower crossings is worth the moment. As you pass over each tower, look directly down — the tower structure descending into the water and the cable geometry converging below makes for a striking geometric image very different from the standard panoramic shots.
• Early morning gives superior colour to midday. The ocean appears greener and richer in early morning light (8:30–10:30 am) than under the washed-out overhead sun of midday. If photography is a priority, take the first crossing of the day.
• Video mode for the crossing, stills for sunset. The 15-minute crossing has a narrative arc — the departure, the open ocean, the tower passes, the island approach — that video captures better than a sequence of stills. Switch to photo mode for the high-contrast sunset light of the return crossing, where individual frames are more powerful than continuous video.

Who Should Do the Phu Quoc Cable Car?