Where to Stay in Dhaka [Areas, Hotels, Options]

Where you stay in Dhaka will shape your entire experience of the city. Dhaka isn’t particularly easy to move around, and the noise, constant movement, and dirt will impact your enjoyment of visiting the city.  It can take 90 minutes to travel 12 kilometers (7 miles).  Choosing the right area to stay in can save you time, reduce stress, and make your trip much more manageable.  However, it’s so, so important to stay somewhere where you can escape a little from the chaos that is Dhaka, in order to experience the chaos again tomorrow.  Here’s my guide on where to stay in Dhaka.

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Most travelers end up in the more modern parts of the city, where hotels are better, transport is easier, and things feel a bit more familiar.   It’s Bangladesh, but a little easier on the senses.  And you’ll get western comforts with a Bengali feel.  There are a few different options of districts within the city, depending on what you want, whether that’s comfort, location, or being closer to the action. In this guide, I’ll break down the best areas to stay in Dhaka and help you decide what works best for your trip.

Dhaka at a Glance for Where to Stay

• Best overall area: Gulshan
• Best for convenience: Banani
• Best for embassies & quieter stays: Baridhara
• Best for experience (but challenging) unless you choose well: Old Dhaka
• Time needed in Dhaka: 1–2 nights for most travelers
• Key tip: Stay somewhere you’re comfortable, deal with additional travel time as a result of it.

Best Areas to Stay in Dhaka

Normally, I advise staying closest to the action.  To the places you want to see, the museums you want to visit.  But when we put together a map of what we wanted to see and do in Dhaka it was obvious that hotels within our budget were not in that area.

Most of the places we wanted to visit were in the southern part of Dhaka.  Aside from the 5-star Pan Pacific, we were more than a little wary of the reviews given for other hotels in that area, close to Old Dhaka.  But not just that.  You know we like to eat local dishes when we travel, and the second thing we do after mapping out what we want to see in a city is map out the places we want to eat.  And there just plain weren’t any restaurants we wanted to eat at in Old Dhaka.

And so, for Dhaka, my advice is that the place where you stay is more important than where it is (within reason, of course).  We learned this in both India and Pakistan, where we’d (after endless checks of recent reviews of hotels), had to move hotels because someone else’s idea of 9/10 just wasn’t anywhere close to ours.

And so here are the areas of Dhaka to stay in, their pros and cons, and what we picked out as our top option for each area.

Stay in Gulshan in Dhaka

Gulshan is the best overall place to stay in Dhaka and where most travelers naturally end up. It’s one of the more modern, organized parts of the city, with a good range of hotels, restaurants, cafés, and services that make day-to-day travel easier.

It’s also where you’ll find many embassies and international businesses, which means it feels a bit more structured and manageable compared to other parts of Dhaka. Getting around from here is straightforward, and it’s a comfortable base for exploring the city.

My top pick here and on our shortlist for where we wanted to stay in Dhaka is the Crowne Plaza Dhaka Gulshan, which offers a level of comfort and reliability that works well after a long travel day or as a base for a short stay in the city.

Stay in Banani in Dhaka

Banani is right next to Gulshan, across the waterway that looks like a river, but is actually a lake, and offers a similar experience, slightly more real, and usually with a little better value. It’s still well connected, with plenty of restaurants and places to stay, and to us it felt a bit more local.

Our top pick in Banani is the Omni Residency, which is well located and offers a comfortable stay without the higher-end pricing you’ll find in Gulshan.  We picked Banani as our place to stay in Dhaka because of the proximity to places to eat.  Don’t get me wrong, there are LOTS of places to eat in Dhaka, but a lot of the restaurants in the embassy areas tend to be foreign, i.e., not Bangladeshi cuisine.  And much as I love it, I didn’t come to Bangladesh to eat Korean food.  I left that for Dushanbe xxxx (and yes, there’s a story behind that too!).

It was a quick and easy trip from the airport – and you can check the options of how to get from the airport to Dhaka here.  Even easier, there’s an ATM just around the corner that doesn’t charge foreign card fees.  Read my guide to ATMs and fees in Bangladesh here. xxxx

Want to know what power sockets you’ll find in rooms here in Bangladesh? My guide to power sockets and plug types in Bangladesh is here.

Stay in Baridhara in Dhaka

Baridhara is a quieter, more residential area that’s popular with embassies and longer-term visitors. It’s less busy than Gulshan and Banani, so it feels calmer, but it also means there are fewer restaurants and things to do within walking distance.  And both of those points are key for us, so if you want somewhere quieter to stay and don’t mind relying on transport to get around, then it’s a good option.

Our top pick here is the Lakeshore Hotel & Apartments, Baridhara.  It is a comfortable, quieter base but still close enough to the main areas.  Our choice came down to these two areas in the end.  We decided to Banani based on the proximity of places we wanted to eat.

Stay in Old Dhaka

Old Dhaka is the most intense place you can stay.  Potentially also the most interesting if you want to be right in the middle of everything. But you’ll want to make sure that you have somewhere to block it all out if it gets too intense for you. It’s not the easiest place to stay. Accommodation is more limited, and getting in and out can take time due to traffic and congestion.  If you do want to stay here but still have some, who am I kidding, amazing comfort, then head for the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka.  It’s the city’s oldest five-star hotel, and gives you a higher-than-standard stay that’s within reach of Old Dhaka. 

How to Choose Where to Stay in Dhaka

I’ve mentioned that normally we try to stay close to the places we want to visit.  Our second criterion is being close to the places we want to eat at.  And it’s that second criterion that won in Dhaka.  All the museums, attractions, and things we wanted to see and do were a long way south of the Omni Residency in Banani.

We decided to suck it up when it came to travel times.  Part of exploring Dhaka is about seeing what the transport is like, seeing how people get around.

And, for us, certainly it’s key to have a calm, quiet place to go back to at the end of – or even in the middle of – the day for a bit of peace.

What to Expect from Accommodation in Dhaka

Take a look at the reviews for hotels in Dhaka onbooking.com, agoda.com, or trip.com, and you’ll see massive variations.  Normally, for European stays, North America, and Southeast Asia, the reviews are pretty reliable, especially the most recent ones. 

When you get to Bangladesh and Dhaka, especially, it’s really hard to use reviews as a barometer of how well a hotel will meet our expectations.   Note that I say expectation rather than requirements.  I *know* that something on booking with a score of 6 is going to be verging on “grin and bear it, it’s only one night”, less than 6 just isn’t happening.  Usually, we aim for 8 and above.  And here, some reviews just read as though the author had a gripe with someone at the hotel and gave them a 3 because of that.

Anyways.  Recent photos are important.  Four stars doesn’t always mean four stars.  That said, spending a little bit more usually translates into a noticeably better experience, particularly in terms of comfort and ease.  If you’re at all unsure, ask to see the room.  In Lahore, Pakistan, recently we booked a room at a hotel that got 8.9 on Booking.com, and had some great reviews.  I’m amazed we lasted one night there before we moved to the infinitely better, marginally higher-priced, but scoring only 8.2, Faletti’s Express Shimla Hill.  (I recommend the hotel, the breakfast, the location, and the staff).  And as for the 8.9 hotel?  Nope, I’m not even going to bother mentioning it. 

4 Practical Tips for Staying in Dhaka

We are not big city people.  And so there are a few things that we always look out for when booking places to stay in cities, and well, everywhere.

1. Stay close to where you want to eat, unless you want to be driven/rickshawed or CNG’d around on an evening.  We like to be able to walk where we eat on a night, and finding out way around, easy with Google maps and a local SIM card.  My guide to SIM cards in Bangladesh is here.
2. If that makes it close to the places that you want to see, even better.  There’s nothing better than being able to head back to the hotel room in the heat of the day for a bit of a break, a cup of tea or coffee.
3. A/C, comfort, soundproofing, hot water.  All are seriously important in Dhaka and Bangladesh.  After a day in the heat, traffic, and crowds, having somewhere reliable to return to makes a big difference to your overall experience.
4. Ask to see the room if you’re unsure.  If you don’t like it, then say so.  Ask for another one.  Don’t save complaints until afterwards; sort it out upfront.
5. Want to know how you’ll pay for your accommodation in Dhaka? My guide to currency, payments and money in Bangladesh is here.

Final Words on Where to Stay in Dhaka

We often agonise for hours over where to stay, first of all, the area, and then the hotel itself.  And don’t get me started on what type of room, because seriously, there is no universal definition of “deluxe double” versus “executive double”, especially when the photos are exactly the same.  Find the part of the city you want to stay in, the type of amenities that the hotel provides, and then you’re good. 

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