The Ultimate Travel Guide to Vietnam

From vast moun­tain ranges in the North to the bright green rice fields in the South, from gold­en sandy beach­es in the East to the hus­tle and bus­tle of the big cities — Viet­nam has it all. No mat­ter how much or lit­tle time you have in Viet­nam, this guide will help you plan your ulti­mate trav­el route through Viet­nam and have an unfor­get­table jour­ney.

About this guide

Ben and I got to spend a whole month in Viet­nam from March 6th to April 7th in 2017. It was quite the adven­ture as we jumped into it with lit­tle to no prepa­ra­tion before­hand. We had our flights booked and a rough list of our must see des­ti­na­tions, but that was it. It cer­tain­ly brought about some unplanned inci­dents (good and bad ones) and gave us a lot of spon­tane­ity to stay in the places we liked best and skip those we didn’t.

This guide con­tains all our col­lect­ed knowl­edge from that trip and will advise you not only about when and where to go but will also pro­vide you with more detailed infor­ma­tion about the dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions  and valu­able insid­er tips.

More­over, this guide is meant as a tool to plan your indi­vid­ual trip as opposed to a strict itin­er­ary. I always rec­om­mend main­tain­ing the most flex­i­bil­i­ty when trav­el­ling — this will make for a much more reward­ing and authen­tic expe­ri­ence.

Viet­nam has a good touris­tic infra­struc­ture and you will always — Always — find a decent place to stay no mat­ter where you go. So don’t pre-book your whole trip but allow your­self to live day by day and embrace the oppor­tu­ni­ties that come along.

While we were look­ing more for a scenic and active kind of trip, you might be up for some sun­bathing or his­toric explo­ration, so the final route you choose will be entire­ly up to your inter­ests.

Thus, any sug­gest­ed des­ti­na­tions below can be left out, swapped with oth­ers or trav­elled to in a dif­fer­ent order.

Preparation

As small as Viet­nam might look on the world map, you would be sur­prised how long it can take you to get from A to B, espe­cial­ly with the local road con­di­tions and means of trans­porta­tion.

While three to four weeks are suf­fi­cient to expe­ri­ence the whole coun­try, with only two weeks or less to dis­cov­er Viet­nam you will prob­a­bly have to decide on a spe­cif­ic region or use air­planes to cov­er the dis­tances.

More­over you will need to think about the time of the year dur­ing which you will trav­el, as there is a dra­mat­ic dif­fer­ence in the cli­mate between north and south due to the great length of the coun­try.

Check out the best trav­el­ling time for your des­ti­na­tion, to make sure you are not caught unawares by the wet sea­son or spe­cial hol­i­days that can cause short­age of hotel rooms or clo­sure of sights.

Depend­ing on where you come from you will like­ly arrive either in Ho-Chi-Minh-City in the South or in Hanoi in the North. As the cheap­est air­fare from Europe is usu­al­ly fly­ing in and out of Ho-Chi-Minh-City we decid­ed to trav­el the coun­try south-to-north and have a con­nect­ing flight back to HCMC from Hanoi.

While this gave us opti­mal weath­er con­di­tions in almost all regions, you can just as well trav­el the coun­try top-to-bot­tom.

Getting around

Com­pared to some of its neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, Viet­nam offers a reli­able infra­struc­ture to almost all regions. Whether on trains, busses, motor­bikes, ships or water buf­fa­lo — you will reach your des­ti­na­tion.

Check out Get­ting around in Viet­nam for every­thing you need to know about trans­porta­tion.

Where to Go

But let’s get to the fun part now.

Below you find a list of all regions of Viet­nam with the min­i­mum amount of time you need to ful­ly expe­ri­ence the many things the area has to offer. For more detailed infor­ma­tion on each area, fol­low the respec­tive links.

Note: Some regions don’t have links yet as I am still busy writ­ing all that con­tent for you! Be patient and sign up for my newslet­ter so you don’t miss out on valu­able tips!

Ho-Chi-Minh-City and Hanoi

2 to 3 days each

A typ­i­cal side­walk in Ho-Chi-Minh-City is more of a park­ing lane for the count­less motor­bikes.

As most of you will like­ly arrive and/or leave in one or even both cities, you should sched­ule around 2 or 3 days for each city.

But even if you only have a lay­over in Hanoi or Ho-Chi-Minh-City on your way to some­where else, don’t let your pre­cious time go to waste!

If you are from Ger­many, France, Spain, UK, Italy or any Scan­di­na­vian coun­try and are stay­ing less than 15 days you don’t even need a visa, so head out­side the air­port and spend a cou­ple of days explor­ing the city.

Both Ho-Chi-Minh-City and Hanoi are easy to get around and will give you an excit­ing glimpse into Viet­namese cul­ture.

Read on for more infor­ma­tion on what to do in the cities and a detailed itin­er­ary of our vis­it:

Ho-Chi-Minh-City

Hanoi (com­ing soon)

The Mekong Delta – South-Western Region

2 to 4 days

Sail­ing along one of the dis­trib­u­taries of the Mekong sur­round­ed by dense jun­gle.

The Mekong mean­ders 4,350km through six coun­tries from the Tibetan Plateau to the great Delta where it emp­ties into the sea. The riv­er brings fer­til­i­ty to the plains of South­ern Viet­nam and turns it into the country’s most pro­duc­tive region in agri- and aqua­cul­ture.

A par­adise for bird watch­ers, nature enthu­si­ast and peo­ple who want to expe­ri­ence local life, the Mekong Delta is a must-see on every trip to the South of Viet­nam.

Here you can expe­ri­ence the sim­plic­i­ty of local life through an authen­tic home­s­tay, maneu­ver a small barge through the over­grown dis­trib­u­taries of the Mekong, vis­it tra­di­tion­al coconut can­dy and rice noo­dle fac­to­ries or mar­vel at the bustling activ­i­ty at the Float­ing Mar­kets dur­ing sun­rise.

As the South of Viet­nam is the part of the coun­try with the least devel­oped infra­struc­ture and can only be reached by bus, many trav­el­ers opt for a guid­ed tour to the Mekong Delta. Most tour com­pa­nies oper­ate from Ho-Chi-Minh-City and offer 2- or 3-Day-Tours that include trans­porta­tion, a boat tour and a vis­it to the Float­ing Mar­ket. If you only have a cou­ple of days to spare, these are usu­al­ly good val­ue. Just head to the Back­pack­er Dis­trict 1 in HCMC, where you will find count­less tour oper­a­tors and make sure to com­pare what’s includ­ed and check their rat­ing on tri­pad­vi­sor.

Good news for the more autonomous trav­el­er: you can eas­i­ly plan a trip to the Mekong your­self! This is not only much cheap­er but allows you to do the things you fan­cy and spares you from being rushed through the sights by crowds of obnox­ious tourists.

Read more

The South-Central Coast and Central Highlands

5 to 7 days

At night thou­sands of shim­mer­ing lanterns light up the town of Hoi An.

The South-Cen­tral Coast and Cen­tral High­lands regions make up almost a third of the coun­try and are prob­a­bly amongst the most touristy diverse areas in the coun­try, with pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions like Phan Thi­et, Dalat, Nha Trang and Hoi An.

Phan Thi­et with its neigh­bor­ing fish­er town Mui Ne is one of the nicer regions in Viet­nam to indulge in some beach vaca­tion. Next to its sandy gold­en beach­es, the area is pop­u­lar for its majes­tic white sand dunes, its bustling fish­ing har­bor and the count­less high-end beach resorts — and all that with rel­a­tive­ly few touris­tic mass­es.

Nha Trang has become a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el­ers over the years, main­ly due to its glo­ri­ous beach­es, scu­ba div­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and the fact that it has one of the best touris­tic infra­struc­tures in the whole coun­try. If you are look­ing for a vari­ety of activ­i­ties, relax­ation and enter­tain­ment — this is the place for you.

We didn’t vis­it Dalat but heard from a lot of oth­er trav­el­ers that they enjoyed their time spent in this City of Eter­nal Spring. Seat­ed in a val­ley encom­passed by the moun­tains of the Cen­tral High­lands the city used to be a health resort for the French colo­nial­ists — which is still vis­i­ble in the French archi­tec­ture preva­lent in the town. The unusu­al tem­per­ate weath­er makes for large pine tree forests and pic­turesque water­falls and lakes.

A true must see  is the mar­velous city of Hoi An. This for­mer trad­ing port dates back to the 15th cen­tu­ry and attracts with some of the best pre­served ‘old hous­es’. The true spec­ta­cle, how­ev­er, occurs at night, when the whole city lights up in the flick­er­ing shine of a mil­lion col­or­ful lanterns. Com­bined with the ver­sa­tile sur­round­ings: end­less rice fields with graz­ing water buf­fa­los, gold­en beach­es and the ancient Hin­du tem­ple com­plex My Son close by, this many-faceted des­ti­na­tion will leave you in awe.

The North-Central Coast

3 to 5 days

Peek­ing through the shut­ters of a pas­sage­way in the Impe­r­i­al City in Hue allows for great views on the many tem­ples, pavil­ions and courts.

Although this region cov­ers a large per­cent­age of the coun­try, it is one not often trav­elled to. The two main attrac­tions are the old emperor’s city Hue and the UNESCO World Her­itage Site Phong Nha — Ke Bang Nation­al Park and if you are trav­el­ling through this area, you should def­i­nite­ly plan to spent a cou­ple of days here.

We found that Phong Nha — Ke Bang Nation­al Park is seri­ous­ly under­rat­ed as this was one of our per­son­al high­lights of the whole trip, although most guide books only men­tioned it as a poten­tial extra stop for a cave tour.

But here is our secret tip: Instead of just stay­ing a day and quick­ly hop­ping onto a tour to one of the caves, take some more time to explore the pris­tine nature of the park.

The best way to get around is by far a motor­bike; you can even do a mul­ti-day tour through the pic­turesque land­scape with var­i­ous stops along the way, like some stun­ning, less­er-known caves, small streams that invite you to take a swim, tra­di­tion­al­ly farmed fields and semi-wild ani­mal enclo­sures.

It is the per­fect place for explor­ing the dense jun­gle on a hike (and get­ting hor­ri­bly lost) and tak­ing a well-deserved break from the fast pace of trav­el­ling.

Anoth­er worth­while day trip in the area leads you to Vietnam’s old cap­i­tal Hue. Here you can go back in time and imag­ine life as it must have been for emper­ors of the Nguyen Dynasty and the per­son­nel that lived inside the Impe­r­i­al city and its thick, pro­tec­tive walls. Sev­er­al tombs of past emper­ors and pago­das can also we vis­it­ed, prefer­ably dur­ing a boat trip along the Per­fume Riv­er.

Those inter­est­ed in the Viet­nam War can more­over arrange a trip to the Demil­i­ta­rized Zone about 70km north of Hue, the divid­ing line of North and South Viet­nam that was estab­lished after the First Indochi­na War and served as bat­tle­ground dur­ing the Viet­nam War.

The Northern Region

5 to 7 days

The bold green rice ter­races in the north of Viet­nam are a par­adise for hik­ers.

The North of the coun­try has incred­i­bly many things to offer — from the bustling city of Hanoi, the fabled Halong Bay or the vast moun­tain ranges in the West.

If you have less than two weeks in Viet­nam my rec­om­men­da­tion is to vis­it the North. Peri­od.

It sim­ply is the most scenic part of the coun­try — with stun­ning land­scapes wher­ev­er you go.

Prob­a­bly THE high­light on every Viet­nam tour is locat­ed in the North-East of the coun­try: the famous Halong Bay. No mat­ter if on a mul­ti-day lux­u­ry cruise, a kayak­ing tour, a vis­it to Cat Ba Island or a stay in a seclud­ed island resort, this should be on your itin­er­ary.

Tours and trans­porta­tion can eas­i­ly be arranged from pret­ty much any­where in the coun­try, though it makes the most sense to vis­it it from Hanoi (if you are trav­el­ling North-to-South) or from Ninh Binh (if you are head­ing North).

If you are trav­el­ling from the North­ern regions to the South or vice ver­sa you will most like­ly need to stop in Ninh Binh for a day, as most busses stop here on their way. Famous for its so called Dry Halong Bay, the area can best be explored by boat or bike. Bold rock for­ma­tions tow­er over the sur­round­ing rice fields and allow for spec­tac­u­lar views from the wind­ing riv­er Ngo Dong.

Sapa was one of our per­son­al high­lights. The small town close to the Chi­nese bor­der is enclosed by high moun­tains, amongst them the Fan Si Pan, the high­est moun­tain of Indochi­na at a height of 3143 m. Here you can still expe­ri­ence the har­mon­ic co-exis­tence of sev­er­al eth­nic minori­ties and nature — prefer­ably on foot.

The pic­ture-per­fect rice ter­races, Hmong peo­ple in their col­or­ful clothes, pris­tine moun­tain ranges — a par­adise not only for hik­ers and moun­taineers but a place that should def­i­nite­ly be on your itin­er­ary.

Whew! …you made it through the whole guide!

You are now opti­mal­ly pre­pared for your upcom­ing trip. If not, check out all my oth­er Viet­nam relat­ed arti­cles.

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