From wild adventures to foodie escapes, here are the best Vietnam trips
Vietnam is the rising star of southeast Asia, with direct flights from the UK and visa-free travel for up to 45 days. Between golden crescents of sand, glittering green rice paddies, sugarloaf mountains, karst islets and the watery fingers of the Mekong Delta, you’ll find ancient cities, traditional culture, modern-day entrepreneurs shaking up the coffee, chocolate and craft beer scene, and new artists’ collectives. And enveloping it all is the can-do ethos of a 98 million-strong population with an irrepressible energy. “Once you love Vietnam,” Anthony Bourdain said, “you’ll love it for ever.” Here are the best tours that will take you to every corner of Vietnam.
1. Cycling Vietnam, Exodus
Motorbikes are king in Vietnam but this Exodus trip features a more sedate two-wheeled option. After the bustle of Ho Chi Minh City, take to the peaceful back roads by bike, exploring fishing villages and stopping off at beautiful beaches. Travelling inland through coffee and strawberry plantations brings you to quirky Dalat, once a French hill station, that has an air of the home counties with its golf course and manicured parks. A downhill ride through pine-forested mountains ends at Whale Island (Vietnamese fishermen worship whales) for a swim and snorkel. Untouristy coastal roads push north, and you’ll tackle the Hai Van Pass, a dizzying 500m high, where the sheer-sided mountains plunge towards rippling sandy curves that dip into the midnight-blue East Sea. The Reunification Express train transports you north where you’ll kayak around mystical Halong Bay.
2. Classic Mekong, Wendy Wu
This guided tour covers many of the country’s highlights. Start not in Vietnam but at the otherworldly ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the world’s largest religious complex. In the capital, Phnom Penh, you’ll find sobering history in its museums and memorials and irresistible spirit in its speakeasy bars and garden restaurants. You’ll board the Victoria Mekong, the first eco-cruise on the river, towards Vietnam. After touring buzzing Ho Chi Minh City, stroll riverside Hoi An, brimming with ochre-hued merchant homes, temples and top restaurants. Hanoi’s French colonial buildings rub up against Buddhist pagodas and street stalls. Take it all in by cyclo (traditional tricycle taxi). Before heading home, sail on a junk into the teal waters of Halong Bay studded with thousands of karst pillars.
3. Vietnam Real Food Adventure, Intrepid
I’m going to say it: Vietnamese food is the best in the world. Fragrant dishes of silky noodle soups, spicy meats, tender, herb-infused fish plus ca phe sua da (coffee blended with condensed milk and ice) and delicious ice cream — most of it consumed at little family-run stalls. That makes this marathon foodie trip from Intrepid one to savour. Treats include an immersion in tea tradition at a hidden tea house, expert instruction and tasting in rice wine, a vegetarian feast in Buddhist-centric Hue and a hands-on cooking class. You’ll even experience a little Gallic flavour in Ho Chi Minh City, with baguettes and coffee at pavement cafés.
4. Southeast Asia Family Journey, G Adventures
This trip ends with you hanging out with acrobats — and you’ll do a fair bit of juggling in the build-up to that. There’s the chance to float in a sampan (a traditional flat-bottomed boat) down a river graced by limestone peaks; make sweet potato chips with chefs; and craft ceramics with potters whose ancestors fashioned clay vessels for Vietnam’s imperial dynasties. At Hue, with its Forbidden City and tombs on the Perfume River, learn about the dragon king court and royal gossip. Cook with youth-training scheme Oodles of Noodles in Hoi An and delve into military history — literally — by squeezing into tunnels used by the Viet Cong near Ho Chi Minh City. You’ll tuck into a Khmer meal at a vocational training restaurant in Siem Reap and, after a trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, meet those acrobats at social enterprise Phare Circus.
5. Wild Vietnam, Wild Frontiers
Channel your inner Levison Wood and pedal, boat, birdwatch, cave and kayak your way around Vietnam. This richly woven, tailor-made itinerary captures the highlights of Vietnam and then some. You’ll go off-piste to a local village near Hanoi, spot endangered Delacour’s langur monkeys in Van Long, and take a deep dive into the earth’s treasures at Phong Nha (a national park that’s home to the largest cave in the world). It’s proper Journey to the Centre of the Earth stuff. Next you will navigate the history of the demilitarised zone (DMZ) and kayak a river, winding past paddies and pagodas to Hoi An. At journey’s end, cast away to the Con Dao islands, which are wild with beaches, marine turtles and reef life.
6. Vietnam’s Northern Soul, Inside Asia
Few travellers head to the conical peaks of north Vietnam, where the rugged mountain scenery nudges up to the Chinese border. But it’s up here — with vertiginous terraced rice fields that flush gold in September, traditional homelands of Hmong, Red Dao and Tay peoples, and local markets — that you’ll get a glimpse of rural Vietnam far from its bustling cities. Among its treasures is the palace of a Hmong mountain king who levied tax in opium and bathed in goat’s milk. Trek, boat and drive by day and spend the nights in an eco-lodge and homestays. The trip is bookended by a street-food safari in Hanoi and languid days cruising the dramatic Lan Ha Bay.
7. Ultimate Vietnam, Black Tomato
It’s only a few decades since Vietnam turned its back on communist austerity, but today you’ll discover gorgeous luxury hotels, beach hideaways, spa retreats and even seaplanes. Your chauffeur will drive you through intriguing Hanoi by classic car followed by a street-food tour with a leading chef. Float through the limestone pillars of Halong Bay on a private junk and tour its lofty peaks by chopper. You’ll buzz around the markets of Ho Chi Minh City on a vintage Vespa, and boat through to the floating veg markets of the Mekong Delta. Get insider access to wartime sites in Ho Chi Minh City, then kick back at Six Senses Con Dao on an isolated curve of sand overlooking a sapphire sea where manatees, dolphins and marine turtles swim.