Vietnam is a thin country with three of everything.
Three climates, three capitals, three ideas of breakfast. Which Ha Long boat actually stops to swim, what a Mekong sampan day costs, whether the tunnels are worth a morning in the heat. Reviews of every tour you can book here.
The five a first trip is built on
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1
The morning south
Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoon
Two hours underground an hour out of Saigon. Take the first departure, before the tunnels get hot.
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2
The bay in a day
Ha Long Bay Day Cruise – Swimming, Meal, Kayaking
Out of Hanoi at eight, a cave, an hour in a kayak, lunch on deck and back for dinner.
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3
The delta day
Mekong Delta Tour with Sampan Journey
A sampan through the coconut creeks at My Tho, and the smallest boat you will be in all trip.
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4
The Hanoi evening
Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit
Old Quarter stools in the right order, with the train street timed to an actual train.
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5
The karst morning
Full-Day Ninh Binh Highlights Tour from Hanoi
Ninh Binh in one go: Trang An by rowing boat, Hoa Lu, and the five hundred steps up Mua Cave.
Half of Vietnam is only reachable from a boat two feet above it.
Limestone out of Ha Long, flooded caves rowed by foot at Ninh Binh, coconut creeks in the delta. Four kinds of day afloat, what each costs to board, and which end of the country it sits in.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Halong Bay Day Tour With Titop Island, Cave, Kayak & Lunch
The Ha Long day boatKarst islands, a cave stop, a kayak hour, lunch on deck.
Rowed through Ninh BinhA sampan into flooded caves, rowed with the boatwoman’s feet.
Into the delta canalsCoconut creeks, a fruit garden, a market that floats at dawn.
Kayaks and lagoonsPaddle in under a rock arch where the day boats cannot follow.
All 363 ways onto the water →
Six places, north to south, and the best day out in each.
The country runs top to bottom and almost every itinerary does the same. A capital of alleys, a bay of limestone, terraces on the Chinese border, an imperial city, a lantern-lit port and a delta with a city on top of it.
Vietnam eats on the pavement, and it eats early.
Pho before eight, bun cha at noon, egg coffee whenever the rain starts. The food here is regional to the street corner, which is exactly why a local walks you round it the first time.
What a Vietnamese day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. A great deal of this country is bookable for less than a taxi home from the airport.
Street-food walks, cooking classes, the Ninh Binh rowing boats, the tunnels, a night at the puppets.
Full days with a driver: Ha Long boats, the Hai Van Pass by bike, a Ha Giang rider seat.
Overnight cabins on the bay, private cars end to end, the multi-day loops with rooms thrown in.
The eight Vietnamese days out with the longest queue behind them.
Down the whole Vietnamese shelf →Sorted so no two are the same day in different clothes: one tunnel trip, one delta run, one bay boat, one plate of everything.
1
Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoon
Spend about seven hours traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to the Cu Chi Tunnels, with District 1 pickup, an English-speaking guide, and time to see trapdoors, kitchens, living quarters, supply tunnels, and wartime traps. Morning and afternoon departures are available, and guides such as Minh, Nelson, Tom, and Tuan have earned strong praise for clear, lively storytelling.
From · $15
Read our review →2
Hanoi Jeep Tour: Food, Culture and Fun by Vietnam Army Jeep
from $55
3
Mekong Delta Tour with Sampan Journey
from $16
4
Ho Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By Motorbike
from $28
5
Full-Day Ninh Binh Highlights Tour from Hanoi
from $79
6
Ha Long Bay Day Cruise – Swimming, Meal, Kayaking
from $41
7
Water Puppet Show Tickets
from $7
8
Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit
from $19
Hanoi is best walked, eaten and left by eight the next morning.
The whole Hanoi shelf →
The Old Quarter is thirty-six streets that still sell what they were named after. Eat your way across it, stand back for the train, then sit down for an hour of puppets in water. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
The Old Quarter, in the right order
Bun cha over charcoal, banh cuon steamed off a cloth, cha ca fried at the table, then egg coffee somewhere up three flights of stairs. A guide is what stops it being four bowls of pho.
Train Street, and the timetable it runs on
The track through Kham Thien is a metre from the coffee stools, and the whole point is a scheduled train. The visit is timed to it, which is why this one cannot be improvised on the day.
An hour of puppets, waist-deep
Eleventh-century village theatre performed in a flooded stage, with the puppeteers behind a screen in the water. It is short, it is loud, and it is the cheapest ticket in the city.
The rock is the reason half these photographs exist.
A drowned karst field in the north, the same rock inland at Ninh Binh with rice growing between the towers, and under Phong Nha the largest caves on earth. Different counties, one geology, and it decides what a day there looks like.
Three things that happen in Vietnam and nowhere else.
Beaches and old towns exist all over southeast Asia. A theatre performed in a pond, a coast road ridden on a borrowed bike, and a village that makes nothing but incense do not.
Hai Van, by Bike
Twenty-one kilometres of switchbacks over the shoulder between Hue and Da Nang, with the bunkers of two wars still sitting on the summit. Most travellers ride it pillion behind someone who does it daily while their bag goes ahead in the van. The tunnel underneath is faster and there is no reason on earth to use it.
- 1Easy Rider private tour via Hai Van pass from Hue – Da Nang – Hoi An (1Way|Loop)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,542 reviews
- 2Hue to Dn/Hoi An: Hai Van Pass, beaches & Mt Monkey or vice versa★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 743 reviews
- 3Hue Imperial Day Trip, Hai Van Pass Train, & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 619 reviews
One Village, One Trade
Around Hanoi each village still makes exactly one thing, and has for centuries: incense at Quang Phu Cau, conical hats at Chuong, lacquer at Ha Thai, pottery at Bat Trang. The incense yards are stacked with bundles of splints drying in the sun, dyed pink, and they are a working trade rather than a set.
- 1Cai Be Mekong Delta Tour: Cooking Class, Cycling & Craft Villages★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,881 reviews
- 2Incense Village, Hat Making & Lacquer Artisan Small Group Hanoi★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,266 reviews
- 3Countryside Tour with Silk Village & Elephant Falls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 300 reviews
Cu Chi, the museums and the old demilitarised zone.
These are the places the twentieth century happened, and they are visited quietly. A tunnel section near Saigon, the prison in central Hanoi, the museums, and the strip of Quang Tri either side of the Ben Hai river. Go early, take a guide who was born here, and give the afternoon to something else.
- 1Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoonfrom $15
- 2DMZ Tour with Vinh Moc Tunnels and Khe Sanh Basefrom $54
- 3Vietnam War: Uncovering Hanoi’s Untold Storiesfrom $28
Four Vietnamese bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast on the morning. These four run on permits, weather windows and departure times that take no interest in when you land.
- 01Amanda Cruise – Ha Long, Lan Ha Bay – All Inclusive 2D1N & 3D2NCabins on the overnight boats sell out through spring and autumn, and when a storm is called the harbour authority stops every sailing on the bay.
- 02Phong Nha Cave & Paradise Cave: Guided Tour Boat & ExploreThe adventure caves run on capped daily permits and the river ones close outright once the wet season pushes the water up, roughly October into December.
- 03Ha Giang Loop 3 days Small group- From Ha NoiRider seats on the loop go first for October and November, which is when the buckwheat flowers and every hostel in Ha Giang is full.
- 04Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or AfternoonThe tunnels take a morning or an afternoon departure and nothing else. Mornings go first, because the heat inside by two in the afternoon is genuinely hard work.
Vietnam has no single season, so the weather sets the order of the trip.
The north is grey and cold in January while the delta is dry and thirty degrees. Central Vietnam takes the typhoons in October and November, which is the north’s best month. Plan the coast around the rain, and keep these for the days the rain wins anyway.
Hoi An is forty minutes of old town and a week of things to do in it.
The merchant houses survived because the river silted up and the trade left. Now it is lanterns on the water after dark, a cooking school on every lane, a basket boat in the coconut palms and a tailor who wants three days.
The whole Hoi An shelf →
By place — the run from the border to the delta
By kind of day — boat, bike, kitchen or cave
Hanoi down to Saigon in a fortnight, stop by stop.
Ha Long BayVietnam reviews, newest first.
Further down the fresh pile →
Hoa Lu – Tam Coc – Mua Cave Full Day – Limousine
Read our review →
Ninh Binh Tour Hoa Lu Tam Coc Full Day: Biking,Boating,Tickets,Lunch, Limousine
Read our review →
Hoa LU -Trang AN -Mua Cave Full Day Including Boat Entrance Fees and Lunch
Read our review →
Hoa Lo Prison and Little Paris Tour in Hanoi (French Quarter)
Read our review →
Private Crowd Free Hanoi: Morning Highlights of the City Experience
Read our review →
Ho Chi Minh Complex & Temple of Literature Tour (half day)
Read our review →
High Quality Small Group Ha Giang Loop Car Tour 2 Days 2 Nights
Read our review →
Hanoi’s Old Quarter Street Food Experience and Train Street
Read our review →![[Hi-end] Private Hanoi Street Food Tour With Real Foodie](https://tours.vietnameseexplorer.com/wp-content/uploads/hi-end-private-hanoi-street-food-tour-with-real-foodie-1.jpg)
[Hi-end] Private Hanoi Street Food Tour With Real Foodie
Read our review →
Retro Hop-on-hop-off Bonbon City Tour: Classic Package
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Private Tour: Hanoi Street Foods – Train Street – Hidden Gems
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