Halong Bay is the postcard. The rest of Vietnam is the trip.
From a bowl of pho on a Hanoi backstreet to two nights on a junk in Halong Bay. What each day out costs, how long it really takes, and whether it earns a slot in your week.
Cu Chi, Halong Bay, Ninh Binh, the Mekong and a plastic stool in Saigon.
The five days almost every first Vietnam itinerary is built around, with what each one costs before you commit.
01The tunnelsCu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or AfternoonTwo hours out of Ho Chi Minh City, then a stretch of hand-dug tunnel you can crawl through yourself. Take the morning slot; the heat down there is real by afternoon.
02The bay dayHa Long Bay Day Cruise – Swimming, Meal, KayakingOut of Hanoi at dawn, kayaks off the back deck by noon, back before the light goes. The day trip that saves you an overnight cabin.
03The dry HalongFull-Day Ninh Binh Highlights Tour from HanoiSampans poled between the same limestone towers as the bay, two hours from Hanoi, with a 500-step climb at the end for the view over Tam Coc.
04The deltaMekong Delta Guided Tour from Ho Chi Minh CityCoconut palms, a sampan the width of your shoulders and a lunch nobody warns you about. The long day south out of Ho Chi Minh City.
05The plastic stoolHo Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By MotorbikeSix stops on the back of a motorbike, most of them down alleys you would never find on foot. Come hungry.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City at the ends, four stops worth breaking the journey for.
A thousand miles of coast runs between the two big cities. These six are where the tours actually leave from, and the best day out in each.
Halong, the Mekong and a bamboo coracle: three ways Vietnam puts you afloat.
Limestone towers you sail between, a delta where the roads are rivers, and a round bamboo basket a fisherman spins for laughs off Hoi An. Book the boat first and plan the rest of the week around it.
Hanoi is a city best seen from the back of somebody else’s motorbike.
Everything in Hanoi →
The Old Quarter is thirty-six streets that still mostly sell what they were named for, and crossing them on foot is a full-contact sport. Ride it with somebody who knows which grill to stop at, then take the train tracks and the water puppets after dark.
Bun cha, banh mi and the train tracks
Six or seven stops through the Old Quarter on foot or pillion, ending at the tracks with a coffee while the 7pm service comes through. The stalls change; the person taking you is the point.
Halong Bay and back before dark
A four-hour transfer each way buys you five hours on the water, a cave and a kayak. Worth it if the calendar is tight. If it is not, sleep on the bay instead.
Thang Long water puppets
Eleven centuries old, staged in a pool with a live band at the side. It is the cheapest ticket in the city and the front rows go first.
The Vietnam tours more travellers take than anything else.
Every Vietnam tour →One tunnel complex, one bay, one delta and a great deal of food. These are the days out the whole country funnels into.
1
Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoon
Review of the Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Ho Chi Minh City, with practical advice on timing, transport, guides, tunnel access, price, and value.
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
Cu Chi Tunnels-Tapioca Small Group Tour Morning or Afternoon
from $14.90
7
Ha Long Bay Day Cruise – Swimming, Meal, Kayaking
from $41
8
Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta Signature Tour
from $33
Vietnam eats on the street, and the best stalls have no sign.
A guide gets you to the bun cha grill down an alley you would walk straight past, the market where somebody names the herbs for you, and the class that sends you home able to cook it again.
Hoi An switches its lanterns on at six and turns the traffic off.
The old town is a walkable grid of tailors and lantern shops, and the river fills with paper lights after dark. The coconut forest, the pottery village and An Bang beach are all inside half an hour on a bicycle.
Every Hoi An day out →
What a day out in Vietnam actually costs.
Every priced tour on the site, sorted into three brackets. A good number of the best days here come in under the price of a taxi to the airport at home.
Street food walks, cooking classes, the water puppets, and most of the day trips out of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Halong day cruises, the full Mekong run, Ninh Binh with lunch, and a seat on the Ha Giang loop.
Overnight and two-night cabins on the bay, private cars with a driver, and the multi-day trips north.
Three things you can only do in Vietnam.
Beaches and old towns turn up all over Asia. A railway running through a residential alley, a coracle spun in a coconut grove, and puppets worked from under the water do not.
Hanoi Train Street
Between Le Duan and Kham Thien the railway runs through a residential alley barely wider than the carriages. Families set plastic stools against the walls and sell coffee from their front rooms, then pull everything inside when the horn sounds. The authorities close the street periodically and it reopens; the cafes work to a timetable built around two trains a day.
- 1Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,239 reviews
- 2Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden Alleyways★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,831 reviews
- 3Guided Street Food Tour with Train Street Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,479 reviews
The Coconut Forest Basket Boats
The thung chai is a round bamboo basket sealed with resin, built the way it is because a colonial tax counted boats and not baskets. In the water coconut palms at Cam Thanh the boatmen paddle you along the channels, then spin the basket on its own axis fast enough to make the whole thing feel like a fairground ride.
- 1Basket Boat Ride in the Coconut Forest★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,956 reviews
- 2Cooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & Cooking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,660 reviews
- 3Mekong Delta, My Tho & Ben Tre Coconut Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,304 reviews
Water Puppet Theatre
Mua roi nuoc started in the flooded paddies of the Red River delta, where puppeteers stood waist deep behind a screen and worked the figures on long bamboo poles under the surface. The Thang Long theatre in Hanoi keeps the form, with a live band at the side of the stage and the puppeteers only wading out at the end.
- 1Water Puppet Show Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 7,029 reviews
- 2Water Puppet Show Ticket with Hotel Delivery Add-On★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,554 reviews
- 3Thang Long Water Puppet Show Ticket – Skip The Line★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 836 reviews
Four Vietnam bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this country can be arranged from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on cabin allocation, weather windows, harvest season and a licence you cannot get at the counter.
- 01Cozy Bay Halong 5-Star Day Cruise, Buffet, Cave, Kayak, SwimmingCabins on the overnight boats are a fixed allocation and the balcony rooms go first. The bay also shuts to traffic when a storm is forecast, so the date matters more than the operator.
- 02Ha Giang Loop 3 days Small group- From Ha NoiThe loop runs on a licence most foreign visitors do not hold, which makes it an easy-rider seat or nothing. Riders and rooms in Dong Van are spoken for a week ahead in season.
- 03Sapa 2 Days 1 Night From Hanoi – Overnight in Ta Van VillageThe homestays in Ta Van are ordinary houses with a handful of beds. Through the September harvest weeks they fill long before the buses do.
- 04Water Puppet Show TicketsThang Long sells a set number of seats per performance and there are only a few shows a day. The front rows go first and they are the ones worth having.
Central Vietnam floods in October. Hanoi goes grey in January.
There is no single wet season here. Hoi An and Hue take the worst of it from September to November, the north turns cold and misty after Christmas, and Ho Chi Minh City gets an hour of hard rain most afternoons from May. All three have the same answer: get under a roof and learn to make something.
By place, north to south
By kind of day, on water, on two wheels or at a table
Hanoi down to Ho Chi Minh City: the run almost everybody does first.
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