The length of Vietnam, in fourteen days
One country done properly rather than three done at a run. The north with its karst and its mountains, the imperial centre, and the delta, joined by two internal flights and one night train.
At a glance
- Days
- 14 days, 13 nights
- Party size
- 1 to 8, private
- Start
- Hanoi
- End
- Ho Chi Minh City
- Effort
- Moderate — two days of mountain roads
- From
- USD 2,120 per person
Who this route is for
People who would rather know one country than glimpse three. Fourteen days is enough to travel the full 1,600 kilometres of Vietnam without any day feeling like a transfer, and it is the route we recommend to anyone whose first instinct was to add Cambodia and Laos to a two-week trip.
It includes Ha Giang, which most fourteen-day itineraries leave out because it costs three days and two of them are on mountain roads. We think it is the best three days in the country and we build the trip around it rather than around Sapa, which is now a construction site with a view.
Vietnam does not have a season, it has three. The north is cold and grey from January to March; the centre floods in October and November; the south is hot all year and wet in the afternoons from May to October. There is no month when all three are at their best, and any operator who tells you otherwise has not looked. February and March, or late August, come closest.
Day by day
Arrive Hanoi
Met at Noi Bai and driven 35 kilometres into the Old Quarter. Nothing scheduled.
Hanoi on foot
The Old Quarter trade grid, the Temple of Literature, the French quarter. Lunch where the guide eats. Water puppets in the evening if you want them.
Hanoi to Ha Giang
Six hours north on a road that has improved a great deal and is still six hours. We break it at Tuyen Quang. Ha Giang town is a staging post rather than a destination; the point is what starts tomorrow.
The Dong Van karst plateau
North on the QL4C through the Quan Ba twin mountains and up onto a limestone plateau that is a UNESCO Global Geopark and looks like nowhere else in Asia. Villages of the Hmong, Tay, Dao and Lo Lo, most of them well off the road.
We stop at the Vuong family mansion at Sa Phin, built by an opium magnate in 1919, and reach Dong Van in the late afternoon.
The Ma Pi Leng pass
Twenty-four kilometres of road cut into a cliff above the Nho Que river, built by hand in the 1960s. We drive it slowly and walk part of it. A boat on the Nho Que through the Tu San gorge in the afternoon.
Back to Ha Giang town in the evening, which is a long day and the price of the plateau.
Ha Giang to Lan Ha Bay
A long transfer east to the coast, roughly seven hours, and the only genuinely dull day of the fortnight. Board in the afternoon at Got pier, away from the Ha Long day-boat traffic. Dinner on deck, a night at anchor.
Lan Ha to Hanoi, and fly to Hue
Ashore by 11:00, back to Hanoi, and an afternoon flight to Hue. An hour and ten minutes to cross a country it took the trip six days to get down.
Hue
The Citadel in the morning, which is enormous, half-ruined by the 1968 fighting, and being rebuilt at an unhurried pace. Then a boat up the Perfume River to the Thien Mu pagoda and the tomb of Tu Duc, which is the most beautiful of the imperial tombs and the least visited.
Hue to Hoi An over the Hai Van pass
The coast road rather than the tunnel: 21 kilometres of switchbacks over the Hai Van with the South China Sea on one side. Lunch at Lang Co, then into Hoi An by mid-afternoon.
Hoi An
The old town before eight, when it belongs to the people who live in it, and again after eight in the evening. In between, the My Son sanctuary an hour inland: brick Cham towers from the fourth to the thirteenth century, badly damaged by American bombing in 1969 and still remarkable.
Hoi An, free
A day with nothing in it. Bicycles to the beach, a cooking class, a tailor if you want one, or the boat out to the Cam Thanh water-coconut palms. After ten days of moving, this is the one that people remember being grateful for.
Fly to Ho Chi Minh City
Morning flight south from Da Nang, an hour and twenty. The afternoon is the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum, which is one-sided and is worth two hours anyway.
The Mekong Delta
Two hours south to Ben Tre and out into the small canals by sampan — the ones a motorised boat cannot enter. A coconut-candy workshop that is genuinely a workshop, lunch in a garden, and back to the city in the evening.
Depart Ho Chi Minh City
Tan Son Nhat is 8 kilometres out, 25 to 45 minutes. Room held to 16:00 for evening flights.
What it costs
| Party size | Simple | Comfortable | Excellent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 2,120 | USD 3,290 | USD 5,780 |
| 3 - 4 | USD 1,740 | USD 2,720 | USD 5,150 |
| 5 - 8 | USD 1,490 | USD 2,370 | USD 4,730 |
What the price includes
- 13 nights as described, including one night on a boat
- Hanoi – Hue and Da Nang – Ho Chi Minh City flights with hold luggage
- One night on a small boat in Lan Ha Bay, full board
- Private vehicle and driver throughout, with a mountain-experienced driver in Ha Giang
- English-speaking Vietnamese guides, changed by region
- Nho Que boat, Perfume River boat, Ben Tre sampans, My Son, the Citadel and all fees named
- Breakfast daily plus the meals named day by day
What it does not include
- International flights into Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh City
- Vietnam visa fee if your passport needs one
- Travel insurance, which we require
- Drinks, laundry, and meals not named
- Tips for guides and drivers
Photographs
Who this trip is wrong for
- Anyone who cannot take two days of mountain switchbacks. The Ha Giang loop is the best part of this route and there is no flat version of it.
- Travellers prone to car sickness. Days 4, 5 and 6 total about eighteen hours on winding road.
- People who want beaches. There is one afternoon of beach in Hoi An and that is all.
- Anyone travelling in October or November who wants the centre. Hue and Hoi An flood, sometimes to the first floor, and it is not a small risk.
- Parties who want Sapa. We offer it as a swap and we will tell you honestly that we think Ha Giang is better, quieter and less built over.
Practical notes
Ha Giang permits
Foreign visitors need a border-area permit for the Dong Van plateau. It costs a few dollars, takes an hour in Ha Giang town, and we arrange it before you arrive. Independent travellers get caught by this regularly.
Visa
Most European passports enter visa-free for 45 days, as do Japanese and South Korean. Otherwise an eVisa at USD 25 single entry or USD 50 multiple, from the official portal, three to five working days. Fourteen days is well inside every exemption.
The best months, honestly
Late February to April is the strongest single window: the north has come out of the cold drizzle, the centre is dry, the south is hot but manageable. September is the second best. October and November are the two months we would actively steer you away from.
Questions travellers ask most
Ha Giang or Sapa?
Ha Giang, and it is not close any more. Sapa town has been comprehensively built over and the valley walks are crowded; Ha Giang has harder roads, better landscape and a fraction of the traffic.
Sapa is two hours closer to Hanoi and one day shorter. If your days are tight, that is the argument for it, and we will build it.
Can this be done without internal flights?
Yes, using the north-south railway, and it adds three days. The Hanoi–Hue sleeper is a decent overnight; Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City by rail is seventeen hours and we would not recommend it.
If trains are the point, say so and we will rebuild the middle of this route around them.
Is 14 days too long for one country?
Vietnam is 1,650 kilometres long with three separate climates and a Cham civilisation in the middle of it. Fourteen days is not long for that; it is the minimum for doing it without a permanent sense of leaving somewhere early.
Could I add Cambodia at the end?
Yes. Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh is a six-hour bus or a fifty-minute flight, and five more days gives you Phnom Penh and three at Angkor. That is the eighteen-day classic in a different order.
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