Your Vietnam Itinerary Planing Guide

Fin: 00:00 There are so many incredible bucket list worthy destinations in Vietnam, but the country is over a thousand miles long, which is like the distance from Florida to New York. So there needs to be a lot of thought and planning that goes into your Vietnamese itinerary to maximize your time in Vietnam.

Fin: 00:26 I'm Fin.

Fin: 00:27 My husband, Tim and I have traveled all over Vietnam like for the span of maybe four months or so in and out for the past five years we did the full Saigon to Hanoi motorbike trip. Ha Long Bay, Sapa, up and around the Ha Giang Loop all the way down on the Island of Phu Quoc and everything in the middle of the country too. So I'm not necessarily like saying this, like.... But what bothers me about some people's travel videos is somebody will say these are the top three places to go in Thailand and it's probably the only three places that that person went in Thailand. So I just want to let you know that this video is coming from a place of, we've done multiple Vietnamese trips and thus we are able to look at Vietnam at a whole and say like, this was really great. This probably doesn't need to be included in your quick one week trip.

Fin: 01:14 Maybe only go there if you have more time. It's just, it's coming from a place of love. So there's a lot of information in this video, but if you're having fun already, give it a like and stick around for all the information. I love maps. Let's look at a map. Okay. Vietnam is a long and skinny, so then we've got the North Vietnam. Look at all of these things up in the North. Let's focus on the North right now.

Northern Vietnam Itinerary

If you are short on time coming into Vietnam, like under a 10 day trip, Hanoi is a great airport to fly into because there is just a lot going on up here in Northern Vietnam. You're probably wanting to see some of those iconic places like how long Bay rice terraces up in the North of Sapa and Zhang are up here and then down South of Hanoi in Tam Coc is kind of like a Halong Bay on land where you've got those tall limestone cliffs and it's very, very scenic. Yeah. The great part about that is all those destinations that I just mentioned are within about a half days travel from Hawaii.

Fin: 02:15 Yay.

Ha Long Bay Cruise

Fin: 02:20 Okay. The Ha Long Bay cruise scene. I know that you've seen a picture of how long Bay, the length of the cruise is up to you based on what type of trip you want to have. Like if you just are saying that you want to take your picture of how long Bay and see it, you can do a really short one night trip. You can check out our video where we did a budget, how long Bay trip. Our first trip where we had like no money. We couldn't afford a Ha Long Bay cruise. So what we did is we took the ferry on our motorbikes out to Cat Ba Island. So if that sounds interesting, you check out that video to see how that all works. But I'll just say, you know, once you're there, you're there. You can see it. So if you want four days of relaxing on a great, awesome.

Fin: 03:00 If you just want to make sure you see it, you're likely taking transportation from Hanoi. That's included in your Ha Long Bay cruise out over there. And then it'll take you about half the day between, you know, checking out of your hotel, getting on the bus, getting out there, dah, dah. So as you're planning your how long Bay trip, even if it's just one night, remember it's two days because you're going to get out there, then you're going to be out there and you're going to sleep, you're gonna wake up and then you gotta get all the way back.

Tam Coc/Ninh Binh

If the holiday cruise thing is not on your list, a good alternative is to go down to Tam Coc. Some people do this as a day trip, but that is really far from Hawaii to just do a day trip. Plus all of the accommodation there is really charming.

Fin: 03:43 I would recommend at least a one night over overnight. Stay down in Tam Coc. This is where you'll see some of these hiking viewpoints that you see here. You can go on a river cruise through caves. Now, everyone's time is valuable. Everyone is trying to maximize the most that they can do on vacation. But as a rule of thumb, I'm always recommending to try to not book less than two nights in any destination. Because if you think about what you do during the day to get there, you have a travel day. If you want to do anything at the place, you need a day off, right? And then you go to bed again and then you can wake up and then you can travel the next day. So example here in Tam Coc, if you wanted to do this cool river cruise on this boat or this hike, unless you want to do those kind of tour intensive things on the same day as traveling, you're going to want a separate day to do that.

Fin: 04:39 So for the absolute shortest time in Vietnam, I would recommend flying into Hanoi. You can maybe head out to how long Bay and or down to Tam Coc, maybe a four or five night minimum, but get you some beautiful iconic sites.

Sapa Itinerary

Expanding on that still in Northern Vietnam, the beautiful mountainous rice terraces that you've seen in photos of Vietnam is all the way up here and the town of Lao Cai. This is where you travel to to get to Sapa. The quickest way to get here is on an overnight train, so it is not close to Hanoi. What's popular here in SaPa is trekking or hiking. Unfortunately right now my recommendation is, is Sapa is a region that has, that has definitely been changed by tourism. Vietnam is not typically a place where you're getting all the kind of street hawkers trying to sell you things. Sapa was out of this world and some of the worst that we've seen in any country that we've ever traveled to.

Fin: 05:46 So while this area is beautiful, I would recommend visiting this area, maybe to go to a specific hotel like this incredible one, to be there for the views or to use the facilities there. Instead of saying, Oh, I'm just going to camp out in town and kind of walk around and figure it out as I go, only because you're going to get bombarded every day with people trying to take you out on on treks or take you out to their village. Again, this is not common in Vietnam. That is common in Sapa.

Ha Giang Loop

If you're more of a get off the beaten path type person, more adventurous, but you still want to see those beautiful mountainous rice patties. That is what the Ha Giang region is for. There is a popular motorbike loop that's a several day loop in this Ha Giang region. This has some of the most incredible views in the country, but it is for more of the adventurous traveler unless you're renting a motorbike or purchasing a motorbike in Hanoi and doing this big Vietnamese motorbike trip, which you can see more of that in blog form on our channels and then you can also take an overnight bus look the overnight.

Northern Vietnam Itinerary Summary

Fin: 06:54 I talk about that more in the travel tip video. If you want to hear more about transportation options, but to get up to Ha Giang you're going to take an overnight bus and then you can also rent a bike there in Ha Giang and do the loop, but you need minimum three days to do that area. Okay, so that's Northern Vietnam. We've got our short version of that trip. You can easily spend seven to 10 days there just in the North. If you're talking about exploring any other region than Northern Vietnam, I would recommend flying, even if you're already South of Hanoi in Tam Coc the flights are just so cheap to head all the way down into center Vietnam or South Vietnam versus what would look maybe more like a 14 hour overnight train ride. If you can always choose the train over the bus. I'll say it one more time.

Fin: 07:39 Always choose a train over the bus. I'll just keep geographically working my way. South first area that you'll see is Phong Nha.

Central Vietnam Itinerary

Phong Nha

Phong Nha is remote and by itself versus some other locations here in central Vietnam that are closer to each other. Phong Nha because of that region is more maybe like new up and coming. And what you're doing here is you are caving. This is the world's largest cave, but unless you have $3,000 a person, you're probably not going on the Son Doong cave expedition. But there are loads of other options including overnight Treks, you can check out our four night cave expedition here. It's like a two hour more like documentary style video of want to see that because it does sometimes it's a lot of hiking. Okay. For my adventure travelers, if you're looking for adventure, head to Phong Nha. Other good options in the center of Vietnam, you of course have the big airport there - in Da Nang.

Da Nang

Fin: 08:38 But Da Nang as a city is kind of like a big local city. There is a little bit of a digital nomad ex-pat scene there. But as far as like the sites to see, that's not the most charming of the Vietnamese cities. There is the new hand there. We weren't there when they built "the hand". So if you need to see the hand and walk along that, then you can go check that out. If you're an Instagrammer and you take a picture with the hand, you can go see that there. But just South of there, 45 minutes South of there is the most adorable town of Hoi An. This is by far up there on the must do's of Vietnam. On the 24th of every month there is the lantern festival here. Don't get this confused with the Chiang Mai, Thailand one, you know where they go up in the sky.

Hoi An

Fin: 09:27 This lantern festival goes down onto the river and it's beautiful candle it all over and there's a bunch of vendors selling lit for those. Like the paper lanterns everywhere, brightly colored. It is just the most beautiful town to be in at night. What is also popular in Hoi An is to get clothes tailored there so you can pop into so many different shops there. Get custom dresses made all the way up to Tim. Even got a custom leather motorcycle, a motorcycle jacket made there, which is super premium. And then we got to carry that all around Southeast Asia with us for several months.

Hue

New Speaker: 10:04 Okay. Now on my central Vietnam, like maybe don't need to visit locations are Hue the ancient city of way. I was, I don't know if I just had super high expectations. I was so stoked to go here. I mean we did really have bad weather so I don't want that to skew my opinion. But what you do here is you go to that large temple and there's just so many temples and pagodas in Vietnam that this one didn't necessarily stand out to me. And so I didn't really feel like it was worth our time to, well we were on motorbikes, we were driving through there anyways.

Central Vietnam Itinerary Summary

Fin: 10:54 So for central Vietnam I would recommend Phong Nha and/or Hoi An. That could take you anywhere between three to five days on those trips. Okay. let's talk about the South.

Southern Vietnam Itinerary

Nha Trang

Fin: 11:12 Nha Trang is a beach town. So if you're like me and you're like, I must be at the beach, like where all the best beach? This is a beach town, but this is like Russian Cancun. Okay. This is like, because you're not Vietnamese when you're walking through not trying the Vietnamese people assume you're Russian and we'll be speaking Russian to you. There's Russian on the restaurant menu. I know. It's crazy, but that's kind of what it is there. So culturally that's super interesting. So if that interests you, I mean maybe go check out and track, but just know that that's what the scene is there. It's kind of like Eastern Russians heading down warmer weather for a budget trip. So there's like a lot of drinking and Russian partying and hanging out on the beach, which might be super fun. So check that out. Okay. If we're winding inland from the Russian tourist town of Nha Trang then we visit the mountainous town of Dalat.

Da Lat

Fin: 12:09 Dalat is so cute. It's the Vietnamese wine region, which no, Vietnam is not known for their wine and then, no, I wouldn't say is the best wine I've ever had in my life, but it's just really cute here. This is a Vietnamese honeymoon destination so you will see Vietnamese honeymooners here. It's so cute. See more of DaLat in this video.

Fin: 12:31 Airbnb's around and this is a pretty good mix of off the beaten path but also still friendly. Like you can get around with English if you are motorbiking the drive in between Nha Trang and Dalat is one of the best in the country too. You know, it's something to see, but you could just stay one night there. It's cute.

Mui Ne

Fin: 12:49 Curving down from Dalat back to the coast is the town of Mui Ne. More Russians here. But Mui Ne is really cool because this is where the red sand dunes are. Yes, I know. Look at how beautiful these are. There is a little bit of camera play here. These aren't incredibly vast like the Sahara desert or something. There's just some little red sand dunes. So if the red sand dunes are high on your bucket lists, maybe one night here, but other than that Mui Ne in my opinion, does not have that much charm beyond that.

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City

Fin: 13:22 Okay. All the way down South, back to Saigon in the South. Just so you know that even though on the maps and on your airline ticket, it's going to say Ho Chi Minh, refer to the city name as Saigon. Saigon is such a fun city. Oh my gosh, there's so much going on here. There's an awesome backpackers scene and all backpackers street. So if you are either solo traveling or wanting to meet up with other people, this has got a great fun nightlife here. I prefer the food in the South because it's just a little bit more spicy and flavorful and there's, there's just a lot to do between markets and the American or Vietnamese war museum is also there. So there's, there's so much going on in the South too.

Saigon Day Trips

Great day trips from Saigon. One is the Cu Chi tunnels. You're able to actually crawl through the Vietcong tunnel system. This takes, Oh, I forget, maybe about 45 minutes, maybe over an hour to get all the way out to Cu Chi. This is a guided tour just about any hotel. Even if you're staying at a super budget place in Saigon, will help you get coordinated with an actual tour to go out there and tour guides. Take everybody on that trip. I don't really think you just show up and go through that. So you'd go on a guided tour through that place.

Mekong Delta

And then really the only thing that I can think of that we haven't done in Vietnam apart from the Halong Bay full-on cruise, is the Mekong Delta trip. The Mekong Delta is pretty far of Saigon and usually by the time it comes around to it, anytime that we've been in Saigon, we're just kinda like, ah, I don't want to go drive. I don't know. Maybe it's over two hours to get down there.

Phu Quoc

Fin: 15:02 It looks great. The photos, super cute. It's obviously a very super touristy thing to do, but a throw on your Vietnamese hat and go hang out on the Mekong river. Now if you are looking for that beach time in Vietnam and I didn't really sell you the Russian town of Nha Trang or Mui Ne, there is always the option to head all the way down to Phu Quoc.

Fin: 15:22 Phu Quoc is almost more off the coast of Cambodia than it is of Vietnam. But it is a gorgeous tropical paradise on. Fortunately. I mean truly unfortunately when we were there in 2016 Phu Quoc was very polluted, there was litter scattering, all of the beaches and even though we were staying at a resort that cleans the beach, the pollution in the water attracts all of the really tiny, minuscule jellyfish. And I mean there's jellyfish that you can't even see the water.

Fin: 15:57 It just looks like gel. But the good news is that I have been hearing a lot of good things about Phu Quoc. Now if you have been to Phu Quoc more recently than 2016 please let us all know in the comments is that area getting a little bit more cleaned up. If you want to hear more information about traveling to Vietnam, like navigating Vietnamese food menus and these are requirements. And other fun things like the weather, when to go. I cover all of that in our Vietnam Travel Guide. You can see here, and if you are a motorbiking, we have so much information about motorbiking, including tons of vlogs motorbiking around Vietnam. So go check out another video for that.

More Vietnam