Forty private journeys, one country

How to choose from forty

Start with the number of days you actually have on the ground, not the number of days of leave. A ten-day holiday from Europe is eight days in Vietnam once the long-haul flights and the arrival fog are subtracted, and a journey built for ten will hurt. Every length in the tables below counts nights in Vietnam, with Day 1 being the day you land.

Then choose between depth and breadth, because you cannot have both. Under eight days, stay in one region: the country is 1,650 km long and every hop between regions costs a domestic flight, two airport transfers and most of a touring day. Between eight and twelve days, two regions work well. Above twelve, the whole country opens up and the trip stops feeling like a relay. If you are unsure, how many days you need works through it properly, and when to go matters at least as much — the north and the centre have opposite dry seasons.

Last, look at the effort line rather than the photographs. The Ha Giang loop and the northwest trek are the two journeys people most often book on the pictures and then find hard: long mountain days in a vehicle, thin roads, and cold from December to February. Each journey page has a section headed "Who this trip is not for", and it is not decoration. Read it before the itinerary, not after.

All forty journeys

Northern Vietnam — twelve journeys

The north is where most first trips go, and with reason: Hanoi, the limestone bays, the terraced valleys and the mountain markets are all within a day of each other by road. It is also the region with a real winter — December to February can sit at 5°C to 10°C in Sa Pa and Ha Giang, occasionally with ice. Best from October to April. Good for a first Vietnam trip, for anyone who wants a night on the water, and for walkers.

Central Vietnam — five journeys

The centre is the history and the caves: the Nguyen citadel and tombs at Hue, the Cham towers at My Son, the merchant town of Hoi An, and the Phong Nha cave systems inland from Dong Hoi. Distances are short and the driving is easy. The catch is the calendar — the centre is dry from February to August and takes the typhoon and flood season from September to December, with October and November the genuine risk months. Good for anyone who prefers walkable towns to long drives.

Southern Vietnam — nine journeys

The south is Ho Chi Minh City, the delta and the islands. It has the kindest weather calendar of the three regions — dry from December to April, and even the wet months usually mean a single heavy hour in the late afternoon. Journeys here suit people who want a city with an appetite, water rather than mountains, and beach nights at the end rather than in the middle.

The whole country — nine journeys

These run north to south, or south to north, with domestic flights doing the long hops. Six days is the shortest version that is not simply a series of airports; ten to twelve is where the trip stops feeling rushed; twenty-one days is the one where you get the mountains and the delta and still have unhurried mornings. Budget a full day for every internal flight — an hour and twenty in the air becomes five hours door to door once airports are counted. Best in March, April and December, the only months that treat all three regions decently.

By interest — five journeys

These are built around one thing carried the length of the country, and the route bends to serve it. The food journey is timed around markets and cooking sessions; the photography journey leaves hotels at 05:15 because that is when the light is; the family journey runs at a deliberately slower pace with rest days built in and takes up to ten travellers, as does the photography trip. Choose one of these only if the interest genuinely comes first — otherwise a regional journey with one specialist day added is better value.

What every one of these trips includes as standard

The list below is not an upgrade tier. It is what the word "private" means here, and it applies to the USD 690 three-day journey exactly as it applies to the twenty-one day one.

• A private air-conditioned vehicle with a driver for every transfer and every touring day, used by your party alone.
• A private English-speaking guide on every touring day, paid a flat day rate by us, with no commission from any shop, workshop or restaurant.
• Accommodation in the class you choose — Comfortable, Excellent or Exceptional — with the specific property named before you pay, not a star rating.
• Every entrance fee, permit and boat fee listed in the day-by-day, including the Ha Giang border area permit where the route needs one.
• The meals shown on each day of the itinerary, with dietary requirements passed to kitchens in writing rather than mentioned at the table.
• An airport meet inside the arrivals hall with a name board, on arrival and on any internal flight.
• Drinking water in the vehicle, and a 24-hour telephone number answered by a person in Vietnam.

What is never included, on any journey: international flights, which we do not book and do not mark up; the Vietnamese e-visa, which costs USD 25 for single entry and is applied for directly at evisa.gov.vn; travel insurance, which we require you to hold and will ask to see; drinks with meals; and tips, which are customary and never invoiced. Domestic flights inside a journey are included where the itinerary shows them and are passed through at cost.

Every journey page carries the same four-row price table by party size and the same three classes. The mechanics behind those numbers — what a guide day costs, what a cabin costs, why two travellers pay about 30 per cent more per head than eight — are set out on what a Vietnam trip costs. When you are ready, how to book covers deposits, the cancellation ladder and payment methods.

If nothing here fits exactly

These forty are starting points, not a catalogue you must choose from. Roughly half of what we run is a listed journey with two or three days moved: a beach ending added, a museum swapped for a market, a mountain section dropped because someone in the party does not want six hours in a vehicle. Changing a listed journey costs nothing and takes one exchange of messages.

If you would rather work from the map than from the list, the twelve places we write up each say how many nights they are worth and which journeys go there. Building a route from four or five of those is the other way people get here.

Questions travellers ask most

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