Vietnam highlights, ten days
Three regions and two domestic flights in ten days, arranged so that no region gets less than three nights and nothing is seen from a coach window. Hanoi and the limestone, then Hoi An and My Son, then Saigon with a day at Cu Chi and a day on the Mekong.
At a glance
- Duration
- 10 days, 9 nights
- Party size
- 2 to 8, private
- Starts
- Hanoi, Noi Bai airport
- Ends
- Ho Chi Minh City, Tan Son Nhat airport
- Effort
- Easy to moderate — 6 km on the busiest day, one 05:30 start
- From
- USD 2,390 per person
Who this is for
Vietnam is 1,650 km from end to end and the three regions are three different countries in most of the ways that matter to a traveller: different climate, different food, different century of history in the foreground. Ten days is the shortest honest attempt at all three. Below that you are choosing two, which is a perfectly good trip and is what the eight-day route does.
The compromise this itinerary makes is Hue. It is skipped, deliberately, because putting it in would mean either an eleventh day or cutting Hoi An to two nights, and of those two options the first is honest and the second is not. If the Nguyen citadel and the royal tombs are on your list, go straight to the eleven-day classic, which is this route with Hue restored to its proper two nights.
Two domestic flights carry the route: Hanoi to Da Nang on Day 4 and Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City on Day 7. Each is under an hour and a half in the air and each eats about half a day once you add two hours at the airport at both ends. That is the real arithmetic of a country this long, and it is written into the day-by-day below rather than hidden in a footnote. What you get for it is three nights in the centre and three in the south, which is enough for each place to stop being a checklist.
Day by day
Arrive in Hanoi
Meeting is inside the arrivals hall at Noi Bai, name board in hand, rather than out beyond the barrier among the taxi drivers. The run into town is 45 minutes and 25 km over the Nhat Tan bridge. Hotel rooms are held from midday whatever time your flight lands.
An arrival before mid-afternoon leaves time for a first walk: Hoan Kiem lake, Ngoc Son temple on its island, and the hour around sunset when the Old Quarter turns from a traffic problem into a neighbourhood. A late-evening arrival gets a bowl of pho and a bed, and your guide will tell you which of the two you are getting rather than pretending a midnight landing has sightseeing in it.
Hanoi, a full day on foot
An 08:00 start, because the Temple of Literature at eight and the same courtyards at half past ten are different experiences. Founded in 1070 as Vietnam’s first university, it holds 82 stone stelae carrying the names of doctoral graduates from 1442 onwards, each on the back of a tortoise. From there the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex, seen from the outside, and the One Pillar Pagoda.
The afternoon is the Old Quarter properly, one street at a time — the guild names are still on the street signs, and hang bac is still silversmiths and hang thiec is still tinsmiths, which is not a museum arrangement but a live one. We finish at the Long Bien bridge, French-built in 1902 and never successfully bombed out of use, and stop somewhere for egg coffee that is not on the coach circuit. The water puppet theatre is available and optional; it is 50 minutes long, it is a genuine village form, and it is also plainly a show for visitors.
The bay, and a night on the water
Away at 08:00 for the coast: 170 km, two and a half to three hours, expressway most of the way, one stop for lavatories rather than for a showroom that pays commission. Boarding around noon, lunch as the boat leaves the harbour.
Lan Ha is the southern end of the same drowned limestone plateau as Ha Long, divided from it by a provincial boundary rather than by geology, and it takes a small fraction of the boat traffic — the bay fee is 30,000 VND a head, against 240,000 to 290,000 on the main Ha Long routes, which tells its own story. Kayaking is at half past three, after the day boats have gone. Swimming if the sea is above 24 degrees, which it is from about May to November. Dinner aboard is a set seafood menu and dietary requirements go to the galley in writing before you sail.
Off the boat, south by air to Hoi An
The first of the two moving days, and here is exactly what it contains. Tai chi on deck at 06:15 if you want it, a cave or a floating fishing settlement in the morning depending on the route the bay authority has assigned that week, brunch, and off the boat at about 11:00. The pier to Noi Bai is 190 km and three and a half hours.
Hanoi to Da Nang is 1 hour 20 in the air. With two hours at the airport at each end, that is close to five hours door to door, and there is no version of this trip in which it is less. From Da Nang it is 30 km and 45 minutes down the coast road to Hoi An, so you arrive in the evening, eat within walking distance and start properly tomorrow. We schedule nothing else on this day on purpose.
Hoi An, the town and the water around it
The old town first, at 07:30, when the shophouses are opening and the streets belong to people going to work. Hoi An was an international port from the sixteenth century until the Thu Bon river silted up around 1800 and trade moved to Da Nang; the reason the eighteenth-century timber and brick frontages survive is precisely that the town stopped mattering commercially for a century and a half. The ticket covers a choice of five heritage buildings from a list of twenty-odd — assembly halls, a merchant house still occupied by the same family, the Japanese covered bridge.
The middle of the day is deliberately spent out of town, because between eleven and four the old streets are as crowded as anywhere in Vietnam. Options are the Tra Que herb village, where the beds are fertilised with lake weed and you can work one if you want to, or the water coconut palms at Cam Thanh in a round basket boat, or simply a bicycle to An Bang beach, 4 km on the flat. Back into the old town after five, when the light is better and the coaches have gone.
My Son at opening, Da Nang in the afternoon
Leave at 05:30 for My Son, 45 km inland. The Cham built brick sanctuaries in this bowl of hills from the fourth century to the thirteenth, dedicated mostly to Shiva, and American bombing in August 1969 destroyed a large part of what had survived until then. At the gate when it opens you get an hour of quiet in cool air; by ten the coach parties have arrived and the temperature is well into the thirties. Both Hoi An and My Son have belonged to Da Nang city since the provincial merger of July 2025, which is why maps and guidebooks contradict each other on this.
Back for a late breakfast, then the afternoon in Da Nang if you want it: the Museum of Cham Sculpture, which holds the best collection of Cham stone carving anywhere and takes an hour, and the Marble Mountains, five limestone hills with shrines and caves cut into them, about 150 steps to the summit of the main one or a lift most of the way. If you would rather have the afternoon on the beach instead, say so at breakfast and we will move the driver.
Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City
A slow morning in Hoi An — breakfast without an alarm, a last walk or a swim — then to Da Nang airport, 30 km and 45 minutes. The flight south is 1 hour 20 and, with the airport time at both ends, takes the middle out of the day. Tan Son Nhat sits 8 km from District 1, which is unusually close for an airport this size and means 30 to 45 minutes in traffic rather than an hour and a half.
The late afternoon is your introduction to a city of some nine million people and, by most counts, seven million motorbikes. On foot: the 1880s post office, the cathedral from the outside while its restoration continues, and the old opera house end of Dong Khoi. Then dinner in Cho Lon, the Chinese quarter, which is a forty-minute drive west and a different city again — Cantonese and Teochew families have been trading here since the eighteenth century.
Cu Chi, and the war seen from both sides
Out at 07:30 for Cu Chi, 70 km and about an hour and a half northwest. The tunnel network here ran to something over 200 km at its greatest extent, on three levels, dug by hand through laterite clay that sets hard when dry, and it functioned as a base area within artillery range of Saigon for most of two decades. A 20-metre section has been widened for visitors; if you are claustrophobic, do not go in, and there is no shame in that — the original dimensions are shown beside it and they are smaller than most people expect.
Back in the city for the afternoon at the War Remnants Museum. It is a hard two hours and it is presented from one side, which your guide will say out loud rather than leave you to work out; the photojournalism room and the material on dioxin are the parts most people remember. We finish somewhere quiet afterwards, because walking straight from that building into a street food tour does not work. The evening is yours, or we can put you on the back of the night eating circuit through Districts 3 and 4.
A day on the Mekong
Ben Tre is 80 km and two hours south, and we go there rather than to My Tho because the landing stages are smaller and the boats are not queuing. The delta carries some 17 million people on land built entirely of silt; nothing is more than a few metres above sea level, everything moves by water, and the coconut is the local economy in a way that is easier to see than to explain.
The day is deliberately slow: a motorised boat out onto a main channel, then a rowed sampan up a palm-shaded creek narrow enough to touch both banks, a coconut candy workshop that is a real one rather than a stage set, a brick kiln, and lunch of elephant ear fish with a family who cook it. Back in the city by about 17:00. This is a day trip and we will not pretend it is the delta in depth — for that you sleep down there, which is a separate five-day trip.
Ho Chi Minh City, and home
Breakfast, a late check-out where the hotel allows it, and the airport transfer when you need it. Tan Son Nhat is close but the traffic between 07:00 and 09:00 and again from 16:30 is genuinely bad, so we build in an hour for a 30-minute drive at those times and tell you when your flight falls inside one of them.
If you have the morning, two things are worth it and both are ten minutes from most District 1 hotels: the Ben Thanh market area for an hour, more useful for watching than for buying, or the Fine Arts Museum in a 1930s colonial villa, which is quiet, air-conditioned and almost empty. Your guide holds the bags either way.
What it costs
| Party size | Comfortable | Excellent | Exceptional |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 3,110 | USD 3,980 | USD 4,510 |
| 3 – 4 | USD 2,830 | USD 3,620 | USD 4,105 |
| 5 – 6 | USD 2,560 | USD 3,275 | USD 3,710 |
| 7 – 8 | USD 2,390 | USD 3,060 | USD 3,465 |
Class changes the bed and nothing else. The same guide standard, the same private vehicle in each of the three regions, the same entry tickets and the same running order apply to all three columns. The widest gaps sit where you would expect them: the cabin in Lan Ha, and the Hoi An hotel, where Exceptional means a beach resort with its own sand and Comfortable means a good town hotel with a courtyard pool ten minutes from the old streets. In Ho Chi Minh City the difference is mostly the floor you are on and how much traffic noise reaches it.
Ten days across three regions costs more per day than a single-region trip, and it is worth knowing why: three separate vehicle-and-driver arrangements, three guides who each know their own patch rather than one generalist trailing you the length of the country, and two airport days that still have a guide and a car attached at both ends. Party size remains the biggest single lever — the step from two travellers to six takes about a quarter off the per-person figure. There is a supplier-level breakdown on what a Vietnam trip costs, and deposits, balances and cancellation terms are set out on how to book.
Included and not included
What the price includes
- Nine nights: two in Hanoi, one aboard in Lan Ha Bay, three in Hoi An, three in Saigon
- A private air-conditioned vehicle and driver in each of the three regions
- A private English-speaking guide on every touring day — eight of the ten
- All meals shown in the day-by-day: 9 breakfasts, 7 lunches, 1 dinner
- Lan Ha bay fees, kayak hire and cave tickets
- Hoi An old town ticket, My Son entry, Cu Chi entry and the Ben Tre boats
- Airport meet inside the arrivals hall at Noi Bai, and every internal transfer
- A 24-hour operations number answered by a person in Vietnam, not a call centre
What it does not include
- International flights — quoted at cost on request, never marked up
- The two domestic flights, about USD 185 in total, unless you take the option above
- Vietnam e-visa, USD 25 single entry, applied for at evisa.gov.vn
- Travel insurance, which we require you to hold and will ask to see
- Drinks with meals, and everything aboard the boat beyond water and tea
- Meals not listed: 2 lunches and 8 dinners across the ten days
- Tips for guide and driver — customary, never included, never invoiced
There is no single Vietnamese season. The north is dry and cool from November to April and hot and wet from May to September. The centre is dry from February to August and runs its storm and flood season from September to December. The south is dry from December to April and, in the wet months, usually gets a heavy shower late in the afternoon rather than a ruined day. March, April and December are the months that work reasonably in all three at once, and they are the months we would book. More on when to go.
Pictures from this route
Who this trip is not for
Five honest reasons to book something else.
- Anyone who wants Hue. It is not on this route, and squeezing it in would cost Hoi An a night. The eleven-day classic exists for exactly this reason and is the trip we recommend more often.
- Travellers who will not fly internally. Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City by train is thirty-two to thirty-five hours and the Reunification Express is a fine thing to do — but it is a different holiday, and it does not fit inside ten days with three regions in it.
- People in October or November who cannot absorb a lost day in the centre. The 2025 central floods ran from 16 October to 6 December, put 1,739.6 mm of rain through Bach Ma in 24 hours on 26–27 October, killed or left missing at least 219 people, and did USD 129.7 million of damage in Hue alone. Hoi An floods most years. That is a real risk rather than a disclaimer.
- Anyone claustrophobic who has set their heart on the Cu Chi tunnels. The widened visitor section is still 1.2 metres high in places and there is one exit halfway. Look at the cross-section display instead — it is the more instructive half of the site.
- Parties who want a rest day in the middle. There is no blank day in this itinerary. Day 5 is the softest and it still has a 07:30 start. If you want the same countries at three-quarters of the pace, take the twelve-day route.
How the days actually run
What each internal flight costs you
Eighty minutes in the air, two hours at the airport at each end, transfers on top. Two of them in ten days is the price of reaching all three regions, and Days 4 and 7 are built around that rather than pretending otherwise.
Three regions, three local guides
Your guide in Hanoi does not follow you to Saigon. Each region has someone who lives there and knows which street changed last year. Handovers happen at the airport, in person, with your itinerary in hand.
One early start, and only one
Day 6 leaves for My Son before dawn. That single alarm buys you the site in cool air and near silence. Nothing else on the trip starts before 07:30.
Ten days, three regions, a month in mind?
Tell us the month and the party size and we will come back with the boat, the two flights we would take and a total, usually inside one working day.
Questions travellers ask most
Why does this trip skip Hue?
Because ten days will not carry it without damage. Hue needs two nights to be worth the flight and the drive — the citadel and two tombs are spread over ten kilometres of river bank and a one-night stop turns into a morning in a car. Adding it here would mean cutting Hoi An to two nights and losing either My Son at dawn or the day in the country outside the town.
The clean solution is one more day. The eleven-day classic is this route with Hue put back in properly, and it is the itinerary most first-time visitors end up booking once they have compared the two.
Are the two domestic flights included in the price?
Not in the headline figure. They run about USD 185 for the pair on ordinary fares, and if you take the flight option we book them at cost with no mark-up and hold the tickets in your file.
The reason they sit outside is that fares move by a factor of three between a Tuesday in May and the week of Tet, and folding an average into the price would mean overcharging most people to protect a few. You can also book them yourself; if you do, send us the times before you buy, because a Da Nang departure before 11:00 on Day 7 costs you the Hoi An morning.
Is three nights enough in Ho Chi Minh City?
For this route, yes, because two of the three days leave the city. Day 8 is Cu Chi and the war museum, Day 9 is the delta, and the city itself gets one afternoon, one evening in Cho Lon and whatever you make of the last morning. That is a fair introduction to Saigon and not a thorough one.
If the city is the point rather than the gateway — the architecture, the markets, the eating, District 4 after dark — then the four-day city trip covers it in the depth this itinerary cannot.
Which direction is better, north to south or south to north?
North to south, in most months, for two reasons. Jet lag is easier to absorb in Hanoi than in Saigon, because the northern days start later and the first two are walking days rather than driving days. And finishing in the south means finishing in the warmer, easier half of the country, which is the right way round after nine days of moving.
The exception is January and February, when Hanoi can sit at 13 to 17 degrees under low cloud for a week. If your dates fall then and you would rather meet that at the end than the start, we will simply run the itinerary in reverse; the price does not change.
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