Vietnam has the most stops of the five countries, and also the most tours that quietly do the same thing. The same limestone landscape shows up here in three versions side by side, and which one you pick matters more than who you book it with. Below, stop by stop, is where the real difference is. The big northern choice between Ha Long Bay, Lan Ha Bay and Ninh Binh comes up for everyone, so you will find it under Hanoi, Ninh Binh and Cat Ba.
Hanoi
Two of these six take your whole day outside the city, and for both you get picked up at your hostel around half seven: Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh. Ha Long is the bigger sight, and it is four hours on the road each way. Ninh Binh is closer, cheaper and quieter. Then there is a third option most people only discover once they are here: sleep on Cat Ba and go out into Lan Ha Bay, with the same limestone and a fraction of the boats. In the city itself, the water puppets last an hour and are exactly as strange as they sound, in the best way. The food tour past Train Street is how you learn to read the Old Quarter instead of just drifting through it. Be there on time, though: the train comes through at 19.35.
Hanoi: Ha Long Bay day trip with luxury cruise and lunch buffet
Hanoi: guided street food tour with a visit to Train Street
Hanoi: water puppet show tickets
Hanoi: Ninh Binh, Bai Dinh, Hoa Lu, Trang An and Mua Cave day tour
Hanoi cooking class: market visit, stories and free transfer
Hanoi: unique silver jewellery workshop with 5 g of silver
Ho Chi Minh City
This is where the overlap is biggest: three of these eight go to the Cu Chi tunnels or the Mekong Delta, and the ten-hour trip crams both into one day. Efficient, but you spend most of that day on the road. Doing them separately means seven hours for the tunnels and nine for the delta, with time to actually stop somewhere. Go to Cu Chi in the morning, when it is cooler and a lot quieter. The two-hour War Remnants Museum and Independence Palace tour tells the same history without leaving the city. And the food tour on the back of a motorbike is at its best in the evening, when Saigon really comes alive.
Cu Chi tunnels: guided tour, morning or afternoon departure
Cu Chi tunnels and Mekong Delta with a coconut village tour
Saigon: premium street food tour by motorbike
Small group Mekong Delta tour with a visit to a coconut village
Ho Chi Minh City: guided tour of the War Remnants Museum and the Independence Palace
Cooking class with a visit to Ben Thanh market
Ho Chi Minh City: guided walk through the city highlights
Bitexco Financial Tower: Saigon Skydeck fast track ticket
Hoi An
Mostly short things here, and that suits Hoi An: you can easily fit three into one day. Two of them take you into the coconut forest by basket boat, and one of those starts at the market and ends with a cooking class. The lantern boat on the Hoai river is twenty minutes, with a candle lantern you set on the water yourself, and obviously you do that after dark. Plan your afternoon so you are in the old town by sunset, because that is when the lanterns come on and the whole place changes character. The coffee class and the lantern making workshop take a couple of hours each and slot in around everything else. The only trip out of town is the half day to the Marble Mountains, and that one works just as well from Da Nang itself.
Hoi An: Vietnamese coffee culture and brewing class
Hoi An: basket boat trip through the coconut forest
Hoi An: night boat trip on the Hoai river with a floating lantern
Hoi An: local market, basket boat trip and cooking class
From Da Nang or Hoi An: Lady Buddha, Marble Mountains and Am Phu cave
The Lantern Lady: traditional lantern making class in the old town
Sapa
Two multi-day treks and one easy day out, and the choice is bigger than it looks. The two-day walk through the Hmong villages is what most people come for: five or six hours a day through the rice terraces via Lao Chai and Ta Van, with a guide who is from one of those villages, and a homestay at night with home-distilled rice wine. The Fansipan trek is a different sport. At 3,143 metres it is the roof of Indochina, and your legs will still be telling you about it two days later. Know before you book that a cable car gets you to the top in twenty minutes, so the climb is a choice, not a necessity. The four-hour tour past Cat Cat is for the day you do not feel like climbing at all.
Discover Sapa: two day trek and Hmong culture with Dinh
Two day Fansipan trek: the highest peak in Indochina
Sapa: Cat Cat village, alpine coaster, tubing and the Moana viewpoint
Ha Giang Loop
No GetYourGuide cards here, just our own two partners, and that fits exactly how the loop works: you ride it with a local easy rider or on your own, never as a booked day tour. So the only real decision is whether you steer or sit on the back, and with Tiem Tours you can also take the car. Whatever you choose, you get day three: the Ma Pi Leng Pass, with the Nho Que river about eight hundred metres below you, and a boat through the Tu San gorge if you want it. Tiem Tours and Mama's Homestay both sort the whole route, homestays along the way included, and both give you a reader discount with the code REBELSONTHEROAD.
The Ha Giang Loop with nothing left for you to arrange: the riding, the beds and the food are sorted. Why we recommend Mama's Homestay, and our reader discount.
Small groups and riders from the region itself, 5.0 on TripAdvisor from 459 reviews. Why we send people here, and our reader discount with REBELSONTHEROAD.
Da Lat
Canyoning is what Da Lat is known for, and for good reason: this is the place in Vietnam where it is run properly. Abseiling down waterfalls, sliding over smooth rock, jumping into mountain pools, and it takes your whole day. Pay for an operator with its own gear and certified guides, because this is not the activity to save a few euros on. The four-and-a-half-hour sunrise hike starts in the dark, for the view above the clouds. The luge and the alpine coaster are pure theme park: a fun way to fill a spare afternoon, and everyone gets off grinning. The eight-hour tour of three waterfalls drives through the coffee fields, and those fields are just as easy to explore on a scooter of your own.
Da Lat: luge kart, Mongoland and alpine coaster tour
Da Lat: extreme canyoning adventure
Da Lat: sunrise cloud hunting hike with breakfast
Da Lat: three waterfalls small group tour with the alpine coaster
Da Nang
The Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills (seven hours) is the best-known day here and also the busiest, so leaving early makes the biggest difference. The day trip to Hue over the Hai Van Pass is really a journey with a view. If Hue is not getting its own stop on your route, this is the way to see it. If you are heading that way anyway, save the pass for your travel day instead. The river cruise is an hour on the water with the bridges lit up. And one thing you get for free: the Dragon Bridge breathes fire on Saturday and Sunday at nine in the evening.
From Da Nang or Hoi An: Golden Bridge and Ba Na Hills full day tour
Da Nang: local Han River cruise by night
Da Nang: imperial Hue day trip with the Hai Van Pass train and lunch
Ninh Binh
The loop past Trang An, Hoa Lu, Bai Dinh and Mua Cave is the classic Ninh Binh day, and it is exactly the landscape you came for: three hours through caves in a rowing boat, rowed by someone using their feet. Then five hundred steps up for the view over the whole valley. Cuc Phuong (nine hours) is the national park, all jungle and animals, with rescue centres for animals seized from the wildlife trade, so that one is genuinely something else. Still deciding whether to sleep here or do it as a day trip from Hanoi? Plenty of people do the day trip and tell you afterwards they wish they had stayed.
From Ninh Binh: Hoa Lu, Bai Dinh, Trang An and Mua Cave tour
Ninh Binh: Cuc Phuong jungle hike and wildlife day trip
Cat Ba
The full day on Lan Ha Bay is exactly why people come to Cat Ba instead of Ha Long. The same limestone towers, a fraction of the boats, and here you are actually allowed in the water. Cycling and kayaking are included, and you spend about eight hours out on the bay. The sunset kayak trip through the glowing plankton is an evening, so it fits easily next to it. Weighing this up against a Ha Long day trip from Hanoi? The difference is the crowd, not the scenery.
Cat Ba: full day in Lan Ha and Ha Long Bay with cycling, kayaking and lunch
Cat Ba: sunset and evening kayak tour with bioluminescent plankton
Phong Nha
Two cave days, and both go to Paradise Cave, a cathedral of stalagmites you walk through on a wooden boardwalk. Get there before nine, before the coaches arrive. The difference is the second cave: the ten-hour trip takes a boat up the river into Phong Nha Cave, the eight-hour one does Dark Cave with the zipline and the mud bath. Quiet looking against getting soaked and filthy, so pick by mood. Paradise Cave on its own you can also do without a tour, just pay at the gate. And not on this list but absolutely worth your time: the Bong Lai Valley behind the village, an afternoon on a scooter that is nothing but stops along the road.
Phong Nha: guided boat trip to Phong Nha Cave and Paradise Cave, all included
Phong Nha: zipline, Dark Cave and Paradise Cave, all included
Hue
The four-hour city tour covers the Imperial Citadel and a royal tomb, and that is the heart of Hue. The dragon boat goes up the Perfume River to the Thien Mu Pagoda, which is how the pagoda was meant to be seen, and then on to the tombs by road. But think about this: the tombs of Tu Duc, Minh Mang and Khai Dinh are an easy scooter ride apart, and riding from tomb to tomb yourself is one of the best mornings in central Vietnam. The DMZ tour is ten hours and is about the war, with the Vinh Moc tunnels and Khe Sanh: a heavy day that you do not combine with anything else. And the easy rider over the Hai Van Pass is not a day trip but the best way to get to Hoi An or Da Nang, so put it on your moving day.
Hue: full or half day city tour with the citadel and a royal tomb
From Hue: DMZ tour with the Vinh Moc tunnels and Khe Sanh base
Hue: local food tour with eight tastings, stories and insider spots
Easy Rider motorbike trip over the Hai Van Pass: Hoi An, Da Nang, Hue
Hue: dragon boat on the Perfume River, pagoda and royal tombs tour
Mui Ne
One trip in two versions, and here there really is a better answer: take the sunrise. You leave around half four by jeep for the White Dunes, and you are up there before the heat and before the coaches. Then the Red Dunes, the Fairy Stream and the fishing village, and you are back around breakfast. The sunset version drives the same loop at the busiest and hottest time of day, so it is the one for you if a 4am alarm is a hard no. The Red Dunes at sunset you can also walk into for free, no tour needed.
Mui Ne sand dunes: five hour sunrise or sunset jeep tour
Nha Trang
One half day out among the islands off the coast, with snorkel stops and a barbecue on board. Nha Trang is mostly a city beach with a promenade, so this is the trip that gets you out on the water, and from February to June that water is clear and blue. Got a day left? The Po Nagar Cham towers have stood since the eighth century and are still used for worship, and the mud baths outside town are exactly what your body wants after a day on a boat.
Nha Trang: half day snorkelling trip with a barbecue on board
Phu Quoc
The ten-hour trip combines the cable car with three islands, and that cable car is not a side note: at nearly eight kilometres it is the longest over-sea cable car in the world. The speedboat snorkelling trip keeps the group to ten people at most, and that makes a real difference on an island where the boats are usually big and packed. The six-hour jungle trek to Tien Son Dinh is the land version. What you do on your own: the north on a scooter, past pepper plantations and empty beaches, and Sao Beach before ten in the morning.
