Rice terraces and a village in the mountains of northern Vietnam

DESTINATIONS

Where to go in Vietnam

Vietnam is 1,650 km long and the weather at each end is rarely the same. These nine pages explain what each region is for, how long it deserves and when to be there.

Length of the country1,650 km

Climate zonesThree

Regions coveredNine

Best all-round monthsMarch and October

The north

Cool winters, hot wet summers, and the country's best landscape. October to April is the season, with a second window in May and June when the terraces are flooded.

Hanoi

A thousand-year-old capital that still behaves like a collection of villages — which is exactly how you should travel it.

Ha Long & Bai Tu Long Bay

The scenery deserves its reputation. The main cruise corridor does not — so we sail into the quieter half of the same archipelago.

Sapa & the North-West

Vietnam's highest, coldest and most photographed country — and, an hour off the main road, still one of its least visited.

Pu Luong & Mai Chau

A limestone nature reserve of terraces, water wheels and stilt-house villages — the trip that usually turns a holiday into a memory.

Ninh Binh

Limestone peaks rising straight out of the rice fields, with rivers running underneath them — Ha Long Bay without the boat traffic.

The centre

Hot and dry from February to August, then a rainy season that can flood. The heritage half of the country, plus its caves.

Hue

The Nguyen capital, where Vietnam's court cuisine was invented and where the war left marks that are still legible.

Hoi An

A UNESCO trading port with lanterns, tailors and a great many other visitors — and, ten minutes away, rice fields and fishing villages almost nobody walks into.

Phong Nha & Quang Binh

A limestone massif on the Laos border holding the largest cave passages ever measured — and a landscape above ground that would be worth the trip on its own.

The south

Warm all year with a wet season of short heavy afternoons from May to November. December to April is the comfortable window.

Saigon & the Mekong Delta

Vietnam's loudest city and, two hours south, a flat green world where the roads run out and the boats take over.

When to travel

There is no single best month for the whole country — the north and the south run opposite seasons. These are the periods that work almost everywhere:

Period	North	Centre	South
March to April	Dry, mild, clear	Dry and warm	Hot and dry
May to June	Hot, terraces flooded	Very hot	Wet season begins
July to August	Hot and wet	Very hot	Heavy afternoon rain
September to October	Best month, harvest gold	Rain and flood risk	High water in the delta
November to February	Cold and often grey	Cooler, rain easing	Dry and pleasant

If you can only travel once, March or October will give you the fewest compromises across the whole route.

Build a route across regions

Tell us which of these you want and how long you have. We will tell you honestly if it does not fit.

Frequently asked questions

How long do we need to see Vietnam?

Ten days covers three regions at a brisk pace. Fourteen is comfortable. Eighteen to twenty lets you add the mountains or the far south without rushing.

North to south or south to north?

Either. The deciding factor is usually your international flights and the season — in October we often run south to north to stay ahead of the central Vietnam rain.

Can we avoid internal flights?

Partly. The reunification railway is a genuinely good way to travel between Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang and Saigon, and we build train itineraries on request. Skipping flights entirely costs you two to three days.

Which region do people wish they had given more time?

Consistently, the mountain regions — Pu Luong and the north-west. They are the parts of the itinerary that get cut first and remembered longest.