VIETNAM TRAVEL GUIDE (everything to know before you go!)

We've spent a total of seven weeks in Vietnam and we think we have some pretty valuable insights to share. So if you're here for all of the information on how to travel Vietnam, you've come to the right place. This Vietnam travel guide has deep dives into the cities and towns we visited with information like how to get there and what to do. We'll also go into 10 really important facts that you need to know before you travel to Vietnam. But first, we're gonna start with some rapid fire basic info. Best time of year to visit per region. Vietnam weather is difficult. And this is the weather. Thunderstorms basically every day. There's not really a wet and a dry or a hot and a cold and everything you do learn is region specific. The top and the bottom are very different. Yeah, it's quite a long country. So what's going on down the bottom isn't necessarily matching what's going on at the top. That being said, the Northern side of Vietnam is best visited between November and March. It's meant to be drier and cooler, which is important. Try and visit Central Vietnam between April and August. This is the peak time for tourism, but it's the best weather you're gonna get for the beach, which is the main thing to do there. If you wanna head to Southern Vietnam, the best time to visit is between December and April. How long to visit for? I would comfortably say a 10 day minimum for a holiday or a vacation in Vietnam. Honestly, if you can stay for a month, even that wasn't enough for us. Obviously, if you have less time, pick a region and stick there rather than trying to do all of it in a short amount of time. Major festivals. Vietnam celebrate a Lunar New Year at the end of January, beginning of February, depending on when the full moon comes. But apparently it's not really a good time for tourists to be there because the whole country shuts down, all the families return to Vietnam and nothing's really open. So it's busy and not much to do. If you can try and plan your trip around the Hoi An Lantern Festival, we would highly recommend it. It happens on the 15th, I believe, of every single month, and it is just stunning. The entire river is illuminated with all of these lanterns and boats. So dreamy. Hoi An has the Lantern Festival that's officially once per year and it's epic and huge, but every month they do have their own little lantern festivals too. So just keep an eye out for when you're around there and try and time up that day specifically. All right, let's get into 10 tips to know before you travel Vietnam. Money. Vietnam uses the Vietnamese Dong and at the time of recording, 100 Australian dollars converts to 1,600,000... 600... 1,688,300. I said that weird. Yeah, you did. Yes, it is one of those currencies. Massive numbers all the time. Don't you become a millionaire when you come here? That's nice. Every time I was seeing 100,000 Vietnamese Dong, I was thinking in my head that's about 6 Australian dollars. That is our standard way to kind of build in a little buffer for the conversion because it actually is about $5.90 or something. I would highly recommend doing this because it always means at the end of the day, you think you've spent up to your budget and then you actually calculate it and you're like, we still had $10. Let's go get a drink. And rounding is so much easier. You can use the app, obviously, if you wanted to convert, but... We don't. ATM withdrawals are relatively easy in the country, which is super nice, especially after coming from Thailand, where they charge you a lot. That being said, not all ATMs will work on international cards. The ones that do typically are a couple of dollars, if not free to use. But it's probably only about 40% that work. My best experience with the ATMs is with a blue bank. I think it's called MB. So if you're near one of those, try that one. It was free. It was easy. It was good. Another nice surprise was that using your card to pay throughout shops and restaurants was super common and very simple in Vietnam. Yeah, I was surprised by it. But yeah, it's it's everywhere. Anyway, that is heaps about money. We're moving on. Safety. Vietnam is a super safe place to travel. It's honestly, it's somewhere that I would recommend if you've done the Thailands and Indonesia and you're wanting to go a little bit further abroad. You do get a small element of culture shock. It is less touristy, but absolutely still manageable and super safe. I don't think we ever felt. Not once have we felt uncomfortable here. The people are super duper kind. I think I would feel comfortable traveling here as a solo female as well. That does come with the caveat of just be smart. Have your brain switched on like any country across the globe. There are going to be pickpockets. There are going to be people trying to scam you. Like that happens in every country. So just also be aware that probably happens here. There is crime literally everywhere. Don't walk down the dark alleyway. Watch your drink at nighttime. All of the standard things. We don't go out at nighttime. We're too old. SIM cards. In the past, we've always told people to avoid the airport SIM cards that you get on arrival. They are incredibly inflated in price. That is still true. So if you can get out of the airport and get a SIM card in the town, you're going to be saving a lot of money. I think we used a Vitel SIM card. We had 28 days of unlimited data. It cost us like $12. It was fast and reliable. It worked everywhere we went, even on the overnight trains that we did. I had connection like 90% of the time, I would say. That being said, if you are only in Vietnam for like a week or two weeks and it's a small holiday, I would highly recommend looking into an eSIM. If your phone can do it, it just makes life so much easier. You don't have to wait in line, figure out how to get to a Vitel. Then you can pay cash, find an ATM. Like it's it is a half day job. I would also suggest an eSIM. Like we kind of like getting them for at least the first day we're in a country so we can get out of the airport, we can get into the city and then we can go and find a cheaper option. Honestly, if we're there for maybe a week or something, we'll still get just an eSIM to cover that whole time because they are so convenient. It's just so handy. You don't have to go anywhere. This is not an eSIM ad, but we will link a description. We will link one in the description for you if you're interested. I'll link a couple. Travel between cities. The cheapest way to travel between cities in Vietnam is a bus that stands true through most of Southeast Asia. Vietnam buses are a little bit different, though. They are great. Overall, they are great. Comparatively to other buses. Amazing. That being said, there is this one particular style that it feels like you've been catfished by a bus. Like it looks like it should be the most comfortable thing in the world. And you're like, yes, this whole overnight journey, it's going to be great. I'm going to sleep so well. And you hop in and you're like, oh, how? You're like elevated off the ground in this like coffin. It's it's no fun. But they also have capsule buses, which is like your own room with curtains. Yeah. That one's like a hotel in a bus. Yeah. Just don't expect to sleep because they will use the horn and drive like this. Like their job is to drive and not to give you a good night's sleep. Yeah. I would recommend on that style or on any style, really going further to the back of the bus because the drivers we've had have always played stuff out loud, been honking, yelling. So like if you can remove yourself slightly from that, why not? Yeah. On their phone, too. Oh, and the turns. If you get motion sickness, be prepared. Lots on transport. The other thing is Vietnam has a really nice rail network that runs through the spine of the country. So all the way from the north down to the south, there are stops everywhere and it is super efficient. All different styles. So you can get just the regular seating ones up to a second class, which is three, six beds per cabin into four beds per cabin down to two beds per cabin. Obviously, they get more and more expensive as you go. We tried to experience the top two tiers. It didn't work out. Turns out that courage broke down unexpectedly. So this isn't what we booked or paid for. So if you do the VIP fancy two berth one, let us know how it is, because I'm very curious. Yeah, we paid for it. We didn't get it. Watch that here or here. Flights as well. Oh, yeah, you can fly. There are also a lot of cheap airlines, Vietjet and Vietnam Airways, the official carrier, travel all around the country for as little as like 30 or 40 dollars if you're booking early enough. So don't discount them. The seats are quite tight though. Yeah. Drinking water. Do not drink the water in Vietnam. Next. We have been getting bottled water through Vietnam. It's a standard you have to through all of Vietnam. I would only urge you to try and reduce your plastic instead of getting a thousand of the little small ones, get one big one and refill refillable bottles. And we take our bottle with us during the day. And if we're at a restaurant, we'll ask them to fill it up because they often have the big filtered one as well. Like the local people also aren't drinking the tap water. Yes. We also use bottled water to brush our teeth, but that might be quite excessive. I would. Yeah. Ice I never worry about again. I don't think they make the ice from tap water. I'm pretty sure they use purified water. True. Iced coffees never had an issue. I don't think twice about it. Speaking the language. Vietnamese is a very tricky language to learn. There's so many times where we'll try and speak it and our inflection is it's going to be totally wrong. But it is good to know at least hello and thank you. And the basics so people can understand that you're trying. Yeah, it's just a nice to be like a fun to feel involved in the culture and be like, oh, did I say that right? Did they understand me? But also from their perspective, I can imagine it's nice to be like, wow, they're really wanting to like be here and take it all in. I don't know. It's such a small thing that I think is really valuable. I still can't say thank you. It's spelt like come on, but it's come on. Come on. Like at the back of your throat. I think I get the car a bit wrong, too. Yeah. Anyway. Tông nhung. Is that how you? Yeah. How do you? Tông nhung. Oh, thank you. I learned a new Vietnamese word. Tông nhung. I said that wrong for sure. That was the word delicious I was trying to learn. Like, don't be those tourists that expect people to speak English everywhere you go. They speak Vietnamese here and you speak English. So you should have all of the things ready to communicate with them, not the other way around. Oh, bit of a rant. Did you want to finish a thought? She downloads Google Translate so that she can use it offline so she doesn't need an internet connection to be able to communicate. Yeah, I just went into a rant. Apparently that's a touchy subject for me. Insurance. Since we started traveling in early 2022, we have been using Safety Wing as our travel medical insurance. They have been amazing and super easy to use. Probably my favorite thing about them is that you don't have to pay a lump sum. You can pay as you go. So as the policy changes and as our ideas of where we're traveling next change, we can go in, change the policy and update it. So if we want to go kite surfing, we can go kite surfing and be covered. Having insurance is one of those unsexy adult things that maybe you don't think is worth it because you're probably not going to need it. But the peace of mind that you have, especially in Vietnam when you're crossing the busy streets for the first time, is going to be worth it. Yeah, we'll link them below as well. If you are looking to travel and you need travel medical insurance, just check them out before you buy anything else. Ubers and taxis. Uber doesn't exist in Vietnam as it doesn't exist through most of Southeast Asia. But Grab does. And Grab is a replacement that is the same, if not better. Grab has the same feature as Uber like Uber Eats. And you can get food delivered wherever, whenever for like a dollar. Yeah. I always say like Uber Eats in Australia at home, the delivery fee is like as much as the meal is, but not in Vietnam. And there's normally like specials going. So somehow it's cheaper than leaving. It's great. You can also get Grab bikes. They are ubiquitous in Vietnam. Bikes are everywhere. If you're comfortable, it is a great way to zip through traffic and get to where you need to go in like the gridlocked cities, because a car is going to take significantly longer. That being said, if you know our history with bikes, you know that that's not something that I in particular I'm interested in doing. Drivers aren't flawless. I went on the back of a few and I did see a crash, which was no fun. And then I was away from him in the hotel room. He just sends me a photo of the crash. Knowing what we've been through doesn't reply to my messages after that. I got busy. Nice. Oh, shall we make this mad? Anyway, visas and vaccinations. As an Australian or an American, you can get a 90 day visa for Vietnam. It is not a visa on arrival. Do not just show up. You can be stranded there for quite some time. We had some friends do that. Yeah. Sorry, guys. The application process is really easy, but there are a bunch of websites online that will say we're the official website and they are not. They're a third party. They do it on your behalf and they charge you for it. I will link the correct government website to do your visa below. It doesn't look like the correct website. It's not formatted very officially, but it is the correct one. The user experience isn't great, but it gets you within, I think we got ours in less than a week. I went through and did visas multiple times through multiple different websites only to find out right at the end that they're not the official one. So just use the link below. We'll also link below Sherpa Travel. This is a service that we have used since 2022. And basically you punch in where your passport is from, where you're traveling to from, if you have any connections and it spits out all of the information that you need, whether you need visa for your connection, a visa for your arrival port, whether you still need COVID related. Onward travel requirements, everything. Yeah, I like that service. I feel like no one knows about it, but it's so handy. It is handy. It's really good peace of mind. Yeah, normally you go like searching in 50 different places to get that information. But this is just like a nice little hub. Airbnb versus hotels. We've used Airbnb all around the world since we started traveling. In recent years, in recent months, we've noticed that hotels are starting to look a little bit more attractive to us. I think the major benefit of an Airbnb was always that it was quite homey. But then they started having all of these extra fees and these extra things with the cleaning. And when you're at a hotel, you get the bed made for you. So why would I pay more to make my own bed and have to take the rubbish out and do all this other stuff? Like, there are still some good deals to be found on Airbnb. We stayed in one in Hanoi, which is really nice. But you need to do your research. Yeah. So I'd be looking at Booking.com, Agoda and Airbnb, cross-referencing those and also making sure you look at Booking.com on your phone because there are significant discounts for booking the same property, just using the app, not a computer. Again, I don't know why, but that is that is how it is. So look on there. Those were the most asked questions we got while we were traveling Vietnam. So hopefully we have answered yours. If not, leave it in the description below and we or one of our viewers or somebody will comment back and answer your question. Now let's dive into some of the bigger places to see in Vietnam in crazy detail. Vietnam travel destinations. Vietnam is a traveler's dream. It's super affordable. It's really well connected and incredibly diverse. The experience you have in the south of Vietnam is totally different to the north. And then the central is different again. There is so much to see. For this part of the video, we're going to go through all of the top destinations from the south, making our way up to the north, giving you all the advice from each city we see along the way, starting with Phu Quoc. Or Phu Quoc. We still don't really know. I think Phu Quoc. Phu Quoc is an interesting place. So this video is quickly turning into how not to travel Phu Quoc in Vietnam. I don't think we were there at the prime time. It was quite rainy. It was a bit of a ghost town. This is not at all what we expected. We had pretty clear expectations of what we were going to experience here. And a ghost town was not on the list. Yeah, I do think it could be a really nice place to visit. It is a island down the very bottom of Vietnam. And if you were there in sunshiny weather on the beach, it would be stunning. How to get there? Getting to Phu Quoc is pretty easy. You either need a flight or a ferry. We flew from Ho Chi Minh City and there are plenty of direct flights daily. The ferry, I don't have that much information on, but I know you have to make your way down the bottom of mainland Vietnam and then you can catch the ferry across. The flight was about $50 and pretty last minute, so really not bad. Yeah, I think we booked a day before we went and it was only $50. Where to stay? When you land in Phu Quoc, you'll be right near the center town. So this is the main area where a lot of people stay and it's got a really long beach, lots of resorts and things like that. But we read and heard that a different beach further up the coast called Ong Lang is the place to stay. It's supposed to have a nicer beach and a lot less tourists. There were a lot less tourists. There were no people. I think we were the only ones. We had an entire hotel to ourselves. How beautiful is this hotel, though? It's just us. 15 bucks a night. And the beach that was up there was not as good as we thought it was going to be. No, I do think this is user error. On Google Maps, there's like a Ong Lang beach and we were like, that must be it. And we couldn't get there no matter what direction we tried. But there's also another one down the bottom, remember? And on the very last day that we were in Phu Quoc, we saw that and it was like a 45 minute walk from where we were. So we never actually went. That one, still, you might not be able to get there, but there is another Ong Lang beach that exists on the maps. OK, so this is not a very helpful guide for Phu Quoc. It's not. Another thing about the beaches we did notice on the island is that they are private. So resorts own the beaches and you can't access them without staying at the resort or paying a fee. Not all beaches, but most of the ones we came across. We stayed at this really sweet little hotel. It was family run. It was stunning. The rooms were very simple, but spacious. I would recommend if you want to stay in Ong Lang, staying there. If you're looking for something budget friendly or staying at that place, we ate the pizza. I don't know what it's called, but it was stunning. We walked through the resort to get to their restaurant. Things to do. There is a whole host of things to do on this island. It's a tropical island. There's a full beach dedicated to starfish. There's a cable car ride that's meant to be incredible that goes over one of the islands and heaps of snorkeling and scuba. And if you're into theme parks, Vin Wonders is the largest in all of Southeast Asia. I think it stretches over like 50 hectares, if I'm remembering correctly. It's monstrous. It's got a theme park, obviously, the Grand World, the free town that we walked around. It looks like Venice. And a safari park, too. Yeah. I don't think we did Foo Walk justice when we were there, and that is on us for not checking the weather. But it's also something to know if you're traveling around the same time or you're traveling in rainy season. I would probably skip it for something else. Most places, if not all places, apart from this, that we've traveled to, you can always make something out of whatever weather you've got. But yeah, Foo Walk is very much focused on the summertime. Anyway, from now on, every place we visited, we loved and we rave about. And it's going to be a lot more positive from here on out. Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh or Saigon is a giant city in the south of Vietnam. You'll be forgiven to think it's the capital because we definitely did before we got there. It's just a monstrous metropolis. I think Ho Chi Minh City might be one of my favorite places in all of Vietnam. I just have such fond memories there. It's incredible food. Lots of things to do. Anyway, we'll get there. Are we going to talk about the... Yeah, probably. How do you get there? Ho Chi Minh is an absolute mecca. If you're in Vietnam, you're not going to have any problem getting to Ho Chi Minh. Buses, trains, flights, everything goes in and out of Ho Chi Minh for relatively cheap. Yeah. And to be honest, if you're flying in internationally, there is a good chance you're flying into Ho Chi Minh City. What to do? Vietnam has an insane amount of relatively recent history, and a lot of that is focused around Ho Chi Minh. There is a museum, the War Remnants Museum. I highly recommend you going to, even if it's just for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I would say carve out a good half a day for that because we were there for, I think, three hours and we had to move quite quickly. It's impactful. Along with that, the Cu Chi Tunnels are usually a day trip. We took a day trip from Ho Chi Minh. Took us eight hours or so, but they drove us all the way out. We went into the tunnels and saw how it all was. The tunnels are effectively what was dug through the Vietnam War for soldiers to walk through. And yeah, it's just intense. Yeah. We'll link the tour that we did below as well if you're struggling for choice, because there's a lot. On the lighter side, there is a few amazing landmarks all across the city. We, in particular, love the post office. I know that sounds lame, but pick someone that you love in your life and go write them a postcard from the Ho Chi Minh City Post Office. We've done it twice now and I still want to go back and do it again. And that's quite a central area too. Across the road from that is the Notre Dame Cathedral and just adjacent is Book Street, which is like a cute little street with bookstores and cafes. There's also a stunning pink cathedral that is just Instagram picture perfect. And if you want to get a good view of the city, we recommend going up to Landmark 81. It is a giant four, 500 meter building that has an observation deck at the top. Really good to get your bearings and just an impressive place. The city just goes on and on and on and on. And we ended up upgrading. We're not big observation deck people because they do cost a lot of money and this one's no exception. But we ended up upgrading to the like package deal and we got a VR experience and some photos printed. That was funny. Yeah. The final and arguably most important thing to do in Ho Chi Minh is eat. We will let you in on a little secret. We have found the best banh mi in Ho Chi Minh and it's not the banh mi you read on the blogs. It's not like anything that anyone's really said before. It's looks like a hole in the wall. It's honestly doesn't look. Yeah. I don't even know how to describe it. I personally much prefer the pork crackling and pork banh mi and this place. They are so delicious that we got three on a singular day and they only cost a dollar. We found the place on our first year and it was our first banh mi and we were like, oh, my God, this is incredible. And then it remained the best one we'd ever had. But we kind of forgot where it was. So we literally went into Google Street View and went to our hotel that we stayed at and retraced our step on Street View, just going to it to find it. And we found it again this time. And it was so worth it. It's just as good. It's so good. We actually deliberately went to the most popular banh mi place in Ho Chi Minh City to taste test them. And the most popular one has nothing on our one. No one here is good. And like, I'm so confident in this. Like, usually I'm like, oh, like you might like it. This is this is the one. This is the recommendation that and the skewers in Chiang Mai. Yeah. If you go post it on Instagram and tag us so I can be really, really jealous every time. I just it's so good. Seeing that someone else has it, that would make me happy. It is incredible. Yeah. Biggest recommendation in all of Vietnam, hands down. Where to stay? Because Ho Chi Minh is so massive, it's divided into 19 regions and 13 inner kind of neighborhoods. District one is the main one. That's the business hub and tourist hub and where everything kind of happens. We stayed kind of on the border between District one and District four, which is meant to be a more upcoming neighborhood. Basically, general rule of thumb, you want to stay in District one. Yeah. Near District one. Dalat. As you journey further north in Vietnam, the central area is kind of broken up into two different worlds. You've got the beach side with resort living and then you've got the central highlands area. Dalat is in that area. If you are struggling with the heat in Vietnam, I'm pretty sure I can safely say that you can retreat to Dalat and it will be cooler. It was literally made because French people wanted to be cooler. So they went into the mountains and built a town and they like made their own manmade lake. Anyway, I digress. I went from wearing a bikini in Phu Quoc to wearing jeans and a jacket in Dalat. Like, that's crazy. How to get there? Dalat is a little bit different from some of the other stops on this travel guide. It doesn't have its own train line. So you've needed to get a bus either directly from Ho Chi Minh or a train up to Nha Trang and a bus across. We flew in. And if you're looking to do that option, just be aware that the airport is half an hour, if not longer, away from Dalat. What to do? With Dalat's climate, it's known as kind of an agricultural hub. A lot of things are grown there, including coffee. So most of the coffee beans that come out of Vietnam are actually grown directly into Dalat. And we highly recommend you do a food tour there. You've got the freshest food, the best tasting coffee. It's kind of all centrally located there. We have done food tours in Vietnam before and we decided to do one in Dalat this year. And I'm so glad we did. I feel like we had so many different foods that we'd never tried before. Yeah, and that aren't in anywhere else other than Dalat. Hard to find. Yeah, yeah. Vietnamese pizza. Yeah, that was good. Apart from the agriculture, food and drink, Dalat does also have a jungle coaster that's part of a little theme park. We didn't actually do that because the cost involved got a little bit too much for us. But that's there too. It's almost like a luge. And apparently it is super fun. So if you have the time and money, why not? If you're looking for a unique place to stay, I would look into the Crazy House. If that's out of your budget, head to the maze bar to get the same sort of vibe. It is this architect that I think lived in Dalat just built this crazy house and this maze bar. They're very well named. The bar, though, we bought a drink and I knew that there was a garden and I was like, oh, we'll head up to the garden if that's OK. And she said, oh, I think you should go downstairs into the maze first and then if you can get to the garden, you can enjoy that. And we were like, ha ha, it can't be that crazy. And then we walked downstairs and we were like, what? Where am I? It took us ages. There's also a great nightly market in Dalat that changes from kind of clothing and textiles to food at about five or six o'clock. Yeah, I'd recommend going in the morning so you can see all the fruit, vegetables and flowers and then going again at night so you can see all of the food and clothing. Where to stay? If the Crazy House is not for you, we stayed in a little place that was just a little bit east of that man-made lake I was talking about. It was great. It did the job perfectly. It was on the budget side. So I'll link that below as well if you're interested. Nha Trang. We absolutely love Nha Trang. It was our second time going there and it's just stunning. It's almost like the Hawaii or the Waikiki of Vietnam. We really didn't expect it the first time we were there, but the entire town is geared towards kind of stop and drop tourism. There's resorts lining the beach that are super affordable and it's a Russian town too. Like super popular with Russian tourists. Russian holiday makers love Nha Trang. Yeah, like signs are written in Vietnamese, English and Russian. And a lot of the time it's Vietnamese and Russian without any English. Like it's very, very popular. It's so cool, though, because it gives it this different energy and like there is Russian food that you get to try, which I would have never thought that I get to try Russian dumplings when I'm in a resort town in Vietnam. I just think it's really cool. How to get there? Nha Trang is actually on the Vietnam railway line, so you can catch a sleeper train from anywhere in the country. We recommend if you are in Dalat before this, if you're following exactly our itinerary, there is a pretty cool bus that links the two of those. And I believe it also has an airport. So pick your poison. Walk there if you want. Don't do that. What to do? Like we said, Nha Trang is a resort town. Stop and drop is incredibly popular. But if that's not your style, there are also temples nearby that are ancient. I think they're called the Chum people. That sounds familiar. Which were really cool. We did that the first time we were in Nha Trang. Stunning. And you can walk there like it is a long walk, but it's along the beach. So it's beautiful. And there's your normal temples and things to check out too. Highly recommend waking up for sunrise one morning and just going out and watching all of the Vietnamese people go about their morning routines because everyone is up at 5 a.m. to go and work out. It made us want to go out and work out. Up before the sun is just standard there. So impressive. If stop and drop is your style, a lot of the hotels have a pool, but also on the beach, you can hire a daybed. Another thing to do there, which you probably won't expect, is also to eat food. This is now the third place we've said you need to eat food. But Nha Trang, again, is different because of the kind of melting pot of cultures that Nha Trang is. The best place you can go is to get a Greek Souvlaki or an Italian pizza. And it's just a very aesthetic place. If you're looking for somewhere that's like beachy and Instagrammable, Nha Trang is your best friend. Where to stay? This one is super easy. I just have a flat recommendation for you. Stay at the Aran Hotel. Spend a little bit more money and upgrade to a king-size sea view room. The windows are massive and you're looking out straight onto the beach from a really high floor. And I think we paid like 20, 30 bucks a night when we were there. Other than that, I would definitely say paying for an upgrade to have a sea view room is worth it. Wherever you are. Not just a partial one, like a proper one. Or getting somewhere that's beachfront, like one of those really fancy hotels. We'll link Aran Hotel below as well. Yeah. Da Nang. We have never actually stayed in Da Nang and that is because Hoi An is an hour away and we love Hoi An. But we have heard incredible things from many, many people. Da Nang is kind of like the big brother of Nha Trang. You can kind of think about it. It's got all the same sort of vibe, but it is a bigger town, bigger beach, longer beach. It's kind of like a digital nomad hub in some sense, too. People fly into Da Nang to just work and then fly out. It's like the central big hub. Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah, it's Ho Chi Minh down the bottom, Da Nang in the middle, Hanoi at the top. Yeah. How to get there? Obviously, being that it is one of the hubs, it's incredibly well connected to trains, buses, flights, anything cheap and easy. Yeah. I think the first time we got a bus in, the second time we caught a train in and out. What to do there? Da Nang is a seaside paradise. You've got all the seaside things that come along with that, snorkeling, scuba. Any sort of water sports is available in Da Nang. It's also home to the iconic bridge held by hands that people love to get the photo of in Ba Na Hills. Again, I think that's a theme park that you have to pay admission for to get to see the bridge. We never did it. We were too busy doing other things. It also has the stunning Golden Dragon Bridge that you can drive over. Yeah, true. Where to stay? Going to keep it really, really simple in Da Nang. Find somewhere near the beach that's within your budget. You're good. Hoi An. Hoi An is an ancient port town in Vietnam. And like we said, it just pulls us there over Da Nang every single time. It is a melting pot of cultures more than probably any other place in Vietnam. It's had history ties going way back with trading ships from China and Japan and France and everywhere. And they've really made their impression known in Hoi An. It's that place you see on Instagram with the gorgeous yellow buildings and the lantern festival. And it's just stunning. Clearly we love it. How to get there? Getting to Hoi An is easy. Basically, you have to make your way to Da Nang and then get to Hoi An from there. It's only an hour. There are buses. We just ended up getting a grab both times and it wasn't crazy expensive. Apparently before COVID, there was a bus that went along Da Nang beach and took you into Hoi An for very, very cheap. Google and Reddit and everything online was saying it doesn't run. It does run. It changed where it runs from. So we just thought, we're not going to bother getting that. We just took a grab. It was also like after an overnight train and we were super tired. So we weren't making the best financial decisions. That's true. What to do? Every month, Hoi An comes alive with a lantern festival. They float lanterns down the river. The boats have lanterns on them. There's fireworks, I'm pretty sure, sometimes. It is pure magic. If you don't want to spend the money to go on a boat because they are kind of pricey, there is a gorgeous restaurant that overlooks it. Like if you're at the bridge and you turn to your right, if you're in the bridge, turn to your right. Yeah, there's a rooftop. Go there. I guess you need to know which way on the bridge you're facing. If you're on the bridge and you're facing Old Town, turn to the right. Is that good? Can you see it in your... I'll put a map on the screen. That's easier. What she's saying is if you want to see the lantern festival, but you don't want to pay for going on a boat, there are a few different restaurants along the shoreline that allow you to kind of observe everything. And all you have to do is pay for a meal or a drink. And if you cross the bridge, there is like a little food market that goes on, which is awesome as well. Speaking of food, try Khao Lao. It is delicious. It has croutons from the French. The pork, I think, was a Chinese style of pork. The Japanese noodles. Japanese noodles. It is just so, so good. And you can't get it really anywhere else in Vietnam or it's very hard to get anywhere else. It's a Hoi An specialty. Also, just on the what to do, the beach side does have snorkeling and scuba as well. Does it? Yeah. That's cool. You have to book it all online, though. Another thing I would recommend to do if you do want to check out the beach is hire a bike and go for a ride. I'll leave a map again on screen, but there is a section of town that you can go through. It's like a meter wide path all through this rice paddy field. And it's only cyclists and motorbikes. And there's water buffalo. And it was just so cool. Also, thanks to Hoi An, we skipped a lot. Yeah, there is a lot. There's a lot to do in Hoi An. There is a coffee making class we highly recommend. We did that. You make five coffees. You finish the day like jerking because you had all these coffees. But it's really, really fun. And there's also more temples that you can get a tour out to. They are a little bit further out, so I wouldn't really recommend going on your own. But there's tours to that, too. Another super popular thing to do is the coconut baskets. True. They're these circular boats that spin. I think you have to pay extra for the spinning one. People say that it's expensive and it's very touristy, but it's kind of worth it. Where to stay? Hoi An is split up into two sections. There is the ancient old town and then there is the beach. We would recommend staying in the ancient old town. We did that the first time and we didn't even experience the beach. So the second time we wanted to see what that was all about. It's a beach. Honestly, there is not a lot going on on the beach side. It's a gorgeous beach, but all the actions in the old towns that you can end up paying for a grab or riding a bike all the way back into old town whenever you want to do anything anyway. Unless you are a super keen on the beach person that you would love to spend every single... Oh, there's a spider. ...that you would love to spend every single day laying out on the beach, then maybe staying at a resort on the beach is for you. We prefer the city side of things. Ninh Binh. Some people call Ninh Binh the Ha Long Bay on land. You can see why pretty much straight away. We missed it the first time that we were in Vietnam. So this year we knew we wanted to go back. And I cannot believe that we missed it the first time. It is stunning. It's mesmerizing. Honestly, it's one of the coolest places in Vietnam. How do you get there? Ninh Binh is about an hour or two south of Hanoi. A lot of people do fly into Hanoi and catch a bus down or a train down. But there are day trips that go from Hanoi too. We caught the train from Da Nang up to Ninh Binh. It is also a train station, so you can get it from anywhere, I guess, in the country. What to do there? Take a boat ride on the Trang Ung boats, but go first thing in the morning. You have to get there. Straight away. Otherwise it gets flooded with people. We were there straight away, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. But I've seen things online of it being packed. Bonkers. It would just be a different experience for us the morning, peaceful, serene, romantic experience was what we were after. So it was worth the early wake up at like 5 a.m. But if you're a people person and you're an extrovert, maybe you would prefer it to be all crazy boats and party time. There's also the Tam Coc boats, which are almost the same thing, but they go from a more central area in Tam Coc. Again, more people, more touristy. They are famous because the people pedal them with their feet. Yeah. And you also go through this stunning rice field that I think when it's yellow, it's like iconic. If you spent your first morning on the Trang Ung boats and you have another morning at your disposal, we recommend using that for the Hung Mua hike. Biggest recommendation is, again, get there early. It's only 500 steps, I think, to the top. But it is tough. It's brutal. And even when the sun's not even out yet or just coming out, it hurts because it's so hot. Also, Google says it opens at eight. It doesn't. It opens at six. We got there just after six and it was already open and there was one group of people already ahead of us. So six seems like a safe bet. Yeah. Of course, like any Vietnamese cities, there's a bunch of pagodas and temples that are pretty epic in Ninh Binh as well. Where to stay? We got this wrong when we first got in there. We ended up staying quite far away, thinking we were quite central. But we fixed it and we ended up staying in the town called Tam Coc. Highly recommend Tam Coc. There is plenty of food options. There's mini marts. There's heaps of hotels to choose from. And it's just a really chill vibe. Like if you do just want to catch the bus in and out, they go from Tam Coc as well. The boats can go from there. So if you're wanting to just pick one spot to stay and not have to catch Ubers anywhere, that's where you want to go. Feels like a little, its own little oasis town. It's very, very cool. We'll actually link where we stayed. It was very affordable. Huge rooms, comfortable beds. Oh, and they had little one month old. And they had puppies. Hanoi, the capital. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam. It is one of the furthest north cities that you can get in the country. And it's gorgeous. Known for the awesome architecture around its old town. It is one of the bucket list items in all of Vietnam. How do you get there? It's the capital city. So unsurprisingly, it's easy to get to. You can fly international flights, domestic flights, buses, trains, cars, anything. Cities and towns of Vietnam being very well connected is a theme because it's true. What to do there? Walking around the old town in Hanoi is one of the best things that you can do. Again, everyone's up really, really early. So if you get up early, you can be with the locals, walk around the lake. Join them for some Tai Chi or maybe one of the dance party workouts like Zumba. And then as the day gets later on, you can go to the train street, which is super famous. You can. Yeah, I would recommend going there around four or five because all of the lights start to turn on. It's just a bit more magical. And you can literally sip a beer with a train screaming past you like 30 seconds away from your face. It's crazy that it's allowed. There is a section that we walk to that they will not let you go unless you are escorted by a cafe owner or like worker. But I'll put a map on to show you where we walked in and we didn't have any problem. No one talked to us or stopped us. We just walked straight on. What else is there to do in Hanoi? A water puppet show is super popular. There are a few different options to choose from. There is one quite central in the old town. Also, you have to try egg coffee from the place of the son of the guy that made it. It was made there or the history of egg coffee is very intertwined with Hanoi. And there's a specific place that you can go to and try the first ever. Another cute cafe is the note cafe. All of the walls, tables, chairs, everything is covered in little post-it notes. It's so much fun. So simple. Hanoi is great. Yeah. Another thing to do in Hanoi is actually to get out of Hanoi. One of the most famous things to do in the entire country is to visit Ha Long Bay on a cruise. It is stunning. And I do want to put an asterisk here because our experience, I think we were very, very fortunate. We went to Bai Tu Long Bay not long after the country reopened after that whole thing. So we were the only boat out there and it was pristine. There wasn't any rubbish, nothing. It was stunning. It was beautiful. It's one of my fondest memories. I'm not sure if that's still the same experience you would have today. We have heard things that it is not. Hopefully it is, at least in some areas, still really clean and beautiful. And but it is a bucket list item. You can do just a day trip. You can do a one night. You can do a two night. There's all different options for how long you can be on Ha Long. I think we would both recommend the exact cruise we did. It was multi-night and it was Bai Tu Long Bay, which is actually deeper into the region than just Ha Long Bay. So all of the day tours just do Ha Long and you continue out that little bit further. We'll link it below. Where to stay? You'll want to stay in the old town if you can, or as close to it as possible, especially if it's your first time in Hanoi, because that is where all the action is. A hundred percent. As you get further out from the old town, it becomes more industrious. Getting to be in the city centre, like there's nothing like that. Yeah, stay as central as possible in Hanoi. Sapa. This is the mountain town from your dreams. Sapa is the furthest north that we have ever ventured in Vietnam. It's kind of like Dalat in that it was rolling hills and mountainous, but just on a crazy scale. Some of the best views in the whole country. How to get there? Sapa is a little bit of a novelty to get to. Most people are catching a bus. It takes four to six hours, depending on who you go with. And there's a few different options of like laying down or sitting up or love bed. We had a love bus, which was weird. But there is also a train. It's not super favourable times. I think it leaves at like 10pm, gets in at 3am. But it's the only train I've seen in Vietnam that has a suite option. We didn't know it existed until we already left Vietnam. Definitely wasn't running the first time. If we knew it existed, we probably would have made an effort to just try it because the suite, like that just sounds like such a novelty. We're big train people. Big train people. But we didn't do it. So if you do it, please let us know how it is and if it was worth it, because I bet it's expensive. Yeah. What to do there? Sapa is an awe inspiring mountain town, like we said, kind of surrounding a little oasis in the middle. If you're in Sapa, you need to catch the funicular up to the viewpoint and do the hike. It is stunning. It's hot and it's hard, but it's beautiful. Fancy Pan Mountain, where you go up, is the tallest one in all of Vietnam and all of the Indochina region. It's expensive to get up there, but it is a very cool thing to do. And it's not just like walking to a viewpoint. There was like restaurants and temples and all sorts of stuff to pay attention. Well, all sorts of stuff to entertain you up there. There's also a nearby traditional village that we went to, and this was awesome. You have to go down, which is nice at the time, but the walk back is quite hard. But it's just water buffalo and rice paddy fields. It's really picturesque. That's kind of it. Where to stay? Honestly, it is a quite a small mountain town. So anywhere that you're going to be comfortable, you're likely going to be in walking distance to everything anyway. Oh, Hue! We didn't talk about Hue. Oh, rewind. Hue is the old ancient capital, the old ancient capital of Vietnam. And it is super unique. How do you get there? Hue is also very well connected. There is a train line that takes you straight to Hue and buses and flights. You've got everything to get there. Things to do there. Soak up all of the history. Hue is pretty much a one hit wonder. I think for us, it's got the ancient fortification there, the ancient city of Hue, which is epic, huge and glorious and amazing. And you just get to roam around freely. Yeah, my favorite thing about it is you pay entry once and it's just free roam. You can explore on your own. Yeah, it is really cool just to have that historical side to the country that's very different from everywhere else. Another thing that we did is we ate food at this very particular restaurant that I'll try and find the location of and their Vietnamese spring rolls. Very good. Where to stay? I don't think Hue is like a huge place. I would try and stay either by the train station or by the ancient city. There is one place that we really liked when we were in Hue. We'll link it below. But honestly, if you're near the ancient city or the train station, you're pretty much good. A few other things to do in Vietnam that we haven't talked about in this video is the very famous Ha Giang Loop. We didn't do that because we are very, very scared of motorbikes. Yeah. But you can do it on your own and you can get a guide to take you around as well. Heard amazing things about it. It's meant to be incredible. Everyone that we know that has done it has loved it. And everyone that we talk to and tell that we're going to Vietnam, they're like, are you doing the Ha Giang Loop? Like it's one of the top things to do for sure. Cat Ba Island is also super popular. It's sort of in the Halong Bay-ish region of the country. I don't really know what there is to do there, but apparently people love it. People do Halong Bay from Cat Ba as well. Cool. I think that's it. We really hope you got something out of this Vietnam travel guide, if only a little bit of entertainment with some cool drone shots. That's fine, too. If you have any questions about travel in Vietnam, please comment them. We'll get to them. Our commenters will get to them. Someone will answer them for you and it will help become a resource for other people traveling Vietnam to get everything they need answered. And if you have some cool recommendation that we've missed, leave it down below as well so people can know about it. Also, if we got stuff wrong, because that does happen too, let us know. Basically, comment something. All right. Have fun in Vietnam. Yes.