Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh Beach Tour

We welcome you to Vietnam’s beating heart, Hanoi. Our guide will meet you at the airport and transfer you to your hotel in the capital’s Old Quarter. You can check into the hotel (check-in is from 14:00) and relax there or head out to explore central Hanoi. 

In this free time, you may want to try out some of Vietnam’s most famous specialties, including pho and Vietnamese coffee. You could also explore the lively Old Quarter, built upon 36 separate trades that are manifested on its ancient streets.

08.00 AM: Take breakfast in the hotel and await the arrival of our guide, we will soon be embarking on a tour of Hanoi to see its unique blend of architecture, culture and history. We begin at the Ho Chi Minh Complex, the historic square where we will find the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the vibrant Presidential Palace and the distinctive One Pillar Pagoda. After this, we visit the verdant Temple of Literature, standing for almost 1000 years as Vietnam’s oldest university.

We will stop at a local restaurant to take our first look at Vietnamese cuisine together. In the afternoon, we head to Hanoi’s fascinating Museum of Ethnology, where several individual objects and full-scale stilt house replicas will give us an insight into the traditions and everyday lives of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic minority groups. We round off our city tour by watching one of Vietnam’s most revered cultural performances, a water puppet show, which will take place at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre next to the city’s beautiful centerpiece, Hoan Kiem Lake. 

Take breakfast in your hotel before we take the drive to Halong Bay, twice recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. When we arrive, we will board our traditional junk cruise and head out into the beautiful bay, along emerald waterways bordered by spiralling limestone towers. On this Halong Bay overnight tour, we will head to many of its wonderful highlights, including caves, islands and fishing villages, taking the opportunity to kayak between them. Time on board will be some of the most relaxing of your Vietnam beach holiday, with much space in the itinerary for you to recline on the sundeck of the boat or discover true tranquility in your cabin. You will be served delicious food as the cruise glides through the bay before settling down in a quiet area amid sparkling, moonlit waters.

Stay overnight in Halong Bay.

Rise early for breakfast and the chance to engage in some tai chi, an ancient martial art that Vietnamese people have been using for centuries to energise themselves ahead of a new day. We will board our kayaks and head around some of the bay’s more reclusive areas before returning to the boat and taking in a delicious lunch on the way back to the harbour.

Once we have arrived back on land, we will head to Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport in order to help you catch your flight to Da Nang. Upon landing, our driver will meet you to drive you to Hoi An, where you will check into your hotel and take whatever is left of the day as free time. Maybe take this opportunity to visit one of the town’s famous tailors to get personalised clothes made for a very reasonable price. These items take some time to make, so ordering them on your first day in Hoi An will give the tailors sufficient time.

Relish a relaxed breakfast in your hotel as you plan your own itinerary for your free day.

Hoi An has a wealth of attractions that can be explored over the course of a few days, but two of its most popular stretch across its northeastern coast. Cua Dai beach and An Bang beach both contain a carpet of white sand that lies beneath stretching palm trees, looking out into the East Vietnam Sea amid evocative tropical greenery. Entire days can be spent here lapping up the attractive atmosphere and reveling in some of the best weather available throughout the country.

For your culture fix, you could buy a town pass and stroll around the magnificent Ancient Town, where Hoi An’s vivid architecture will be displayed at its colourful best. An Ancient Town pass will allow you access to five of any of the centre’s 21 attractions, which encompass the cultural, architectural, religious, maritime and imperial history of Hoi An.

Another free day in Hoi An starts with breakfast in your hotel, as your prepare yourself for your final full day in Vietnam’s cultural capital.

Perhaps today, you would like to learn more of the history of the Champa civilisation, who occupied much of modern south and central Vietnam. The best place to do this is at My Son Sanctuary, one of the most conclusive day trips from Hoi An, which lies about 40km southwest of the town. The Hindu temple ruins discovered here date back as far as the 4th century and contain a gorgeous architectural style unique to the Cham people. A half-day tour or independent exploration of the grounds reveal the colourful history of the Cham and their eventual demise at the hand of the Vietnamese emperor, Minh Mang.

Another option is to engage on a full or half-day tour of the idyllic Cham Islands, an archipelago lying just off the coast of Cua Dai Beach. Here, you will find the most perfect Vietnamese beach scenes, including soft golden sands, wild vegetation interspersed with humble shacks, blooming coral reefs and an overall atmosphere of pure tranquility. Tours usually visit 2 or 3 different beaches, allowing guests to recline or providing them with snorkels to explore the radiant underwater reefs.

Use your final few hours in Hoi An to have breakfast and pick up any clothes that you had professionally tailored. The driver will arrive outside your hotel at a prearranged time in order to transfer you to Da Nang airport. You will take the flight to Nha Trang, a vital stop on any southern Vietnam tour due to the wealth of world-class beaches that it can boast across its coastline. 

You will be able to discover the wonders of these beaches for yourself after arriving and being transferred to your hotel, where you can check in from 14:00 and enjoy much free time around the city. Perhaps you will want to spend the rest of your day on Nha Trang beach, the city’s most accessible, or head further afield to the quieter beaches of Doc Let or Bai Dai.

Relaxing activities abound in Nha Trang and you will be able to discover for yourself after enjoying a leisurely breakfast in your hotel. Your free day starts here.

You could melt away any lingering stresses with one of Nha Trang’s more popular spa treatments, a soak in a natural mud bath. The nutrient-rich mud is said to contain many detoxifying properties that refresh the mind and body; you can find out for yourself by visiting any one out of the city’s multitude of spa establishments.

For anyone interested in the religious history of southern Vietnam, the Po Nagar Tower and Long Son Pagoda offer an insight into ancient Hindu and modern Buddhist beliefs respectively. Both are reflective of their religions with their beautifully ornate architecture, shown alongside additional information about their construction and existence throughout the centuries.

For those who have become enamoured with the attractive beach life in Vietnam, the gorgeous Nha Trang Bay islands provide an exquisite playground for exploration. The archipelago can be accessed on a full-day island hopping tour, visiting the unique ‘shipwreck’ aquarium at Hon Mieu, snorkelling around the abundant schools of fish at Hon Mun and relaxing on the perfect golden sands of Hon Mot.

Enjoy a final breakfast in Nha Trang and prepare for your transfer from one of Vietnam’s biggest beach hubs to another. A 4-hour drive will see us arrive in Mui Ne, the kitesurfing capital of Southeast Asia and the location of some of the country’s top beaches. Check into your hotel any time from 14:00 and revel in the independence afforded by free time in the resort town.

If you don’t want to strain yourself today, you can take it easy on Mui Ne Beach, the town’s main sandy strip that features Vietnam’s typically ravishing coastal features. For those feeling more active, the various kitesurfing schools lining the beach offer short introductions to the thrilling sport, showing guests how to utilise the wind in order to ride the sea’s gentle waves.

The final free day of your Vietnam tour will begin with a delicious breakfast and a view of the gorgeous coastal spectacle in front of you.

Your morning time could be spent in many ways and the Mui Ne Cooking School offers one of them. After a week and a half of discovering Vietnam’s culinary delights, perhaps you would like to learn how to cook them yourself to impress your friends and families back home. Cooking classes show you the intricate preparations necessary to create delicious classics before helping you to create your own, finishing with a nourishing and rewarding lunch of your own creations.

Mui Ne has far more natural attractions than just its beaches and these become apparent on a sunset Jeep tour. Views of the sunset happen at the natural deserts of the Red or White Sand Dunes, two windswept landscapes containing surreal scenery and providing excellent conditions from which to watch the sinking sun. Before this, these tours visit a traversable red sand canyon called the Fairy Stream and the attractive Mui Ne Bay, where colourful fishing boats rock gently with the lapping waves below.

Soak up the last part of coastal Vietnam over breakfast; the tour will move to the modern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City. You will be able to check into the hotel from 14:00, after which time you can relax here or explore the bustling streets of the city, discovering the many differences between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

After breakfast, we head to one of the most popular of Ho Chi Minh City’s daytrips, the Cu Chi Tunnels. This web-like system of tunnels comprises a staggering 250km, built by the Viet Cong to thwart the advances of American and South Vietnamese troops. We will be able to climb inside the enlarged tunnels and discover a fragment of what life was like for the communist troops who worked down here, with a look at the various horrific booby-traps that dot the jungle floor above.

We will return to the city and have lunch, after which our city tour will commence. The tour will take us around some of Ho Chi Minh City’s famous sites, including the Independence Palace, where the Vietnam War was ended in 1975 by a steamrolling tank at the gates. From here, we go to the War Remnants Museum to learn more of the brutalities endured and committed during war. The Old Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral will introduce us to some of the colonial French architecture that remains so prominent in the old capital of Indochina, while a trip to Cholon (Chinatown) and Ben Thanh Market will offer an insight into the various oriental roots of the city, along with its modern market culture.

The tour finishes in the late afternoon and you can enjoy the evening at your own leisure. Nguyen Hue Walking Street is a great place to do this, as the 650m strip between the Town Hall and the Saigon River is transformed every weekend evening into a pedestrianised street complete with entertainment and a fantastic open atmosphere.

Enjoy breakfast at the hotel and get ready for a scenic drive to the glorious Mekong Delta, the lifeblood for so much of Vietnam. Passing expanses of lush green rice paddies, we arrive at My Tho, where we will board an awaiting boat and take a languid trip to Turtle Island. We will disembark here and take a walk along quaint village paths, soaking up the sights of fertile fruit orchards and the humble farmers who tend to them.

Re-boarding the boat, we row across to Ben Tre province, famous for the masses of coconut trees that line the lush canals alongside nipa palm, arching high to create a beautiful tunnel permeated with light from above. We dock here and head to a nearby village for a local lunch, after which we will learn of the ancient art of beekeeping and try the tasty honey tea that stems from it. Some rustic transportation will then carry us to our final stop, a coconut candy workshop, which introduces us to one of the more delicious of Ben Tre’s products. 

We return to My Tho via boat and then take the drive back to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving in the late afternoon.

Soak up the last few hours of your Vietnam beach holiday in Ho Chi Minh City before transferring to the airport. Here, you will catch your onwards flight and your 15-day beach tour will draw to a close.

We thank you unreservedly for your time with us on this tour. It was a pleasure to serve you and we sincerely hope to get another opportunity to do so in the future!