What to do in Vietnam?

What we would do here

Not a place to walk into, but something to do: our pick per area.

• A street food walk in the old quarter

  In Hanoi each lane specialises in one dish, and without someone who knows the quarter you cannot tell which stool to sit on. It is also the first lesson in how Vietnam eats

• The water puppet theatre
  Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre · 4.4 stars · 23438 reviews

  Water puppetry was born in the delta villages, where the flooded paddies were the stage. The show is short, the music is live, and it is the oldest thing you can see in Hanoi in a single evening

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• Kayaking between the limestone

  From the deck of a big boat the bay is a view, and from a kayak it becomes a scale: you paddle into the caves at the foot of the cliffs and into lagoons closed on every side

• A sampan rowed with the feet

  In Ninh Binh the rowers work the oars with their feet, a technique that developed here alone, and the boat passes through natural tunnels under the hills. It is also where the fields between the cliffs were drained

• The cave boat route of Trang An
  Trang An Boat Tour · 4.6 stars · 625 reviews

  Unlike the ride through the rice fields, here the boat passes inside flooded caves cut through the karst itself, and at times you have to duck. It is the same Ninh Binh landscape from a completely different angle

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• A trek with a village homestay

  The rice terraces around Sapa belong to the villages that farm them, and staying the night rather than returning to town shows them at hours with no visitors in them. The guides are usually women from the villages themselves

• The loop by motorbike with a rider

  The road in Ha Giang is considered the finest mountain drive in Vietnam, and it is also narrow and steep. Anyone who is not an experienced rider goes behind a local driver, and that way you watch the route rather than the tarmac

• An imperial cuisine workshop

  Hue was the capital, and its cooking has a form of its own built for serving a court: small dishes, many of them, arranged. It is entirely different food from the north and the south

• A silk lantern workshop

  The lanterns hanging over every street in Hoi An are made here, on a bamboo frame with stretched fabric. A workshop ends with one you can fold and carry, and it also explains what you see in the evening

• A basket boat among the water palms
  Cam Thanh Coconut Village · 4.9 stars · 379 reviews

  Between Hoi An and the sea lies a water palm forest that fishermen cross in round woven boats. You go out for a short ride, try paddling one yourself, and watch a net cast from a boat that has no bow

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• A guided expedition into a cave
  Oxalis Adventure · 4.8 stars · 1269 reviews

  The caves in this area are among the largest in the world, and some open only as an expedition with equipment and a guide rather than as a visit. It is the only reason to come to Phong Nha, and it is enough

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• Canyoning down the waterfalls

  Da Lat sits at altitude with waterfalls and streams around it, which made it where canyoning happens in Vietnam. Abseiling down the face of a waterfall is what this town is known for in an entire community

• A village visit in the central highlands
  Kon Pring Community Culture Village · 4.5 stars · 197 reviews

  In the highland villages stands a communal house with an unusually tall roof, and it is the centre of village life. This is a region with almost no visitors, so the visit is made with someone who is welcome there

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• A coffee farm
  Aeroco Specialty Coffee Farm · 4.9 stars · 960 reviews

  Buon Ma Thuot is the coffee capital of Vietnam, one of the world's largest exporters, and here you see the beans on the bush rather than in the cup. It also explains the coffee you drink every morning of the trip

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• A kitesurfing lesson
  Kitesurfing at Mui Ne Beach · 5 stars · 243 reviews

  The steady wind at Mui Ne is why this place exists as a destination at all, and without it this is just another stretch of coast. If you come here, this is what you come for

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• A mineral mud bath
  Thap Ba Hot Springs Centre · 4.4 stars · 5324 reviews

  Around Nha Trang are hot mud springs that have become open complexes, and it is what this town offers besides the beach. Locals use them no less than visitors do

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• A basket boat with fishermen
  Nhon Ly Fishing Village · 4.7 stars · 247 reviews

  The round woven boat is a genuine Vietnamese fishing craft, and in the coastal villages around Quy Nhon it is still in daily use. You go out in one with someone who makes a living from it rather than as a demonstration

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• A food tour by motorbike
  Saigon Street Food Vespa Tour · 4.9 stars · 193 reviews

  Ho Chi Minh is wide and spread out, and its best dishes sit in districts you cannot walk between. Behind a rider you get both the food and the thing this city actually looks like from

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• A floating market before dawn
  Cai Rang Floating Market · 4.1 stars · 8074 reviews

  The floating markets in the delta are wholesale, meaning they work at the hours when the traders buy and disperse afterwards. Anyone who arrives late sees empty boats

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• A pepper farm
  Hai Duong Pepper Farm · 4.9 stars · 318 reviews

  Phu Quoc pepper is known by name and grown on poles at small farms on the island itself. It is the part of the island that is not beach, and it also explains how it is used in the kitchen here

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• Snorkelling on the reef

  Con Dao is far from the mainland and protected as a marine park, so the water around it is far calmer and clearer than anywhere else in Vietnam. It is also the reward for how hard it is to get here