A First Vietnam Itinerary: How to Decide the Shape

Most Vietnam itineraries go wrong before any days are assigned, because the shape of the trip was decided by accident. Four questions settle it, and they have to be answered in order, because each one closes off options for the next.

One: how many days on the ground

Not how many days of leave. Vietnam is a long flight from the United States and the crossing eats a calendar day each way, with the arrival day largely written off. Ten days of leave is seven or eight days of Vietnam.

Count the real number first, because every subsequent decision scales off it. Seven days on the ground is two regions. Ten is three, tightly. Fourteen is three with slack. Three weeks is three regions plus the things everybody cuts.

Two: which regions

Vietnam divides into north, centre and south, each about an hour's flight from the next. The north is Hanoi, Ha Long, Ninh Binh and Sapa. The centre is Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An. The south is Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta and the islands.

On a short trip, pick adjacent regions. North plus centre, or centre plus south. The north-plus-south combination skips the middle, which is where Hoi An and Hue are, and is the one people most often regret.

The thing that actually decides it

Whichever region holds the thing you most want to see. If that is Ha Long Bay, you are starting north. If it is Hoi An, you are building around the centre. Pick that anchor first and let the adjacent region be the second one.

Three: which month

Vietnam does not have one dry season. The north is coldest and greyest from roughly December to February and hottest and wettest in summer. The central coast has a storm season from September to November. The south is wet from May to October, in the afternoon-downpour way rather than the all-day way.

There is no month that is perfect everywhere, which means the month you can travel partly decides which regions are worth the days. Travelling in October with the centre as your anchor is a plan with a problem in it.

Four: which direction

North to south is the more common shape and suits most itineraries: the harder city first, the weather-sensitive north early, and a departure from the city with the widest choice of onward flights.

South to north is the right answer if the nonstop from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City is what makes the trip work, or if the season favours finishing in the north. Open-jaw tickets into one city and out of the other are widely available, so there is rarely a reason to backtrack.

This decision is effectively locked when you buy the international tickets, which is usually before anything else is planned. That is why it belongs in the first four questions rather than the day-by-day.

What the month does to the answer

Worked examples. December: the north is cold and often grey, the centre is coming out of its storm season, the south is dry. A southern-weighted trip makes sense. June: the north is hot and wet in the afternoons, the centre is dry, the south is in its wet season. A centre-weighted trip makes sense. March and April are the closest the country comes to working everywhere at once, which is also why they are busy.

Then, and only then, the days

With those four answered, the day plan writes itself from a small number of rules. Two nights in any city worth stopping in, unless you are deliberately buying a single sight with a one-night stop. One overnight excursion per region at most. A transfer day is a half day gone, not a free one. And the internal flights are short and cheap, so use them rather than overland for the long legs.

The things people underestimate

How long Hanoi to Hoi An takes door to door, which is a flight plus two transfers rather than an hour. How much of a cruise day is the coach. How much time the Mekong needs to be worth doing. And how tired the first forty-eight hours are.

What to book and when

International flights first — they lock the direction. Internal flights next: they are short and inexpensive and the useful departure times go first. Then accommodation in the places you have fixed. Then one or two anchor experiences, such as a bay cruise, that need a date.

Everything else — day tours, cooking classes, drivers, food tours — can be arranged in the country a day or two ahead, usually more cheaply and with better information about the weather.

A sanity check before booking

Write the plan out and count the half-days lost to movement. If more than a quarter of the trip is transfers, remove a region rather than compressing the stays. A shorter list done properly is the thing people remember; a longer list done at speed is the thing they describe as exhausting.

And leave one unplanned day in anything longer than a week. It will be used, either by weather or by a place that turned out to be better than expected.