Halong Bay by boat
Why this is the first thing I do every time I land in Vietnam.
Read MoreHoi An’s lantern-lit old town
A closer look at one of Vietnam's most rewarding experiences.
Read MoreHanoi’s Old Quarter
Where to go next once you have seen the headline sights of Vietnam.
Read MoreVietnam runs long and narrow along the South China Sea, and travelling it top to bottom feels like moving through eras as much as geography — Hanoi’s French colonial boulevards and Old Quarter tangle, Hue’s imperial citadel, Ho Chi Minh City’s motorbike-driven present tense. I’ve eaten better and more consistently in Vietnam than almost anywhere, from a plastic-stool pho stall at dawn to a Hoi An bánh mì stand that’s been perfecting one recipe for decades. Halong Bay’s limestone karsts rising from jade water get photographed endlessly and still surprise in person. What stays with me most, though, is the pace of daily street life — coffee dripped slowly through a phin filter, conversations conducted from low plastic chairs — a country that has, despite everything in its recent history, chosen unhurriedness as a form of resilience.
Chapter One
Hanoi and the north
Hanoi’s Old Quarter still organises itself by trade, street by street — Hàng Bạc for silver, Hàng Gai for silk — a medieval logic surviving beneath the scooter traffic. I ate egg coffee, a Hanoi specialty of whipped egg yolk and condensed milk over espresso, at Café Giảng, tucked down an alley that’s been serving it since the 1940s. From Hanoi, an overnight boat into Halong Bay or the quieter Lan Ha Bay delivers limestone karsts by the hundred, kayaking between them into hidden lagoons accessible only by low cave entrances at certain tides. Sapa, further north, trades sea for terraced rice mountains and H’mong villages reachable on foot along ridgelines.
“Vietnam serves its history and its present at the same table, and expects you to finish both.”
Chapter Two
Central and south
Hoi An’s ancient town, lantern-lit every evening along the Thu Bồn river, has kept its Japanese bridge and merchant houses intact since the port’s trading heyday, and I’ve had suits tailored there in 24 hours that still fit years later. Hue’s Citadel, the seat of the Nguyễn emperors, holds walled courtyards and a moat now half given over to lotus. Further south, Ho Chi Minh City runs at a different register entirely — the War Remnants Museum, the Cu Chi tunnels outside town, and a rooftop bar scene that makes clear how fast the country has moved forward. The Mekong Delta, a few hours further, slows everything back down to river time.
The Short List
Do not miss in Vietnam
At a glance
Vietnam in numbers
- Capital
- Hanoi
- Language
- Vietnamese
- Currency
- Vietnamese dong
- Best time
- February to April, mild across most of the country
Did you know
Halong Bay contains around two thousand limestone karst islands, most of them uninhabited and covered in dense forest.