About The Vietnam Guides
Our mission
Vietnam stretches over 1,650 kilometres from the Chinese border to the Mekong Delta, crossing three distinct climate zones along the way. We've made more than 12 extended trips - not on a single backpacker sprint, but returning to specific places across different seasons to understand how they actually work. The Vietnam Guides is built from those trips: practical, specific, and honest about when and where things change. Our goal on every page is to give you something actionable: a named restaurant with a price, a ferry timing that actually applies, a trail that's worth the detour.
We have no commercial relationship with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism or any regional tourism body. We pay for our own accommodation, book our own transport, and eat where we choose.
Who writes this site
Our coverage is divided across three specialist roles. Our Hanoi street-food writer has spent more time in the Old Quarter than in any other part of Vietnam - tracking the bun cha spots around Hang Manh, the pho variations between Bat Dan and Hang Dong, and the bia hoi corners that open at 6am for shift workers. Our Ho Chi Minh City expat researcher has lived in District 3 for several years and covers the southern logistics: bus company reliability on the Mekong run, which Con Dao ferry operator actually departs on time, and how District 1 has changed for long-stay visitors since 2022. Our Central Vietnam coastal editor maintains the Hoi An, Da Nang, and Hue coverage - the Cham Island ferry schedules, the marble mountain temperature at midday versus early morning, and the difference between the riverside guesthouses in the Ancient Town and the beach-zone hotels 5 kilometres east.
The places we know in detail
Hoi An is easy to get wrong. The Ancient Town is genuinely beautiful but genuinely crowded by 9am; the real find is cycling to Cam Kim Island before breakfast, or reaching An Bang Beach before the beach clubs open. Banh Mi Phuong on Phan Chau Trinh - a 30,000 VND sandwich as of 2024 - earns its reputation and the queue. We know which tailor on Le Loi Street has better turnaround time, and why the Cargo Club terrace is worth the slight tourist markup if you're watching the lanterns come out at dusk. The full guide includes both the Ancient Town walkthrough and the neighbourhoods most visitors never reach.
Hanoi rewards detail. We've mapped the Old Quarter's street-by-street specialisation - Hang Thiec for tin goods, Hang Vai for fabric, Hang Buom for confectionery - because the logic of the 36 streets is still half-alive. Dong Xuan Market before 7am is a wholesale operation; come at 10am and it's a tourist market. The bun cha at Hang Manh is cheaper and less famous than the Obama bun cha on Le Van Huu, and just as good - around 50,000 VND per portion as of 2024.
The Mekong Delta is where timing matters most. Cai Rang floating market near Can Tho runs properly from around 5:30am - arrive by 6am or you've missed the main trading action. By 8am the tourist boats outnumber the produce boats. Ben Tre's coconut canal network is best done by rented bicycle to the river, then a flat-bottomed boat from the village quay; the package tour version misses most of it. We write about both approaches because different travellers need different options.
Our editorial standards
Prices are given in Vietnamese dong (VND) with approximate USD equivalents where relevant, verified against recent trips or confirmed current sources. We note the year any specific figure was verified - Vietnam's domestic flight prices, bus schedules, and entry fees shift regularly. When something changes substantially, we update the article rather than adding a "this may be outdated" caveat and leaving stale information live.
Our research follows a three-stage process. We visit in person before writing - taking the bus, booking the boat, eating at the stall, and recording what we find rather than what the brochure describes. We verify every time-sensitive figure against the relevant official source before publication: the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) for visa and entry requirements, Vietnam Railways (VR) for train schedules and booking windows on the Reunification Express, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam for domestic route availability, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for heritage site opening hours and closure periods at UNESCO-listed sites including Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son, and the Hue Imperial Citadel. We update pages when conditions change - new visa regimes, route additions, guesthouse closures - rather than leaving readers to discover stale information themselves.
High-traffic guides for Hanoi, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Minh City are reviewed at least twice a year ahead of the main travel seasons. We do not publish guides based on press trips or secondhand accounts. If we haven't been somewhere or can't verify a detail properly, we say so. Uncertainty is flagged; confidence is explained.
How we keep the lights on
The Vietnam Guides uses affiliate links. When you book a tour or activity through one of our links, we receive a small commission. You don't pay anything extra. We only link to providers we'd book through ourselves, and affiliate partnerships never influence what we recommend. Full details: affiliate disclosure.
Get in touch
Vietnam's travel landscape shifts constantly - visa rules change, new routes open, guesthouses close. We do our best to keep everything current. If something on this site needs updating, tell us.