Vietnam Complete Guide 2026: Halong Bay, Sapa, Hanoi, Hue, Phong Nha Caves & Mekong Delta
Browse more guides: Vietnam travel | Asia destinations Vietnam Complete Guide 2026: Halong Bay, Sapa, Hanoi, Hue, Phong Nha Caves and the Mekong Delta TL;DR Vietnam packs more variety into a single S-shaped coastline than most countries fit into a continent. I shaped this guide around the trip I keep recommending to friends who ask me where to go in Southeast Asia in 2026: start in Hanoi, sleep on a junk boat in Halong Bay, ride the night train up to Sapa for terraced rice fields and a cable car to the top of Indochina, fly down to Hue and Phong Nha for emperor tombs and the world's largest cave, then close out the loop in Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta. That single sweep covers eight UNESCO inscriptions, three culinary capitals (each with a different bowl of noodles named after it), and a national park that contains a cave large enough to hold a 40-storey building. Three practical reasons why 2026 is a genuinely good year for this trip. First, the Vietnamese e...