The Perfect Family Journey Across Vietnam

An early start from the Old Quarter takes you east to the coast by expressway. You board at Tuan Chau Harbour late in the morning for a cruise of five to six hours through the bay’s best passages, where every islet and outcrop carries a name local people gave it for the shape it seems to hold.

Lunch of local food is served on board.

Surprising Cave opens in the afternoon, its chambers crowded with stalactites and stalagmites in the shapes of sea creatures. Titop Island follows, with a sandy beach below a limestone peak and a climb to the top for the view across the bay. At Luon Cave there is kayaking or a bamboo boat into the lagoon.

The cruise turns back in the late afternoon, with tea and cakes on the upper deck while the light softens, and the coach reaches Hanoi in the evening.

Note: swimming at Titop Island depends on the season. Bring swimwear, sunglasses and insect repellent. The cruise itinerary may change with weather and operating conditions, and beverages are at your own expense. This is a long day on the road, so it goes better after a settled night.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch.

Overnight in Hanoi.

Free time in the morning until your car collects you for the flight to Da Nang, where a driver and guide meet your family and take you on to the hotel.

In the middle of the afternoon, your private guide and van arrive for Cam Thanh Coconut Village, where the whole family takes a turn as local fishermen, learning traditional fishing techniques and how to row a Vietnamese bamboo basket boat along the quiet coconut palm waterways. The activities are hands-on, safe and suited to everybody, and a real window onto country life.

You reach Hoi An Old Town towards evening, starting at the Phuc Kien Chinese Assembly Hall, bright gates and dragon statues under elaborate rooftops, then Hoi An Central Market and a family altar where your guide explains ancestor worship. The old houses of Phung Hung and Tan Ky have withstood two hundred years of weather and war, built by merchant families who traded with buyers from around the world. The Museum of Folk Culture, a performance at the Traditional Performing Arts House and the Japanese Bridge follow, the bridge raised more than four hundred years ago to join the Japanese quarter to the Chinese community across the water, its carvings each carrying their own meaning, with handicraft shops, galleries and smaller laneways filling whatever time is left.

Then the part the whole family waits for: a boat ride on the Hoai River where each of your family releases a flower lantern and a wish for good luck, with lantern street glowing around you and the night market open afterwards.

A meal at a local restaurant follows before the return to Da Nang.

Meals: Breakfast.

Overnight in Da Nang.

After breakfast, an early departure from the city centre takes you up to Ba Na Hills, the Sa Pa of central Vietnam, 1,487 metres above sea level, rising by a cable car that holds four Guinness World Records with the scenery opening up beneath you.

At Gare Marseille station you reach the Golden Bridge, an architectural wonder laid across the sky like a sash, alongside Linh Ung Pagoda and Le Jardin d’Amour gardens. A second cable car carries you to the summit and the French Village, a replica of classical France in a cluster of squares, cathedral, town, village and inns, with shows by European and American artists. Buffet lunch follows.

The afternoon is the lighter half of the day: Queen Mountain at the top of the hill, then Fantasy Park, with rides and games from the gentle to the genuinely thrilling, the Ghost House among them. The Wax Museum and its forty-odd figures are nearby. The cable car returns you to the valley in the mid-afternoon for the drive back to Da Nang.

Note: the Ba Na Hills programme may be adjusted to your requirements or the day’s conditions. Entrance to the Wax Statue Museum, the France Wine Cellar, the roller coaster, climbing games, prize games and the 10D cinema are not included.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch.

Overnight in Da Nang.

Leisure time until your driver collects you for the flight south. A driver meets your family at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City and takes you by private car to your hotel.

The afternoon and evening are yours, and the city centre is compact enough to see on foot. Ben Thanh Market is the obvious first stop, loud and full of handicrafts, souvenirs and coffee. Nguyen Hue Walking Street is a pedestrian stretch lined with cafés and colonial-era buildings, and a good place for everyone to stretch after the flight. The Saigon Central Post Office and Notre-Dame Cathedral stand side by side nearby, the cathedral seen from outside while restoration continues. For a view of the whole city, the Saigon Skydeck at the top of the Bitexco Financial Tower is best around sunset, and there is an optional evening cruise on the Saigon River with dinner and the lit skyline alongside.

Meals: Breakfast.

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

The morning begins at Independence Palace, also known as the Reunification Palace, built on the site of the former Norodom Palace and designed by architect Ngo Viet Thu, one of the city’s best-known landmarks. You continue past the structures of the French colonial era, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the historic Central Post Office, before the War Remnants Museum and its extensive display covering both Indochina wars.

Lunch follows at a local restaurant.

In the afternoon, you drive out to the Cu Chi Tunnels, around an hour and a half from the city. A short introduction and film explain how the network was dug and how people survived the harsh conditions of the war years. You then explore the surviving passages, with living areas of kitchens and bedrooms set alongside storage rooms, weapons factories, field hospitals and command centres, everything a community needed below ground, as well as the hidden trap doors built into the maze for defence.

Afterwards tea and cassava, the guerrillas’ food during the war, are served, with a break before the return to Saigon.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch.

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

On the last day of the journey, enjoy free time at leisure until your private transfer to the airport (private car, driver only) for your departure flight. Take home the photos, stories and shared memories of a journey experienced together as a family.

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