Vietnam in 14 days: Hanoi, Sapa, Ha Long, Hue, Hoi An and the Mekong

Fourteen days is the length that does Vietnam end to end: the northern mountains at Sapa, the bay, the imperial city at Hue, Hoi An's lanterns, and the Mekong Delta below Saigon. Two internal flights, one night train, and the weather problem that shapes when you go.

Southeast Asia
14 days
≈ AED 4,100 / person
The whole country north to south, with the rice terraces and the delta that shorter trips cut

Researched & checked by Nitesh Parasher Last verified 30 October 2026

Before you go

Vietnam is 1,650km long and two weeks is the first duration that holds all of it. The seven-day route is the north plus Hoi An; the ten-day adds Saigon. This adds the two that genuinely need the extra days: Sapa and the Mekong Delta.

Sapa is rice terraces cut into mountains on the Chinese border, and the reason to go is to walk between villages rather than to see it from a viewpoint. The Mekong Delta is the other end of the country and the other half of its character — floating markets, coconut channels and a river the size of a sea.

One warning before you plan dates. Vietnam does not have a single climate. The north, the centre and the south are often in different seasons at the same time, and a fortnight end to end will meet at least two of them. The timing section below is the most important part of this page.

Figure VND 28,500,000 (≈ AED 4,087) per person.

Before you go: the admin

Entry

E-visa for most nationalities, 90 days, applied for online about a week ahead, US$25 single entry.
Print it. Airlines have refused boarding over an unreadable phone copy.
Six months’ validity and a blank page.

Moving around

Two internal flights: Hanoi → Hue or Da Nang, and Da Nang → Ho Chi Minh City. Both about 75–90 minutes.
The night train to Sapa — Hanoi to Lao Cai, eight hours, soft sleeper, then an hour by road up to the town. It saves a day and is part of the trip.
The Hai Van Pass between Hue and Hoi An by car is one of the great coast roads; take it rather than the tunnel.
Grab works in all three cities.

Money

Dong, with a lot of zeroes. 100,000 is about four dollars, and 10,000 and 100,000 notes look alike. Count them every time.
ATMs cap withdrawals at two or three million and charge per transaction.
Cards in hotels and better restaurants; everything else cash.

Crossing the road

Walk slowly and predictably into the traffic and do not stop. The scooters flow around you. This is genuinely the technique.

Day by day

Day 1 — Hanoi

14:00 — The Old Quarter, thirty-six streets named for the guild that worked each one — and several still do.
16:00 — Hoa Lo Prison, French-built, later the “Hanoi Hilton”, and presented from the Vietnamese side.
18:00 — Water puppetry at Thang Long: 45 minutes, eleventh century, performed in a waist-deep pool.
20:00 — Bun cha, then egg coffee, which is a Hanoi invention — egg yolk whipped with condensed milk over black coffee.

Day 2 — The lake, and the first university

06:00 — Hoan Kiem Lake: tai chi, badminton and aerobics, and the best free hour in the city.
09:00 — The Temple of Literature, Vietnam’s first university, 1070, with the stelae of doctoral graduates on stone tortoises.
11:00 — Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum — strict rules, no bags, no photographs, and closed for maintenance for two months most autumns. Check before you build a morning around it.
15:00 — The Museum of Ethnology, out of the centre and the best museum in the country.

Day 3 — Ninh Binh

07:00 — Two hours south.
09:30 — Trang An by sampan, through nine caves — low enough that you duck — the best three hours in the north, and rowed by women using their feet.
14:00 — Mua Cave, and 500 steps to a dragon on the ridge with the whole karst valley below.
19:00 — Back in Hanoi, and the night train to Lao Cai — book a soft sleeper.

Day 4 — Up to Sapa

06:00 — Into Lao Cai, then an hour up to Sapa.
The terraces are green from May and gold in September, and bare brown mud from November to March — which is worth knowing before you book the month.
10:00 — Hire a local H’mong or Dao guide rather than a Hanoi agency. The money stays in the valley and the walking is better.
14:00 — A short first walk to find your legs.

Day 5 — The valley walk

08:30 — Walk, do not drive. The point of Sapa is the trek between villages — Lao Chai, Ta Van, Giang Ta Chai — through the terraces.
It is one or two days, and a homestay night in Ta Van is the version worth doing.
Or Fansipan, the highest peak in Indochina at 3,143m, which has a cable car to the top — either a cheat or a kindness depending on your knees.

Day 6 — Bac Ha, and the train back

06:00 — Bac Ha market on a Sunday, two hours away: the Flower H’mong market, and a working market rather than a show — livestock, textiles and rice wine.
15:00 — Back down to Lao Cai.
21:00 — Night train to Hanoi.

Day 7 — Ha Long Bay, overnight

08:00 — 2.5 hours from Hanoi, and take an overnight cruise rather than a day trip — the day boats see the same water at the busiest hour.
Ask for Lan Ha Bay or Bai Tu Long. Same geology, a fraction of the boats, and most good operators now run there.
14:00 — Kayaking among nearly 2,000 limestone karsts, caves and floating villages.
19:00 — Dinner on deck, and squid fishing off the back afterwards, which is as daft and as good as it sounds.

Day 8 — Back, and south to Hue

11:00 — Off the boat and back to Hanoi.
17:00 — Fly to Hue, or take the train down the coast if you have the day.
20:00 — Hue food is the imperial cuisine and is the best in the country: bun bo Hue, banh khoai, com hen.

Day 9 — The Citadel and the tombs

08:00 — The Imperial Citadel, the Nguyen dynasty’s walled palace city, badly damaged in 1968 and under long restoration — which is visible, and part of the interest.
13:00 — The royal tombs along the Perfume River: Minh Mang for the symmetry, Tu Duc for the melancholy — he wrote his own epitaph and is not buried there — and Khai Dinh for the concrete-and-mosaic strangeness.
17:00 — Thien Mu Pagoda, and the car in which Thich Quang Duc drove to Saigon to immolate himself in 1963.
Or the DMZ as a day trip if the war is why you came: Khe Sanh, the Vinh Moc tunnels, the Ben Hai river.

Day 10 — Over the pass to Hoi An

09:00 — Three hours by car over the Hai Van Pass, with the coast on one side the whole way — take the pass, not the tunnel.
14:00 — The Ancient Town, UNESCO-listed, car-free, with the Japanese Covered Bridge from the 1590s.
16:00 — Tailoring — a suit or dress in 24 hours with a fitting, so order today if you want it.
19:00 — The lanterns, and on the full moon the electric lights go off across the old town.

Day 11 — My Son, and the beach

06:00 — My Son, an hour inland: Cham temples, Hindu, bombed in the war — go at dawn, before the heat and the coaches.
11:00 — Back for the fitting.
14:00 — An Bang beach by bicycle; the bikes are usually free from the hotel.
Or a cooking class starting at the market, which Hoi An does as well as anywhere.

Day 12 — South to Saigon

10:00 — Fly from Da Nang, 90 minutes.
14:00 — The War Remnants Museum. Presented from the Vietnamese side, which is the point, and harrowing — particularly the Agent Orange rooms. Plan nothing demanding after it.
17:00 — The Reunification Palace, left as it was on 30 April 1975, down to the maps on the wall.
18:30 — The Central Post Office, by Gustave Eiffel’s firm, and Notre-Dame beside it.

Day 13 — Cu Chi, then the Delta

07:00 — The Cu Chi Tunnels, 250km of hand-dug tunnel on three levels. The crawl section is widened for visitors and is still extremely tight.
13:00 — South into the Mekong Delta — Ben Tre or Can Tho rather than My Tho, which is the coach-party one.
17:00 — Sampans through the coconut channels, and a homestay night if you want it.

Day 14 — Cai Rang, and home

06:00 — Cai Rang floating market near Can Tho, a wholesale market and still a working one — boats advertise what they sell by hanging it from a pole.
10:00 — Back to Saigon, three to four hours.
Fly home. Tan Son Nhat is close to the centre but the traffic is not.

Costs and practicalities

Best time to visit

There is no month that is perfect everywhere. This is the real constraint on a north-to-south fortnight.

February–April — the best overall compromise. The north is dry and warming, the centre is dry, the south is hot but fine. Sapa in February and March is cold and misty and the terraces are bare.
September–November — Sapa is at its best in September, when the terraces are gold and the harvest is on. But this is typhoon season on the central coast, and Hue and Hoi An can close for days.
May–August — Sapa is green and good, the south is in its rainy season (afternoon storms rather than washouts), and Hanoi and Hue are 35°C and humid.
December–January — Hanoi and Sapa are genuinely cold, 10–15°C with drizzle, and Ha Long can be fogged in. The south is at its best.

Tet, the lunar new year, falls in late January or February. The country closes for a week and transport sells out months ahead.

Travel tips

Pick your month around Sapa and the central coast, which are the two halves that have real bad seasons.
Print the e-visa.
Book the night train’s soft sleeper, not the hard one.
Hire a local guide in Sapa, not a Hanoi agency.
Ask for Lan Ha or Bai Tu Long on the cruise.
Take the Hai Van Pass by road, not the tunnel.
Count the zeroes on every note.
Repellent in daylight; dengue’s mosquito is a day biter.
Two nights minimum in Hoi An if you want clothes made.

What this trip actually costs

Two people, 13 nights, mid-range comfort, international flights excluded:

Item	Cost
Hotels and homestays, 12 land nights	VND 16,500,000 (≈ AED 2,366)
Ha Long overnight cruise, two people	VND 8,500,000 (≈ AED 1,219)
Internal flights and the night train, two people	VND 8,400,000 (≈ AED 1,204)
Food and drink, 14 days	VND 12,600,000 (≈ AED 1,807)
Guides, entries, Trang An, My Son and the delta	VND 7,000,000 (≈ AED 1,004)
Local transport and transfers	VND 4,000,000 (≈ AED 574)
Total for two	VND 57,000,000 (≈ AED 8,173)

Roughly VND 28,500,000 (≈ AED 4,087) per person for a fortnight covering the whole country.
The cruise and the flights are the fixed costs; almost everything else can be adjusted up or down a long way.
Vietnam is extremely cheap to eat in. Two people eat well for US$20 a day outside hotel restaurants.
Hotel picks here are chosen on location, not on commission — always check prices and recent reviews before booking.

What to pack

Walking shoes with grip for Sapa, which is mud if it has rained.
A warm layer and a waterproof — Sapa is at 1,500m and cold from November to March.
A dry bag for the kayak, the sampan and the delta.
Light, covering clothes for pagodas and the sun.
Strong repellent.
Small notes in dong, counted.
A Type A/C adapter.

FAQ

Is Sapa worth three days? If you walk, yes. If you only drive to viewpoints and come back, no — in that case spend the days in Ninh Binh and Ha Long instead.

North to south or south to north? North to south, as written. It puts the hardest travelling first and finishes somewhere warm with a short transfer to the airport.

Can I take the train the whole way instead of flying? You can — the Reunification Express runs the length of the country — and it costs you three days of the fourteen. The Hue–Da Nang coastal stretch is the one genuinely worth taking.

What is the best month for the whole route? March, on balance. The north is dry, the centre is out of typhoon season and the south is before its rains. September is better for Sapa and worse for Hoi An.

Is two weeks enough to add Phu Quoc? Only by dropping Sapa or the delta. Phu Quoc is a beach stop, and this route is already full.

Prices and entry rules change, and what you need depends on your passport; last checked 30 October 2026, so confirm with the embassy or your airline before booking.