Eleven days is the length most people land on for Vietnam, and it is the length most people get wrong. The country is long. Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City is roughly 1,700 kilometres, and the standard eleven-day itinerary tries to touch both ends plus everything in the middle. What you get is four internal transfers, three hotel check-ins before 9am, and a week of feeling like you are catching up with yourself.
Here is the route we keep coming back to, and more usefully, what we cut to make it work.
The shape of it
Three bases, not six. Hanoi and the north for four nights, the central coast for three, the south for three, with the last day held loose. One internal flight, occasionally two. Everything else is ground transport that you are awake for on purpose, because the road between Hue and Da Nang is one of the good parts, not a gap between the good parts.
Days one to four: Hanoi and the north
Give Hanoi two full days before you go anywhere. The Old Quarter rewards aimlessness more than planning, and the first morning is usually a write-off to jet lag and the traffic, which takes a day to learn to read. Crossing a road in Hanoi is a skill: you walk at a constant speed and let the scooters flow around you. Stopping is what causes problems.
From Hanoi you have a choice, and it is the most consequential one in the trip. Ha Long Bay is the famous answer. Ha Giang is the better one if you have the nerve for it. Ha Long is beautiful and extremely visited, and a one-night cruise is largely a boat full of people photographing the same limestone. Ha Giang is a mountain loop near the Chinese border, three or four days of switchbacks and villages, usually done on the back of a motorbike with a local driver. It is the part of the trip people talk about a year later.
If you have eleven days, you can do Ha Giang or you can do the rest of the country. Not both. We usually suggest Ha Giang to travellers on their second Vietnam trip, and a single overnight in Ha Long or the quieter Lan Ha Bay on a first one.
Days five to seven: the centre
Fly Hanoi to Da Nang, then base yourself in Hoi An. This is the stretch where the trip slows down and should be allowed to.
Hoi An’s old town is a lantern-lit pedestrian zone that is genuinely lovely at 7am and genuinely crowded at 7pm. Most people experience only the second version. Getting up early here changes the town completely, and it is the single highest-return decision in the itinerary.
Between Hue and Da Nang runs the Hai Van Pass, a coastal mountain road that used to be the only route north and is now bypassed by a tunnel. Take the pass. Take it by car with a driver if the motorbike is not your thing. It is an hour of switchbacks above the South China Sea and it is worth building a morning around.
Days eight to ten: the south
Fly to Ho Chi Minh City. The city is faster, hotter and more commercial than Hanoi, and two nights is usually right. The War Remnants Museum is difficult and worth doing early in the day rather than late, when you will want somewhere quiet afterwards.
The Mekong Delta day trips out of the city vary enormously in quality. The mass-market version involves a coach, a coconut-candy workshop and a forty-minute boat ride. The version worth doing is an overnight in Can Tho or Ben Tre, up at 5am for a floating market that is a working wholesale market rather than a performance for visitors.
What we cut
Sapa, almost always. It is a long way from Hanoi, it is frequently in cloud, and the town itself has been built up hard. If you want northern mountains and hill villages, Ha Giang does it better.
Nha Trang, usually. It is a perfectly good beach city that does not distinguish itself on a first trip, and it eats a transfer day.
And the fourth base. Whatever the fourth base is, cutting it is almost always the right call.
The coffee stop
Vietnamese coffee deserves a morning rather than a queue. The robusta is strong and often served with condensed milk; in Hanoi, egg coffee is the local specialty and better than it sounds, a meringue-like custard over hot coffee. The habit to copy is the sitting: low plastic stools on the pavement, a glass of iced tea alongside, no hurry. Build one morning around doing nothing else and you will understand the country better than another museum would teach you.
Practical notes
Vietnam’s entry requirements for Indian passport holders have changed several times in recent years, including the e-visa system and its validity period. Check the current rule on the official Vietnamese immigration portal close to your travel date rather than relying on a blog, including this one.
The domestic flight network is good and cheap. Trains are slower but scenic on the central stretch. Book internal flights early; they rise sharply near the date.
Weather splits the country. The north is cold and damp in winter, the centre has a distinct rainy season through autumn, and the south is warm year round. There is no month that is perfect everywhere, which is another argument for three bases rather than six.