Vietnam family holiday

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15 Days excluding flights

More info:All prices are per person, based on a family of 4. The exact itinerary will be tailored and the price may fluctuate, depending on hotels and activities. Discounts are available for children, depending on their age and room configuration. No min age.

Tailor made

“This jam-packed, tailor made holiday to Vietnam takes care of all the whats, wheres and whens, leaving you to focus on the two most important 'f's: family and fun.”

Highlights

Description of Vietnam family holiday

This two week, Vietnam family holiday takes you on an adventure from top to tail, or vice versa, with an array of stunning scenery, cultural sites and delicious regional dishes to keep your family wide eyed and active all holiday long. As this itinerary is possible from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, or in the opposite direction, you can tailor make your tour to suit your wishes with guided cyclo (bicycle rickshaw) tours around the old districts bound to kick start your holiday as you mean to go on.

If you’re starting in the northern capital of Hanoi then the karst landscapes of Halong Bay are an inevitable next destination with kayaking, swimming and boat tours around limestone caves offering a really exciting and sometimes surreal experience for nature loving families. Northern Vietnam is also renowned for its mountainous jungles where hill tribes live and local villages can be found surrounded by rice terraces and paddy fields. Continue south and the centrally located cities of Hoi An and Hue take you back in time where tailors, tombs and tales of the last emperors add to the enjoyment of days spent exploring nearby stretches of white sandy beaches. A short distance from Ho Chi Minh City is the Mekong Delta which takes you into a watery world of long tail boats, homestays with island communities and bike rides along the industrious riverbanks.

Whichever way you choose to experience Vietnam on this family holiday, a warm welcome from the local people is practically guaranteed as well as a cultural adventure that can be as active, relaxing or as downright exciting as you want it to be.

Travel Team

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one we're very happy to help. The Travel Team.

01273 823 700 Calling from outside the UK? rosy@responsibletravel.com

Departure information

This trip can be tailor made throughout the year to suit your requirements

Our top tip:

Northern Vietnam is beautiful, but hilly, so take this into account for little legs.

Trip type:

Tailor made to your budget and preferences.

Activity level:

Leisurely.

Accomm:

12 nights 3*-4* hotels.

Solos:

This is a family holiday, but single rooms are available for a surcharge.

Meals:

12 breakfasts, 4 lunches, 1 dinner.

Included:

Accommodation, transfers, listed activities, guides, entrance fees.

Overview:

We believe that travel is for everyone. This is a really core principle for us and we passionately believe that where there’s a will there’s a way. We take all ages and all levels of fitness and we do everything possible to ensure that our tours are accessible for everyone, irrespective of physical ability or cognitive conditions. In our experience, there is almost always a way of making a tour suitable for everyone. It’s conceivable that there may be some situations that we can’t accommodate but we haven’t come across them yet!

Limited mobility:

Everything that we do is tailor made so if we have guests with limited mobility, for example, we will tailor the programme to take this into account, and will suggest hotels which will suit. Just let us know what your requirements are and we can talk you through the options

Wheelchair:

In most of our destinations, it is not possible to arrange a special vehicle adapted for wheelchairs, but we are able to arrange a large vehicle which will have ample storage for a wheelchair. Some hotels have wheelchair access; these may be few and far between but we can suggest where these might be possible. Where there is no wheel chair access, but not too many steps, hotel staff are always happy to help with lifting the wheel chair.

Blind/ limited vision:

All of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be able to provide necessary assistance to a traveller with limited vision. Information in braille is almost never available but local support can be provided, for example ensuring that porters are available to carry luggage in airports / train stations / hotels so that the travel partner is free to assist the person with limited vision.

Deaf/limited hearing:

As stated above, all of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be able to provide necessary assistance to a traveller with limited hearing.

Cognitive conditions:

We have experience in providing appropriate spaces for all travellers, whether this means hotels with access to outdoor space, ground floor rooms, quiet rooms and so on. As all of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be also be on hand to provide necessary one on one assistance to a traveller with cognitive conditions as required.

About this Free from food:

If guests have serious dietary issues (or allergies) we will arrange translations into the relevant local language(s) to explain these, and will brief guides to ensure that appropriate food is served.

LGBT:

The staff who are responsible for running our tours will always be LGBT friendly. Many of the destinations in which we operate do not offer equal rights to the LGBT community, and outward displays of affection may be problematic. We will be able to give advice on this on a country by country basis.

Vouchers

Accepted

Responsible tourism

As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we screen every trip so you can travel knowing your holiday will help support conservation and local people.

All of our tours in Vietnam are run in conjunction with a local partner which has been chosen partly because they provide a fantastic service but also because they share our environmental and social goals.
As an example, the more demanding (and longer) treks that we arrange in the north of Vietnam operate with strict environmental guidelines, for example we take all plastic water bottles away from the areas that we pass through rather than leaving them behind to litter host communities. Our trekking guides also ensure that travellers behave in an environmentally responsible manner, for example ensuring that no soap or detergent products are used in local water courses when travellers are refreshing themselves.
Throughout Vietnam we try to use small locally owned hotels that have been built and furnished using local materials.
Our UK office is run as environmentally as possible. The majority of our staff either walk or cycle to work and we operate a primarily paper free environment. We do not produce brochures (which often leads to a lot of waste) but market our tours exclusively on the internet.

The Impacts of this Trip

As mentioned above, our partners in Vietnam have been chosen partly because they share our responsible travel ethos. One of the main issues facing tourism in Vietnam involves the exploitation of some hilltribe communities. We have been working closely with our partners to ensure that all of our visits are carefully controlled to ensure that they bring about a positive rather than negative impact on host communities. As an example we try to 'share out' the hosting experience amongst different families where possible, to ensure that tourist revenue is spread evenly within a village and not just concentrated with one family.

We also advise travellers on how to behave appropriately when travelling to rural villages. This also applies more generally on our trips in Vietnam as our programmes are usually escorted by local guides who are on hand to provide local advice on behaviour, for example to ensure that people take off their shoes when visiting temples and tombs.

Environment

Community

The Impacts of this Trip

Climate

6 Reviews of Vietnam family holiday

4.5 out of 5 stars

SHOW

Reviewed on 24 Aug 2019 by Kay Wan

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

It is hard to say as all of our Vietnam holiday was so fantastic and special!
The scenery and nature in all locations was stunning. The rowing boat tour in
Trang An in Ninh Binh was a particularly exciting and spectacular experience! Ninh Binh is a beautiful place to cycle around in and the uphill hike up Hang Mua was very rewarding, like the Great Wall of Vietnam!

The caves at Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park were breathtaking and my 8yo daughter’s favourite. She loved the adventure of exploring the dark cave (and mud bath) and the water playground with zip lines etc. We only had 2 days there but you can take the 4 day trek if you are a fan of caving.

We think Pu Luong Nature Reserve is a lovely alternative to Sapa. It was a peaceful place and not touristy. The Pu Luong retreat is a very special place
with its infinity pool and lovely restaurant. It was hot and hard hiking in the rice terraces but beautiful views.

The overnight sleeper train from Hanoi to Dong Hoi was exciting and it was
interesting to look out the trains window as we were leaving the city!

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

If you’re going to Phong Nha and wanting to take the main zip line to the
dark cave, be aware that the minimum weight is 30kg. My daughter was disappointed to miss out on this because she was too light but there were smaller zip lines she went on.

We originally had 2 nights booked on the Paloma cruise on Halong Bay but
because of stormy weather, we had to change to 1 night. This was enough and
we still got to visit a beach, go sea kayaking and take a boat trip to see a
fishing village. We actually think 2 nights might even be too long on the cruise, although the cruise itself is great and we enjoyed the food and service.

You need to tip the local people who help you, so it’s a good idea to plan roughly how much to tip. We brought too much Vietnamese dong in the end as we didn’t factor in how much cheaper it would be and many of our meals were provided anyway. You can get a bowl of pho for £2.

In Hoi An you may want to get an outfit made. I recommend a little place called
Life, 313 Nguyen Duy Hieu - Hoi An. They made me a beautiful jumpsuit in
less than a day for $28, much cheaper than the main shop everyone seems to
go to called Bebe.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

We always tipped our guides, drivers, porters and rowers. We were glad to
stay in homestays rather than hotels as this was more directly beneficial to
local people and we also enjoyed talking to homestay staff who were very
hospitable. The homestays were very comfortable and clean.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Excellent! The company did a great job in organising a wonderful itinerary
which allowed us a perfect balance of active adventure, nature and city
highlights. They were responsive and helpful from the start and we highly recommend them for family holidays.

The local tour guides were excellent! They were very helpful, informative
and friendly and we didn’t have to worry about anything during the trip as
we felt in safe hands! We particularly enjoyed having the lovely and excellent
Tuan with us for the first 8 days of our trip. He swiftly dealt with the unexpected change in our itinerary (due to the storm) and things worked out even better for us in the end with an extra day being active in Ninh Binh.

Reviewed on 08 Jan 2019 by Pritham Tanno

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

The cruise on Ha Long Bay was a great family activity for everyone.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Be prepared for loud parties if you plan on booking over the New Year. Also, it was much colder than we had anticipated.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

I only felt that one activity (the biking the backstreets and spring roll lesson)directly benefited local people. The other activities were quite touristy and
almost like Disneyland.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

We all enjoyed the safe and comfort of having a private tour. It was very well managed.

Reviewed on 06 Aug 2019 by Caroline Wilkinson

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

Immersing ourselves in the local culture and markets. Meeting local families and
learning about their traditions.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Be prepared for the humidity and wear loose clothing - this is the summer months. Do not worry about mosquitoes. Embrace the culture and the local food.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Our holiday did benefit local people. Tourism is very important to the nation and
Manh people are employed in the industry. They also depend on tips. Local families working as host families for cooking sessions for example also benefit. Their economy is now growing as a result of tourism. We travelled with a local tour operator who employ many people.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

The holiday was an exciting adventure for all the family. We saw a lot of the country in one trip but be prepared for a lot of travelling. The trip was varied
and kept us interested; this is important when meeting the needs of different family members. It is a culturally diverse trip and educational at the same time. Had we more time we would have liked to have visited Sa Pa in the far
North of Vietnam. The reason I have given 4 stars and not 5 is because we were slightly disappointed that we could not do swimming whilst in Halong Bay and would have liked more swimming opportunities.

Reviewed on 20 Sep 2017 by Muriel Jerome

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

The whole holiday was memorable. We very much enjoyed the food tour in Hanoi, the bike rides, the cruise on Halong Bay and the home stay in the natural reserve of Pu Luong.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

If you are hesitating to go to Vietnam for a family holiday, don't! It is an amazing country. We have been very well looked after from the moment we contacted the travel agency. The guides in the country were very friendly and knowledgeable and always adapted to the needs of our family.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Definitely. All our guides and drivers were locals. We spent 3 days in a homestay which benefited the local family. The company chosen for the cruise was environmentally friendly and is following a programme to clean the bay.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

It was an amazing holiday. I want to start it all again.

Reviewed on 30 Apr 2017 by Sarah Marsh

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

The whole trip was amazing from beginning to end. Our tour operator were superb.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Yes boat trip in Halong Bay did its to help local environment and all our visits benefitted local people

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Excellent we are really inspired to do another trip

Reviewed on 11 Apr 2015 by Angela Reid

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

Walking in the hills in North Vetnam, really connected with the people off the tourist trails. Stunning.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Be prepared for simple accommodation and reasonably hard walking. Although not very long walks, about 15km in a day it can get quite hot and hilly. Wish I was fitter.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Yes, staying with families and local businesses is very important to the development of the tourist industry. Always ate in small restaurants.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Very highly, well planned, great guides and the logistics were perfect.