Hanoi vs Ho Chi Minh City: North or South Vietnam First?

Vietnam runs about 1,650 kilometres from the Mekong Delta to the Chinese border, and the two ends of the country do not feel like the same place. If you are weighing up Hanoi vs Ho Chi Minh City, or trying to work out whether to spend your time in north or south Vietnam, that call shapes the trip more than the number of days on the calendar.

Here is how the three regions actually differ on landscape, pace, weather and food, and which part of the country each of our Vietnam tours covers.

Travelling Vietnam with One Life

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Ho Chi Minh City does not ease you in. Motorbikes move in a constant river, the markets open early, and the streets around Bui Vien stay loud well past midnight. This is the busiest, hottest and most modern corner of the country, and it is where both of our Classic tours begin.

The south is also the most predictable part of Vietnam for weather. It stays warm year round rather than swinging between seasons, so it rarely dictates when you travel the way the north can.

What the south does not give you is much ground. On most itineraries Ho Chi Minh City is the gateway rather than the destination, which means two or three days at the start of a trip that then heads steadily north. If the south were the only part of Vietnam you saw, you would have seen the least representative part of it.

• Markets, street food and the Bui Vien nightlife strip
• The most consistent warm weather in the country
• A loud, fast opening to a trip
• Two to three days on both Classic itineraries

Bui Vien walking street in Ho Chi Minh City, where both Classic tours start

The middle of the country is where the pace drops and the history deepens. Hoi An is a former trading port of yellow walls and silk lanterns, known for its tailors and for the lantern boats that fill the river at dusk. Two hours north over the Hai Van Pass, Hue was the seat of the Nguyen dynasty, and its Imperial Citadel and royal tombs are still the reason most travellers stop.

This is also the food region. Hue has its own distinct court cuisine, built on small, fiddly dishes that reward being taught rather than just ordered, which is why the cooking class here tends to be the thing people remember rather than the thing they sit through.

Central Vietnam is also where the weather changes hands. Our guides on this route will tell you that Hai Van Pass is the real border in Vietnam, not anything drawn on a map, and they have the anecdotes to back it up. Groups regularly set off from Hoi An in full sun and come down the far side of the pass into Hue under low cloud on the same afternoon.

• Hoi An's old town, lanterns and tailoring
• Hue's Imperial Citadel and royal tombs
• Cooking classes and Hue's court cuisine
• The Hai Van Pass, Vietnam's traditional weather divide

Hoi An after dark, where the lanterns go up over the river every evening

The Imperial Citadel in Hue, seat of the Nguyen dynasty

The north is where most of a Vietnam trip actually happens, and where the scenery people picture when they imagine the country actually is. Bai Tu Long Bay sits alongside the better known Ha Long Bay with the same limestone karsts rising out of the water and a fraction of the boats. Inland, Pu Luong and Sa Pa are terraced valleys, water wheels and hill villages, and the walking here is real walking rather than a stroll between photo stops.

Pu Luong is the one most people have never heard of before they book. It is a nature reserve of bamboo forest, rice terraces and homestays a few hours south of Hanoi, and the walk down to Hieu Waterfall to swim and eat lunch is the sort of afternoon that ends up in the review rather than the brochure.

Hanoi itself is older and denser than Ho Chi Minh City, built around a lake and a knot of trade streets rather than boulevards. It is the finishing point of both Classic tours and the base for the Snapshot.

The north is the one region where timing genuinely matters. It has proper seasons, and at altitude around Sa Pa it gets cold enough to want a jacket in a way the rest of the country never does. Our guide to things to know before travelling to Vietnam has the seasonal detail if you are picking dates.

• Bai Tu Long Bay and Ha Long Bay, best seen by boat and kayak
• Pu Luong's bamboo forest, homestays and Hieu Waterfall
• Rice terraces and hill villages at Sa Pa
• Hanoi's old quarter, street food and train street
• Cooler air, real seasons and the country's best trekking

Lunch at Hieu Waterfall in Pu Luong, the first northern stop on both Classic tours and the one nobody arrives expecting

Kayaking in Bai Tu Long Bay, the quieter neighbour of Ha Long Bay

Trekking the rice terraces of the Muong Hoa Valley outside Sa Pa

Hanoi's train street. Note the jackets, which you will not be needing further south

Hanoi vs Ho Chi Minh City

If the decision has narrowed to the two big cities, they are less alike than the map suggests.

Ho Chi Minh City is the newer of the two and behaves like it. It is bigger, hotter, more commercial and considerably louder, with wide colonial boulevards, a serious coffee culture and a nightlife strip that makes no attempt to be anything else. Everything moves at the speed of the traffic.

Hanoi is around a thousand years older and feels compressed rather than sprawling. The old quarter is a grid of narrow streets, each one historically given over to a single trade, and plenty of Vietnamese will tell you the food here is the best in the country. Winter also genuinely arrives, which surprises people who packed for the tropics.

The practical answer, though, is that most travellers do not choose. Both Classic tours start in Ho Chi Minh City and finish in Hanoi, so the two cities become the bookends of the trip rather than the decision. The real question is whether you also want Sa Pa on the end.

How demanding is each region

The three regions ask different things of you physically.

South and Central Vietnam are mostly flat and mostly town based. Cycling around Hoi An, kayaking the river at Cam Thanh and walking Hue's citadel grounds sit at a low to medium physical rating, with plenty of free afternoons built in.

The north is where that rating climbs. Trekking around Sa Pa involves steep descents that turn slick after rain, and past guests consistently recommend proper hiking shoes rather than trainers. Pu Luong is gentler but still adds up to a full day on your feet.

Travel days are the other thing worth knowing before you commit. Vietnam is long and narrow, and crossing it means overnight sleeper trains and some long road legs. Travellers who enjoy the trip tend to treat the trains as part of it. Travellers who do not say so plainly in their reviews, so it is worth being honest with yourself about which one you are.

Which tour covers which part of Vietnam

There is no south-only Vietnam tour, and that is deliberate. Two days in Ho Chi Minh City on its own would not be much of a trip. Both Classic tours run the length of the country from south to north, and the only real decision is how far north you want to go.

Common questions