Vietnam north to south — how to plan 2 weeks

Vietnam is long — about 1,650 kilometres from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City as the crow flies, and considerably longer as the country actually winds. Two weeks sounds like plenty until you start factoring in overnight buses, airport queues, and the afternoon you lose because you found a bowl of bún bò Huế so good you ordered a second one and then sat there for an hour not feeling bad about it at all. The classic north-to-south route is absolutely doable in 14 days, but it rewards the traveller who makes hard choices early rather than trying to squeeze in everything and rushing through all of it.

The route most people land on — Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, a flight south to Hoi An, then Ho Chi Minh City with a Mekong day trip — isn't just popular because it's marketed well. It's popular because it genuinely is the best version of a two-week Vietnam trip. What follows is how to actually structure it, what the transport decisions look like in practice, and where to eat in each city before you even think about a museum.

Vietnam's e-visa covers most nationalities and costs around $25 USD. Apply at least a week before you travel — the official government portal (evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn) is the one to use, not the third-party sites that charge double and add no value. Processing usually takes three business days but allow more buffer if you're travelling over a Vietnamese public holiday. The e-visa is single-entry and valid for 90 days, which is more than enough for this trip.

At the airport, skip the roaming plan and buy a local SIM. Viettel and Vietnamobile both sell tourist SIMs at arrival halls in Hanoi's Noi Bai and HCMC's Tan Son Nhat for around 150,000–200,000 VND (roughly $6–8 USD). You'll get a month of data — usually 20GB or more — which covers the whole trip. Having data matters here: Grab (the regional Uber equivalent) is how you'll navigate every city, and it works far better than flagging taxis.

Three days in Hanoi is the right number. Less and you're skimming; more and you've run out of structured things to do and are just pleasantly wandering, which is fine but harder to justify when Hoi An is waiting. Base yourself in or just outside the Old Quarter — it's genuinely the right neighbourhood, not just the tourist one. The streets are narrow and named after the guilds that once occupied them (Hang Gai for silk, Hang Bac for silver), and even after a few days the grid starts to make a strange kind of sense.

Food is the real reason to give Hanoi its three days. Breakfast is a non-negotiable ritual here: phở from a street cart before 8am, specifically bún chả for lunch (the grilled pork and noodle dish that Barack Obama famously ate with Anthony Bourdain on Bún Chả Hương Liên, which has since leaned hard into that legacy but still serves a solid bowl). Egg coffee — cà phê trứng — at Café Giang on Nguyên Hữu Huân is not a gimmick; it's a genuinely good drink. The Temple of Literature and Hoan Kiem Lake are both worth your time. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is worth seeing for the sheer strangeness of it, but check opening hours carefully — it closes frequently for maintenance.

Ha Long Bay is one of those places that photographs can't actually oversell. Two days on a junk boat — overnight, departing from Hanoi on day four, returning day five — is the format that works. You don't need three nights; the second full day starts to feel repetitive. Budget boats leave from the port at Hon Gai or Bai Chay and cost around $80–120 USD per person for two days/one night. Mid-range operators like Indochina Junk or Paradise Cruises run $150–250 and include smaller group sizes, better food, and kayaking that actually gets you into the limestone caves rather than watching from a distance. It's worth the step up if the budget allows.

The logistics: most cruise operators run pickup from your Hanoi hotel at around 7:30–8am, and you're back in Hanoi by mid-afternoon on day five. Don't plan anything ambitious for day five evening — you'll be salt-aired and content, and that's the right state to book a flight south.

This is the one transport decision that actually matters. From Hanoi, you have three realistic options to reach Hoi An (technically Da Nang, the nearest airport): fly, take the Reunification Express train, or take an overnight sleeper bus. Here's the honest calculus.

Flying takes about 1.5 hours and costs $30–70 USD on VietJet or Bamboo Airways if you book a few weeks out. It's the right call for most two-week travellers — you save roughly 14–18 hours compared to the train, and Vietnam's domestic flight network is reliable enough. The train is genuinely scenic (the Hai Van Pass section is spectacular), but Hanoi to Da Nang is 14–16 hours. Do it if you have extra time or a genuine love of train travel; skip it if you're trying to make 14 days work. The overnight sleeper bus costs around $15–20 USD and sounds appealing until you're seven hours in on a mountain road. Unless you're on a very tight budget, fly.

Four nights in Hoi An. This is the right number and it's probably more than people expect to allocate. The Ancient Town — a UNESCO-listed grid of lantern-strung trading houses and tailor shops built over 500 years — takes a full day to walk properly. The beaches at An Bang and Cua Dai are twenty minutes by bicycle and genuinely nice. But the actual reason to stay four nights is the food, which is categorically some of the best in a country that already sets an extremely high bar.

Eat cao lầu on your first night — a Hoi An-specific noodle dish made with water supposedly drawn from a local well, with chewy noodles and pork crackling and greens. Eat white rose dumplings (bánh bao vạc) at Bà Buội, which has been making them for decades. Take a cooking class if that's something you're into; the market-to-kitchen format most operators run is genuinely good fun and you'll actually cook dishes you can reproduce at home. One note on Da Nang: it's 30 kilometres north and easy to day-trip to, but unless you specifically want to ride a motorbike through the Hai Van Pass or visit the Marble Mountains, there's no reason to go. Hoi An's beaches are just as good, with a fraction of the development.

Fly from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City — another short hop, around an hour, same budget airlines. Two full days in HCMC is workable if you're honest about what it is: a sprawling, fast, slightly overwhelming city that rewards energy and curiosity rather than quiet contemplation. District 1 is where most visitors stay and it's fine, though the backpacker area around Bùi Viện Street is loud and aggressively touristy. The War Remnants Museum is genuinely important to visit — difficult, well-curated, and worth two hours of your attention. The Reunification Palace is also interesting for the sheer time-capsule quality of its interiors.

Food in HCMC swings southern: sweeter, more herb-heavy, with bánh mì at its absolute best. Bánh Mì Phương is the famous one (there's a branch in HCMC, though the original is in Hoi An); Bánh Mì Huỳnh Hoa on Lý Tự Trọng Street is arguably better. Bến Thành market is touristy but the surrounding streets have good street food if you walk a block or two in any direction. Spend one evening in District 3 rather than District 1 — quieter, more neighbourhood-feeling, with good restaurants and bars that locals actually use.

Most visitors do the Mekong as a day trip from HCMC, which gets you to the tourist-oriented sections near My Tho or Ben Tre — floating markets, coconut candy factories, boat rides through narrow canals. It's pleasant and worth doing, though be aware that the floating markets are quieter than they used to be as commerce has shifted to roads. The better version, if you have the flexibility, is staying overnight in Can Tho — the largest city in the delta, with a genuinely active floating market at Cai Rang that starts around 5am. A one-night stay in Can Tho adds real texture. The bus from HCMC takes about three hours; the return trip gets you back in time for your last HCMC evening.

If you're tight on time or energy, the standard day trip from HCMC is still worthwhile. Book through your hotel or a reputable operator like Trails of Indochina or Buffalo Tours — the $15 group tours that leave from Bùi Viện Street are fine logistically but tend to rush and focus on the same photo stops.

Tan Son Nhat Airport is congested. Add more time than you think you need — at least three hours for international departures. Traffic from District 1 in the morning can easily take 45–60 minutes even without incidents. Grab is reliable, but surge pricing kicks in during peak hours. Ask your hotel to call a taxi through their reception if you're leaving before 7am.

The reason this itinerary works is that it never tries to be comprehensive. Vietnam has 63 provinces, a coastline that stretches nearly 3,500 kilometres, and enough regional food variation to justify a month in any single area. Two weeks north to south isn't Vietnam — it's an introduction to three or four distinct versions of it. What makes the difference between a trip that feels rushed and one that feels full isn't how many cities you visit; it's how much you eat, walk, and sit still in the ones you choose.

The trade-offs are real: you're skipping Sapa, Ninh Binh, Mui Ne, Phu Quoc, and the central highlands entirely. That's fine. Those are different trips. This one has a shape that actually holds across two weeks — and if you want a framework that lays out the day-by-day structure, accounts for the domestic flights, and leaves space for the second bowl of bún chả you definitely didn't plan for, that's exactly what Daypin builds.