All Posts

Cở Thị Giàng is a H'Mong woman of small stature and enormous presence. She hosts Lang Thang's three-day Sa Pa Village Trek from her home in Tả Van, and what guests pay goes directly to the villagers, through her.

People come to Vietnam for the scenery. They come back for everything else. The scenery is real — Ha Long Bay's limestone karsts emerging from green water at dawn, Sapa's rice terraces stacked up the mountain in shades of green that don't seem possible, the Old Town of Hội An at night with its lanterns reflected in the Thu Bon River. These things are as beautiful as advertised. But they are not what makes Vietnam stay with you. What stays with you is the texture of dail

The most important rule of eating in Vietnam is also the simplest: go where the locals go. This sounds obvious. It is, in practice, something most visitors find surprisingly hard to do — because the places where locals eat are often unmarked, sometimes require pointing at things you can't identify, and occasionally involve sitting on a plastic stool so low your knees are at shoulder height. The tourist restaurants are easier. They have English menus, air conditioning, and s

For decades, Vietnamese food existed in the shadow of its neighbours. Thai food had the international profile. Japanese food had the prestige. Chinese food had the ubiquity. Vietnamese food was something people discovered almost by accident — at a restaurant with plastic chairs, a hand-written menu, and prices that seemed too low to be serious. Then something shifted. Partly it was Anthony Bourdain, who spent more time eating in Vietnam than almost anywhere else and told

The bánh mì is, by any reasonable measure, one of the greatest sandwiches ever made. It is also one of the most misunderstood. In its Western incarnations — the bánh mì shops that have spread to every major city from London to Los Angeles — the sandwich has been cleaned up, explained, and made comfortable. The bread is softer. The pâté is optional. The pickled daikon is served on the side. It is very good. It is not the real thing. The real thing is a study in contrast. T

There is no single best time to visit Vietnam. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't looked at a map carefully enough. Vietnam is a long, narrow country — over 1,600 kilometres from north to south — straddling two distinct monsoon systems that operate on completely different schedules. The dry season in the south coincides almost exactly with the wet season in the north. What's clear skies in Saigon can be grey drizzle in Hanoi. This is the guide we wish existed when we f

Vietnam receives over 18 million international visitors a year. Most of them mean well. Very few of them think about what their visit actually does to the places and people they've come to see. This isn't a guilt trip. It's an invitation to trave l better — because Vietnam, more than almost anywhere in Southeast Asia, rewards the traveller who slows down, looks closer, and spends their money with intention. Here's how to do it. CHOOSE LOCAL OVER INTERNATIONAL The single most