11-Day Vietnam History Tour: Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An & Ho Chi Minh City

Overnight: Tirant Hotel, Hanoi  |  Meals: Lunch and dinner on your own  |  Guide: Guide pickup

On arrival
Welcome to Vietnam. Your HYNA guide and driver wait in the arrival hall at Noi Bai International Airport with a name sign and take you to your hotel in the heart of Hanoi, about 45 minutes away.

Afternoon
After check-in, the rest of the day is yours. Stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake and cross the red Huc Bridge, or step into the Old Quarter, a maze of 36 old streets once named for the trades practised on them, to taste some street food and feel the pulse of the capital.

Overnight: Tirant Hotel, Hanoi  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Your guide meets you at your hotel around 8:00 AM, and the day opens at Ba Dinh Square and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where President Ho Chi Minh lies in state.

Walk past the yellow Presidential Palace, his simple stilt house and the One Pillar Pagoda, rising from its pond like a lotus. The mausoleum opens in the morning and closes on Mondays, Fridays and during its yearly maintenance; on those days you see it from the square.

Next comes Tran Quoc Pagoda, the city’s oldest, its red brick tower rising from a small peninsula on West Lake.

At Train Street, the railway runs a few steps from front doors and tiny cafés.

Midday
Lunch around midday is at a local restaurant, a chance to taste northern cooking with its fresh herbs and delicate broths.

Afternoon
The Temple of Literature, Vietnam’s first university, founded in 1070, is a world of shaded courtyards, a lotus pond and stone stelae carved with the names of doctoral laureates.

Then wander the Old Quarter, each lane once home to its own craft, and watch daily life flow around Hoan Kiem Lake. You are back at your hotel by about 4:30 PM, and the evening is free for dinner at your own choice.

Overnight: Tirant Hotel, Hanoi  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Your guide and driver meet you at your hotel around 8:30 AM for the drive of about an hour and a half west of Hanoi to Duong Lam, a village known as the homeland of two Vietnamese kings. Walk its brick lanes past the old village gate, the communal house and houses built from reddish laterite stone, warm to the touch in the sun. Step inside a family home to hear how village life has carried on here for generations.

Midday
Lunch around midday is at a local restaurant in Duong Lam, before you return to Hanoi to rest.

Evening
Your guide meets you again around 5:30 PM for a food walk through the Old Quarter as the street stalls light up. Taste pho, banh mi, grilled pork with rice noodles and a sweet sticky-rice dessert, finishing with a cup of egg coffee; the tasting is your dinner. Around 8:00 PM, take your seat for a traditional water puppet show, where wooden figures dance across the water to a live orchestra, an art from the rice paddies of the Red River Delta. You are back at your hotel by about 9:00 PM.

Overnight: Silk Path Grand Hue, Hue  |  Meals: Breakfast · Lunch and dinner on your own  |  Guide: Guide for airport transfers

Morning
After breakfast, your guide accompanies you to Noi Bai International Airport for your domestic flight to Hue, the old imperial capital on the Perfume River.

On arrival
Your HYNA guide and driver meet you at Phu Bai International Airport and take you to your hotel. The rest of the day is free: walk along the Perfume River, cross Truong Tien Bridge as its lights come on, or taste Hue’s royal-style cuisine in the evening.

Overnight: Hotel Royal Hoi An – MGallery, Hoi An  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Check out after breakfast and meet your guide and driver around 8:00 AM. Pass through the massive gates of the Imperial Citadel, seat of the Nguyen emperors, as your guide brings their stories to life among the courtyards and palaces of the former royal capital. Continue to the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc, a poet king who designed this peaceful complex of pavilions and lotus ponds as a retreat long before his death.

Midday
Lunch around midday is a meal of Hue specialities at a local restaurant, from a city whose cooking was shaped by the royal court.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, drive south to Hoi An, about three and a half hours, over the Hai Van Pass, where the coastal road climbs between green mountains and the sea.

Stop at the top for photos and look down on the silver sweep of Lap An Lagoon near Lang Co. You check in at your hotel in Hoi An around 5:00 PM.

Overnight: Hotel Royal Hoi An – MGallery, Hoi An  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Your guide and driver meet you at your hotel around 7:30 AM for the drive of about one hour to My Son, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in a green valley ringed by mountains. Among the trees stand the red-brick temple towers of the ancient Champa Kingdom, built from the 7th to the 13th century and once its religious heart. Your guide explains the Hindu gods and rituals behind them, as the valley is quiet.

Midday
Lunch around midday is at a local restaurant in Hoi An.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, walk the UNESCO-listed old town, a former trading port where Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese influences meet. Mustard-yellow merchant houses line the lanes, the Japanese Covered Bridge arches over a small stream, and incense curls through the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall.

Evening
Sit down with a local artisan to stretch silk over a bamboo frame and make your own lantern to take home. Then, as the lanterns across town come alight, board a small wooden boat on the Hoai River and release a flower lantern onto the water to make a wish, one of Hoi An’s most loved traditions. You are back at your hotel by about 7:30 PM.

Overnight: Hotel Royal Hoi An – MGallery, Hoi An  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Your guide and driver meet you at your hotel around 8:00 AM. Glide through the water-coconut forest of Cam Thanh in a round basket boat, watch the boatmen spin it in dizzy circles and try casting a fishing net.

Then visit Thanh Ha, a riverside village where families have shaped clay by hand for centuries.

Midday
Lunch around midday is at a local restaurant.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, walk through the green vegetable gardens of Tra Que, fragrant with fresh herbs, where farmers still grow Hoi An’s herbs using traditional methods. Then return to the hotel to rest before the evening.

Evening
Your guide takes you to Hoi An Memories Land for the Hoi An Memories Show, which starts around 8:00 PM. A large cast retells four centuries of the town’s history on a vast riverside stage, in light, music and costume. You are back at your hotel by about 9:30 PM.

Overnight: Radisson Hotel Danang, Da Nang  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Check out after breakfast and meet your guide and driver around 8:30 AM for the drive north towards Da Nang. At the Marble Mountains, explore a cluster of marble and limestone hills hollowed with cave temples and pagodas, and climb to a viewpoint over the city and coastline.

Then step into the Museum of Cham Sculpture, home to the world’s largest collection of Cham sandstone art, where graceful dancers and many-armed gods look out from a building that blends French colonial and Cham styles.

Midday
Lunch around midday is at a local restaurant in Da Nang.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, follow the winding road up the Son Tra Peninsula to Linh Ung Pagoda, where the white Lady Buddha gazes out over Da Nang Bay.

Finish on the long white sand of My Khe Beach, lined with beachfront cafés, and feel the sea breeze. You check in at your hotel in Da Nang around 4:30 PM.

Overnight: Rex Hotel Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City  |  Meals: Breakfast · Lunch and dinner on your own  |  Guide: Guide for airport transfers

Morning
After breakfast, your guide accompanies you to Da Nang International Airport for your domestic flight to Ho Chi Minh City, the fast-moving commercial heart of the south.

On arrival
Your HYNA guide and driver meet you at Tan Son Nhat International Airport and take you to your hotel. The afternoon is at leisure: relax at the hotel, or walk to Nguyen Hue Walking Street, the Opera House and the riverside close by, where the city buzzes into the evening.

Overnight: Rex Hotel Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City  |  Meals: Breakfast, Lunch · Dinner on your own  |  Guide: Full day guide

Morning
Your guide and driver meet you at your hotel around 7:30 AM for the drive of about two hours to Cu Chi. Beneath the forest floor lies a vast underground network used during the Vietnam War. See the hidden entrances, traps and command rooms, hear how guerrillas lived below ground, and step inside a preserved section of the tunnels to feel how narrow they really are.

Midday
Back in the city, lunch around 12:30 PM is at a local restaurant.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, the War Remnants Museum tells the story of the war and its impact on ordinary people through powerful exhibitions and photographs.

Finish at the Independence Palace, the former presidential palace, where a tank crashed through the gates on 30 April 1975 and the war came to an end. You are back at your hotel by about 5:00 PM.

Overnight: —  |  Meals: Breakfast · Lunch and dinner on your own  |  Guide: Guide dropoff

Morning
Enjoy a last breakfast at your hotel and a slow final morning in Ho Chi Minh City.

Departure
Depending on your flight time, your guide accompanies you on the private transfer to Tan Son Nhat International Airport for your flight home. Thank you for travelling with HYNA. We hope the stories of Vietnam, from Hanoi’s temples to the tunnels of Cu Chi, stay with you long after you leave.