My Vietnam & Cambodia Itinerary

Want to Walk in My Footsteps? Here’s the Path I Took in Southeast Asia

When I traveled to Vietnam, it was the second major international vacation I planned, after having traveled to Iceland a year prior. I’d traveled internationally before, but I’d never put together an itinerary with a bunch of tours, multiple hotels, and flights all over the place.

When I visited England, I pretty much just winged it and hoped everything would come out okay in the end (it did). The trip to Iceland involved a fair amount of planning, but not nearly the amount of timing and traveling and arrangements that Vietnam required.

I was definitely somewhat nervous before our Vietnam trip began, since I was really unsure whether all the planning I put into it would work out. In all, we boarded eight planes, stayed in four hotels, rode in several taxis, and took at least a dozen guided tours throughout our week+ in Vietnam and Cambodia. Looking back on it, the only thing I would have changed was the length of it. I definitely would have stayed a few days more in Vietnam and also lengthened our stay in Cambodia.

But now that it’s all done and since the whole thing went so smoothly, I’m sharing my itinerary, as well as explanations as to why I made certain decisions about our tickets, the experiences I booked, and the cities we visited.

You’ll probably want to modify this itinerary and enhance it with your own ideas, but you should be able to take the basic skeleton of this itinerary and fashion it into your own perfect Vietnam itinerary.

I’m writing this in 2024 after having traveled to Vietnam in March of 2023. Some of the tours I have listed here may eventually become unavailable; however, if you’re keen on visiting the same places I did, please know that there are many alternatives with other tour groups – just conduct a search on Viator or Get Your Guide, which are the two sites where I book many of my activities – yes, I’m also an affiliate of both of these sites!

(note: some of the links here are to websites with which I am an affiliate, and your purchases help fund my website!)

Day One + Day Two: Traveling to Southeast Asia

The first day, as well as a day eaten up by the International Dateline, were spent traveling from Los Angeles, California, USA to our first destination in Vietnam, the small town of Hội An.

We departed at 10:45 at night on Friday from Los Angeles and after a plane change in Taiwan and a short flight on a regional airline (the photo you see above), we reached Hội An around 4:00 PM (16:00) on Sunday.

Note that I said we left on Friday and arrived on Sunday. When you travel across the Pacific and venture all the way from North America to Asia, you cross the international dateline, which is where the date jumps ahead by one day.

Don’t worry though. You get this day back when you travel back to North America. If you’re traveling from similarly far away places – like London to Ho Chi Min City or something like that, the transit time may cause you to raise some serious eyebrow.

We took China Airlines for our trip across the Pacific and then flew on VietJet Air from Ho Chi Min City (one of the major international airports in Vietnam) to Da Nang. From there, we took a taxi to Hội An, which was about a 30 minute drive south from the airport.

Hội An is definitely a popular tourist destination, and I chose it instead of Da Nang for our stay because I found an awesome bike ride tour of the countryside that left from the village, and I also wanted to stroll up and down the night market there.

In fact, on our first night in town and despite a bit of jet lag, we walked to the night market and scored some amazing food (my traveling partner got a sandwich and I ate some noodles).

Day Three: Bicycle Tour of Hội An Countryside and My Son Sanctuary

On the third day of our vacation, which was actually the first full day where we weren’t on an airline or crossing an ocean, we went on a bike ride of the countryside around Hội An, and we also toured the My Son Sanctuary, which is an ancient temple complex with some absolutely incredible buildings.

My traveling partner and I are relatively fit, so I took the opportunity to arrange a bicycle tour (it was a private tour, and our guide was wonderful), which had us riding about 15 miles through the countryside.

Some of the awesome things we got to see included some old French-influenced buildings from when the French government was still a big influence in the country, as well as a local market with an incredible array of fruit and the best “Vietnamese pancakes” I ever ate. Seriously, the woman who made them should be knighted, sainted, or have some sort of honor placed on her shoulders.

One thing to note is that the tour operator recommended that we avoid shorts and revealing tops. The weather wasn’t too bad since it was only March, and I actually fared just fine without our traditional t-shirts and tank tops. When you travel internationally, you’ll often encounter some societal rules that differ from the ones you’re used to in your home country.

At the end of the day, we walked down to the night market again for food. On the second night in town, we went to a sit-down restaurant and ate more noodles. I ate a lot of noodles in Vietnam. And they were delicious, every time.

Day Four: Marble Mountains Tour + Flight to Hanoi

On our next day in Vietnam, we took a private tour throughout some of the historical and cultural sites around Da Nang. We were picked up at our hotel, the beautiful and peaceful Linh Hoi An, by our tour guide and the driver, who proceeded to drive us into Da Nang via a coastal route.

It was pretty amazing how many new buildings were under construction along the coast. As Vietnam has increased in popularity for travelers, more and more people have started vacationing in Da Nang.

Although we were picked up at our hotel in Hoi An for our tour, the day wasn’t spent sitting down in a bus or car. At each location we visited, we hiked up hills, explored major monuments, and climbed up steep staircases.

Many of the activities I book when I travel have us walking, riding, or doing something active during the day, which I find helps us get a great night’s sleep when we get back to the hotel.

Getting over jetlag is difficult when you’re traveling to the other side of the planet, and returning to your hotel at night in an exhausted state can help you acclimate to the different schedule pretty quickly because you’ll fall asleep so quickly.Since our tour guide picked us up very early in the morning and our tour was a half-day schedule, I arranged for us to travel to our next city that evening. The flight was an easy one from the airport in Da Nang to Hanoi that only took about an hour and got us into Hanoi around 9:00 PM (21:00).

Or, well, it was supposed to land about 9:00 PM. Our flight to Hanoi was delayed by more than an hour, but the driver who would take us from the Hanoi airport to our hotel was kind enough to wait for us.

Day Five: Tour of Bai Dinh, Trang An, and the Mua Caves

Our fifth day of travel featured an incredible tour of many amazing historical and natural locations outside Hanoi. We were picked up right in front of our hotel, the amazing and lovely Hanoi Flora Hotel.

When I initially planned our itinerary, I had us walking to a coffee shop before our tour was scheduled to pick us up. However, the hotel had an amazing spread for breakfast, so we decided to eat at the hotel that morning – and we did every day after!

I often choose tours where it’s just me, my traveling partner, and our guide, but the tour on day five occurred with a group of other travelers, our bus driver (well, it was like a large van actually), and our tour guide.

One of the reasons I loved this tour is that it kept us active all day (yes, that link is the actual tour we took – I highly recommend it; it was such a wonderful day! One of the best of our entire trip.).

During our day-long tour, we rode bicycles through the countryside, took a boat trip through some caves (the picture above is from the boat trip – we were in a little rowboat for it, just an amazing experience), and climbed a ton of stairs for a panoramic view of the countryside.

One of the great features of the tour was that one of the sites we were scheduled to visit was overloaded with tourists, so our tour guide proposed an alternative temple complex, which everyone in our traveling party accepted. The day was pretty long, so I was thankful I booked our stay at a nice hotel in Hanoi, which was super comfortable and quiet on a high floor.

Day Six: Boat Tour of Ha Long Bay

One of the most popular things for tourists who visit Hanoi is a boat tour of Ha Long Bay, which is off the coast and filled with huge rock formations and caves.

There are dozens of tour operators, and we chose one that would feed us on the boat ride over there. Many of the tours also pass by a touristy place where you can get a snack and buy a pearl that was fished up somewhere along the coast.

I definitely bought two pairs of pearl earrings because I’m weak and needed them. Well, no, I wanted them, and I plunked my credit card down without hesitation. I usually buy one item for myself when traveling (usually, my main souvenirs are my photos), and the pearls were a little more expensive than I was used to spending… but totally worth it! Sometimes, you have to get a little creative with budgeting on your international trip, and I decided to allocate my entire souvenir budget to these earrings.

It took at least 90 minutes to get to the boats, but with the stop off at the pearl place, it wasn’t too difficult for bathroom timing. Once we got on the boat, we sat down next to one of the only native English-speaking families we saw while traveling. They were a group of (stereotypically) super duper nice Canadians.

The boat eventually pushed off from the docks and took us throughout Ha Long Bay. We were fed during the journey and eventually got to get out of the big boat and take a smaller dingy type boat around some of the rock formations.

After the dingy ride, we loaded back up into the big boat and went to a cave, where we walked a bunch of steps and walked through some incredible formations inside a giant cave. Huge, just huge!

After the caves, we went to a small island where tons of tourists were baking in the sun on the beach. My traveling partner and I decided to climb a huge staircase, so we could get some cool shots from an elevated position. The two final photographs you see in this blog are from that climb.

The day was quite long, and we didn’t get back to Hanoi until well after dark, but again, it was a full day of fun activities and different experiences. It’s almost a requirement that you need to see Halong Bay during your Vietnam trip.

Day Seven: Walking around Hanoi and Flight to Cambodia

I arranged for an evening flight to Cambodia on day seven, so we’d have some time to walk around Hanoi before we departed. I arranged for late check-out with our hotel, the beautiful Hanoi Flora Hotel, which was not a problem though we did need to check out by 3:00 (15:00), so they could do up the room for the next guests.

I often arrange for late check-out or early check-in when traveling. The times for trains and flights don’t always perfectly match up with the check-in times for hotels, and it doesn’t hurt to ask if you can arrive early or depart late.

In some instances, the hotel doesn’t even make you pay anything extra, but I’m always willing to pay a little more for the service, if they say “yes” but with a fee. It really does cut down on the inconvenience of wandering around with luggage when you can check-in at your hotel, leave your luggage, and go exploring without dragging a bag around.

Totally worth a few extra dollars, pesos, Euros, or whatever local currency you’re using.

Looking back on this day, I probably could have arranged for a morning tour, but I chose it as a day to simply stroll around and experience morning without constraints. So, we filled up on coffee and strolled around on a day that was slightly misty and rainy.

The picture you see above there is (according to my traveling partner) the best banh mi sandwich place in Hanoi, so definitely check it out if you’re ever in the area.

Day Eight: Tour of Angkor Wat Temple Complex

The flight on the evening of day seven that took us from Hanoi in Vietnam to Siem Reap, Cambodia was pretty short. I think it took about 90 minutes, and the beautiful but small airport in Siem Reap was easy to get around.

Don’t forget to fill out one of their customs forms, even if you don’t think you need one. We didn’t fill one out (oops!), but they let us through the security gates anyway without much fuss. But I would recommend just following their rules on filling out those papers. I definitely got some Rock Eyebrow from the security guards when I tried to pass through without a customs form.

We stayed at an incredible place called Mane Village Suites in Siem Reap, and it was just a quick jump over to the entrance to the internationally famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

The hotel was gorgeous and the food was the best I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’ll admit that I’m not super cultured or adventurous when it comes to food, and I don’t have a lot of experience with fine dining, but we got room service delivered to the room the night we arrived, AND IT WAS AMAZING. I will return just for the food, never mind the incredible temples!

Our tour of Angkor Wat started at dawn (that’s the picture you see above – the sun rises behind it, and you get super cool photographs), and we walked around the temple for several hours before heading over to some other nearby temple complexes of varying ages.

One was called Angkor Thom and was a little more aged than Angkor Wat, and the other was called Banteay Srei and was built somewhere around 900 AD (wow!). I have to say that it was VERY HOT when we visited Cambodia. March in Vietnam was pretty pleasant, but March in Cambodia as almost 100 degrees. Just a warning to pack something comfortable that you can wear in extremely hot weather!

Day Nine: Flights Back to Los Angeles

Obviously, one full day (and two partials) in Cambodia wasn’t enough time to explore, but it was all that I could squeeze out of my time.

I originally thought to stay in Vietnam the entire time, but I eventually decided to stick a few days in Cambodia in there because getting over to Asia is quite a journey, so I wanted to make sure I saw Cambodia, just in case it was several years before I could return.

On the morning after our full-day tour of Angkor Wat and all the other temples in the area, we boarded a plane that would take us from the Siem Reap Airport to the airport in Hoi Chi Min City.

From there, we’d board a plane that would take us to our layover in Taipei, and then we’d get on a third flight that would fly us over the Pacific and back to Los Angeles.

The journey took A LONG time, and we were pretty exhausted after our 96-degree day of touring Angkor Wat, but honestly, I’d do it all over again, despite the length of time it took to travel there.

One of the convenient things about our flights is that the people who checked us in at the airport in Cambodia actually checked our luggage all the way through to Los Angeles.

We didn’t need to get our luggage when we arrived in Ho Chi Min. It was forwarded to our other flights automatically. We took a Cambodian airline to reach Vietnam and then flew China Airlines back to the states, but even though it was two separate tickets, they sent the luggage all the way to our final destination.

Wrap Up: My Vietnam + Cambodia Itinerary, Condensed

Okay, here’s the TL;DR version of my itinerary.

• Day One + Day Two: Travel from LAX to Da Nang (Hoi An)
• Day Three: Bicycle Tour of Hội An Countryside and My Son Sanctuary
• Day Four: Marble Mountains Tour + Flight to Hanoi
• Day Five: Tour of Bai Dinh, Trang An, and the Mua Caves
• Day Six: Boat Tour of Halong Bay
• Day Seven: Walking around Hanoi and Flight to Cambodia
• Day Eight: Tour of Angkor Wat Temple Complex
• Day Nine: Flights Back to Los Angeles

Note that on that last day there, you cross back over the international dateline, so the day you lost getting to Southeast Asia is returned to you.

We left on a Friday and got to Asia on Sunday. But when we returned, we left Asia on Sunday and landed all the way over in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Now, something that’s REALLY IMPORTANT to remember, too, when you travel west over that many time zones is that your hotels and activities may need to match up a day later than you think!

If you leave North America on Friday, you’ll get to Asia on Saturday, North American time. However, it may already be Sunday in Asia. Check your ticket info and confirm!

Don’t accidentally book your activities a day early. Confirm your landing time and date in Asia, so you can book everything on the right dates throughout your travel.

What Would I Have Done Differently?

As they say, “hindsight is 20/20,” and there are a few things i would have done differently on my itinerary. The biggest is that I would have stayed a few more days.

I was definitely limited on my time though, so I had to book what I could and get as much out of my days as possible. However, I might have pushed to get a few more days out of the experience, if I had it to do over again. I did need to take quite a few days off work, and I think I got as many off in a row as I was able at the time.

The overall length of the trip was nine or ten days (including the days we spent flying, and depending on how you figure in the crossing over the international date line), which is not an insignificant amount of time to be gone.

But if I had more time, I would have spent an additional day in each city. I would have spent the additional day in the Hoi An/Da Nang area going on a day trip to Hue. I would have booked a full-day city tour of Hanoi with an extra day in that city. And I would have booked another temple tour with an additional day in Siem Reap in Cambodia.

As it turned out, I think I arranged quite a lot of activities and experiences for the time I was allotted by fate, so I’m definitely ecstatic with the way the trip turned out. However, Vietnam turned out to be such an amazing experience that my only real regret is not getting to spend more time there.

But that’s what the future is for, right? I’ll definitely go back some day!

Want Another Example Itinerary? Read My Book

If you click on my links (yes, some of them are affiliate links) and conduct some internet research, you can literally take the same exact route I did through Vietnam, from the hotels we stayed in to the activities we enjoyed.

I know it’s a lot of juggling to get everything arranged just-so, but if you’re interested in seeing an example of one of my itineraries, I encourage you to buy my book, which offers all the information you need to create and book your itinerary, as well as an example itinerary at the end. I can also help you create an itinerary.

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