Every question, in one place

Twenty-one days is the working minimum for Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand with any depth, and twenty-eight is the comfortable version. Below twenty-one, one country turns into a two-night stop and a pair of airport transfers.

Mid-November to early February is the only window that is dry in all four countries at once, with late November to mid-January the sweet spot. March to early May brings 35 to 40 °C at Angkor and the burning season in northern Thailand and northern Laos; Chiang Mai PM2.5 hit 188 µg/m³ on 29–30 March 2026.

No. All four crossings have been closed since 23 June 2025 and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026. Bangkok to Siem Reap and Bangkok to Phnom Penh are flown, roughly 1 h 15 min.

Two travellers is the minimum. A solo traveller carries the full cost of a car, a driver and a guide, which puts the day rate above the two-traveller column rather than below it, and we would rather say that up front.

Take the one that matches your length and your countries, not the one that matches your interests — interests are easy to move, nights and flights are not. If you have twenty-one days and want three countries, start from Indochina Classic and tell us what you would change.

No. They are the starting point: per person, land only, twin share, five to eight travellers, Comfortable standard. Two travellers on the same route pay roughly 28 per cent more per head, and the Excellent standard runs about 55 per cent above Comfortable. The pricing page holds the grid.

Often, and it usually costs less per day than either one alone because the fixed cost of a car and a guide spreads across more days. The limit is the calendar rather than the routing: past about thirty days, hotel availability in the mid-November to early February window becomes the constraint.

None of them. Every journey on this site runs for one party — a couple, a family or a set of friends travelling together. There is no shared coach and no stranger added to fill a seat.

Almost always because of six things, and they are worth checking one at a time. Count the guide days on both quotes rather than the nights. Check whether hotels are named or described by star rating. Check whether every transfer says private. Check the ship name and cabin count on any boat. Check for craft, gem, silk or lacquer stops written in as experiences. And check whether the Bangkok to Siem Reap leg is shown overland — that crossing has been closed since June 2025, so the flight replacing it is a cost the cheaper quote has not shown you.

If all six match and the other quote is still lower, it is genuinely lower, and we will tell you that rather than argue.

Yes. Hotel rates from mid-November to early February run 15 to 40 per cent above the same room in May, and Christmas and New Year add compulsory gala dinners at many properties, typically USD 90 to USD 250 per person on 24 and 31 December. Those are supplier terms, not our margin, and they appear as separate lines in the quote.

More than the two-traveller column, because one person carries the whole cost of a car, a driver and a guide, plus a single-room supplement instead of half a twin. Two travellers is our minimum for that reason. We will quote a solo journey on request, with the arithmetic shown, so the number is not a surprise.

Quotes are written in US dollars because that is how hotels, airlines and cruise operators across all four countries invoice us. Payment can be made in several currencies at the rate on the day, and the conversion is shown on the invoice rather than buried in the total.

For mid-November to early February, be talking to us by July — the good Lan Ha Bay cabins and the Amansara-class rooms in Siem Reap go first. For March to May, three to four months. For June to September, two months is usually enough. Any route with a Mekong ship needs six to nine.

Small changes are made at cost: a hotel swap, an extra night, a different room category. Large changes after the deposit — a different country, a different month — are treated as a cancellation and rebooking, because the supplier holds are already paid down. The refund ladder steps at 90, 60 and 45 days and is in the quote you sign.

No, and no honest operator should. Every country in the region now takes applications directly from the traveller, and the three arrival cards — Thailand’s TDAC, Cambodia’s e-Arrival and the Lao LDIF — are free and must be filed by you. What we send is the exact position for your passports, the official URLs, and the dates to file by. Any site charging a fee for an arrival card is not an official one.

A number in the final pack that reaches a person in the region, not an answering service in another time zone. Each country also has its own guide and driver with their mobile numbers printed on the day sheet, so the first call is usually a local one and takes thirty seconds.

Yes, and it is the same process at the same price. Starting from a published route is faster because the flights, drive times and night counts are already tested, but a blank sheet is fine if your fixed points do not resemble any of the twelve. Send the month, the party size and the places that must be in it.

Two full written rewrites are included, and small adjustments after that are made as a matter of course. If a third full rewrite is needed we normally ask for a call first, because at that point the shape is still wrong and a conversation fixes it faster than a document.

Usually, if it is real. Send the link. Two things get refused: activities on our fixed list, such as elephant camps and commission workshops, and legs that cannot be operated in 2026, such as an overland Bangkok to Siem Reap day. Everything else is a question of time and money, not principle.

Room categories can differ inside a party and often do — parents in a suite, adult children in a standard room, priced separately in the same quote. What cannot split is the guide, the car and the route, because those are shared by the whole party and there is one of each per country.

No. All four Thailand–Cambodia land crossings have been closed since 23 June 2025, following the border clashes of July and December 2025. The ceasefire is holding in 2026 but Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen the crossings this year.

Bangkok to Siem Reap and Bangkok to Phnom Penh must be flown, and the flight is about 1 h 15. This itinerary never relies on that border in either direction: Thailand sits at the end and is reached by air from Vientiane.

Yes, deliberately. Day 3 in Hanoi, day 9 in Hoi An, day 20 in Luang Prabang, day 24 in Chiang Mai and day 27 in Bangkok are all free or optional, and the car and guide stay with you on each of them.

That is the difference between twenty-eight days and a compressed three-week trip. Cutting those days would save you money and cost you the journey.

Quang Ninh and Haiphong authorities close the ports on storm warnings and every boat stays alongside. That is not a theoretical risk: a tourist boat capsized on 19 July 2025 during Tropical Storm Wipha with at least 37 deaths, and cruises were suspended for a safety review before resuming.

The bay night sits on day 4 with slack behind it, so a cancellation costs you the cruise and not the rest of the route. You are moved to a hotel ashore, the cruise portion is refunded to you, and travel insurance covers the difference. This is one reason we require insurance on this journey.

Four countries, but not four visas for everyone. Vietnam runs an e-visa open to all nationalities for up to 90 days; 24 countries including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea hold a 45-day exemption instead, while US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports get no exemption and must hold the e-visa. Cambodia is an e-visa at USD 30 plus USD 6 processing, about three working days. Laos issues a visa on arrival for 30 days at roughly USD 30 to USD 45.

Thailand exempts 60 countries and territories, and from 15 September 2026 that exemption is 30 days rather than 60, which is ample for the three Thai nights here. Separately, three free arrival cards are mandatory and must be filed by you: Thailand’s TDAC within 72 hours of arrival, Cambodia’s e-Arrival within seven days, and the Lao LDIF. We send you the official links and the deadlines, we check that each one is done before you fly, and we charge nothing for it. See visas and entry.

Because the end of a long journey is where fatigue lands, and Luang Prabang is the easiest place on this route to be tired in. It is a town of about 55,000 people, the heritage zone bans through-traffic and tour buses, the airport is four kilometres away, and the last morning can be an alms round rather than a transfer across a capital.

Run in the other direction, the same nine stops end in Hanoi with a long transfer to Noi Bai. The route is identical in content and better in shape this way round.

We fly it as standard: 50 minutes in the air against about six hours by road through the Moc Bai and Bavet crossing, including the formalities on both sides.

The road version is not a bad day and we will run it when it suits your dates — it lets you keep the Mekong Delta until midday and it crosses a working land border, which some people want to see. The decision is made with you, not for you, and the price does not change either way.

The trains run to time and the journey is 1 h 50 by EMU against roughly ten hours on Route 13. Second class costs about USD 20.

Buying at the station is the problem, not the train. Ticket windows open only three days before departure, and second class sells out through the dry season, which is exactly when you are travelling. Your seats are bought through an agent weeks in advance and included in the price. Note also that both stations are well outside the towns: fifteen kilometres at Vientiane, twelve at Luang Prabang.

Three nights buys two full temple mornings and a third that is optional, and the pass is priced for exactly that: USD 62 for three days, valid on any three days within ten. Most people find two mornings enough and use the third for the Artisans Angkor workshop or the floating villages instead.

If you want more, the seven-day pass is USD 72 and we can add nights — but be honest with yourself about temple fatigue. It arrives faster than anyone expects, usually somewhere in the middle of the second morning.

It is enough for two temple mornings: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm on the first, Banteay Srei and one more on the second. It is not enough for a rest day, and it leaves no margin if one of you wakes up unwell.

Three nights is better and we say so to everyone who asks. The three-day pass at USD 62 is valid on any three days within ten, so the third day at the ticket office is already paid for — you are only adding a hotel night and a guide day. Ask us to quote it.

Both are included at the same price. National Road 6 takes about five and a half hours with a proper lunch stop at Kampong Thom, and it shows you stilt houses, dry-season paddy and roadside markets that the flight passes over in the dark.

The flight is 45 minutes, but Siem Reap–Angkor International opened in October 2023 and sits 40 to 50 km from town, so the transfer adds 45 to 60 minutes at that end. On a sixteen-day trip we usually recommend the flight and put the recovered afternoon into the first temple.

It might be. Central Vietnam runs a typhoon and flood season from September to November, worst in October and November, and the Hoi An old town floods in most years — sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week, with the riverside streets navigable by boat.

We will still take the booking for those dates and we will tell you plainly what the risk is. What we do is build the Hoi An nights so they can be moved to the beach side or to Da Nang, keep the Hue day flexible, and insist on travel insurance that covers weather disruption. February to August is the dry window on that coast if your dates are movable.

Yes to both, within reason. The most common additions are a third night in Siem Reap, two nights in Sapa after Hanoi, or three or four beach nights on Phu Quoc before crossing to Cambodia. Any of these turns a sixteen-day trip into eighteen to twenty-one, which is where this route becomes comfortable rather than merely easy.

Reversing it to start at Angkor and finish in Hanoi is possible but we advise against it: Angkor is the strongest thing on the route and putting it first makes everything afterwards feel like an epilogue. If you want three countries in a similar shape, look at the 21-day Indochina Classic, or talk to us through the contact page.

A Lao e-visa is not valid at any Vietnamese land border, and of the crossings only Dansavan, opposite Lao Bao, issues a visa on arrival. Even when the paperwork works, the road puts you in Savannakhet, which is the wrong end of Laos for Luang Prabang.

The flight from Hanoi is 1 h 10 with Lao Airlines daily or Vietnam Airlines three times a week. It costs one morning instead of two days.

It is more than most itineraries give it and it is the number we would defend hardest. Two nights buys the alms round and Kuang Si and nothing else. Four buys an empty afternoon, a second visit to the arts centre, a river trip and the point at which the town stops being a sight.

If you genuinely want to move faster, we would rather shorten Hoi An than Luang Prabang.

Vietnam runs an e-visa open to all nationalities for up to 90 days. US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports have no exemption and must hold one. Twenty-four countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea, get 45 days visa-free instead.

Laos issues a visa on arrival for 30 days at roughly USD 30 to 45 depending on nationality, or you can use the e-visa. The Lao Digital Immigration Form has been mandatory since September 2025 at Luang Prabang and Vientiane airports.

Quang Ninh and Haiphong authorities close the ports outright on a storm warning, and after the capsizing of 19 July 2025 they close them earlier than they used to. That is the correct decision and we do not argue with it.

If your night afloat is cancelled we move you to a hotel on Cat Ba or back to Hanoi, refund the difference, and adjust the following day. This is one of several reasons we require travel insurance.

No. All Thailand–Cambodia land crossings have been closed since 23 June 2025, including Poipet–Aranyaprathet. After clashes in July and December 2025 the ceasefire is holding, but Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026.

This route reaches Cambodia by air from Vientiane for that reason. If you see an itinerary with an overland Bangkok–Siem Reap leg on it, the operator either has not updated the page or is hoping you will not check.

Because it is twelve hours over two days sitting on a car seat bolted to a wooden deck, with about a hundred other people and an engine directly behind you. The fare is about USD 23 and it is honest value for what it is.

A private or premium boat of the Shompoo, Mekong Smile or Luang Say class runs about USD 250 per person, carries far fewer passengers, has a proper toilet and a bar, and stops at villages. On a nineteen-day trip at this standard, spending two of those days uncomfortable to save USD 227 is a false economy.

From 15 September 2026 the visa exemption is 30 days rather than 60, for the 60 eligible countries and territories, with one extension of up to 30 further days available at a Thai immigration office. This trip spends seven nights in Thailand, well inside the limit.

One detail catches repeat visitors: visa-exempt entries by land are capped at twice per calendar year. Arrivals by air are not capped. The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is separate, mandatory and free, filed within 72 hours of arrival.

It cannot be skipped. The Mekong between Huay Xai and Luang Prabang is not run after dark because of the rapids, so every boat stops at Pakbeng. The town is one street on a steep bank with a few lodges and a generator that used to go off at ten.

Treat it as part of the river rather than as a destination. The evening on the bank watching the boats tie up is better than the room you sleep in.

Late February to April is the best compromise: central Vietnam dry, the south still in its dry season, the north out of the winter grey, and the Sapa terraces flooded for ploughing. November is the alternative, with the north at its best and a small late-typhoon risk in Hue and Hoi An.

December to February works if you accept a cold, grey north; in that case we usually drop Sapa. May to September is not a month we would run this route in, because the north and the coast are both wet and hot at once.

Not if you would rather not. The alternative is a night in Hanoi between Sapa and the bay, which adds a day and about USD 200 to 350 per person depending on hotel standard, and turns a 05:30 start into a civilised one.

The other option is the overnight train down from Lao Cai, which suits people who sleep well on trains and nobody else. We will quote all three.

Lan Ha is entered from Haiphong rather than from the Ha Long tourist port, and it carries a small fraction of the boat traffic of the Ha Long core while sitting in the same limestone.

Safety is the other half of the answer. A tourist boat capsized in a sudden squall on 19 July 2025 during Tropical Storm Wipha with at least 37 deaths, and the whole fleet was suspended for review. Ports now close early on a storm warning, so we build a buffer into the following day and require insurance.

Two nights on a beach is a transfer with a swim in it. Four is the number at which people stop checking their phones, and putting it at the end rather than in the middle means you are not trying to restart a touring trip after it.

If you would genuinely rather be moving, we would swap Phu Quoc for two nights in Da Lat or Nha Trang and use the other two to slow down Hue and Saigon.

Only in high water, roughly August to November, and even then it depends on the year. Tonle Sap Lake drops far enough between December and August that no river ship can cross it, and the Siem Reap leg becomes a drive or a flight.

This itinerary is built with the drive from the start, so the plan does not change when the water does. If you travel in September or October we will tell you whether the crossing is on and offer it as a substitution.

Seven nights on this river sells between about USD 3,879 per person on Pandaw and roughly USD 9,000 per person on the Aqua Mekong. The figures in our table assume a Heritage Line-class balcony cabin on the Jahan or the Jayavarman.

The rest of the price covers three nights in Siem Reap, two in Saigon, two on Phu Quoc, guides, drivers, the domestic flight and the Angkor pass.

No. Say at breakfast that you would rather not go and your guide will take you to the Royal Palace and the National Museum instead. There is no charge either way and no one will ask you to explain.

If you do go, expect three hours that are difficult from the first room. The guide is briefed to answer questions plainly and to stop talking when you want the silence.

Cambodia: an e-visa at USD 30 plus USD 6 processing, valid 30 days single entry, about three working days at evisa.gov.kh, or visa on arrival at USD 30 at the airport. The separate Cambodia e-Arrival form is free and mandatory, filed at arrival.gov.kh.

Vietnam: the e-visa is open to all nationalities for up to 90 days. Twenty-four countries hold a 45-day exemption, but US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports do not and must carry an e-visa.

The Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea run on opposite calendars. Samui is dry and settled from June to August, when the Andaman is under monsoon, and it is at its wettest from October to December.

If you are travelling between November and April we will move the beach to Krabi or Phuket instead. The route is built backwards from whichever coast is dry in your month.

No. Every Thailand–Cambodia land crossing has been closed since 23 June 2025, including Poipet–Aranyaprathet, and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026.

The leg is flown, about 1 h 15 min. Any operator advertising an overland Bangkok to Siem Reap transfer in 2026 cannot run it.

Quang Ninh and Haiphong authorities close the port on a storm warning and all boats stay alongside. It happens most often between June and September.

The itinerary carries a buffer for it: you stay a third night in Hanoi at our cost for the room difference, and the cruise fare is refunded by the operator. Insurance covers the rest, which is why we require it.

Yes, and the arrangement will be small and quiet. A table booked at an odd hour, a guide told to walk ahead, a boat that leaves before the others.

We will not stage a photographer on a beach without telling you, and we will not set candles out on the sand an hour before you arrive where everyone on the terrace can see them.

Roughly six. Below that, the walking at Angkor, the heat and four airport days across eighteen travelling days stop adding up, and most of what the trip is for is lost on the child anyway.

From six it works and from about nine it works well. If your youngest is four we will build a fourteen-day Vietnam route with two beach stops instead, and it will be the better holiday.

Yes. They are requested when the booking is made, named on the hotel confirmation, and chased again fourteen days before arrival. A hotel that will not confirm them in writing is not used on this route.

Where a building genuinely has no connecting rooms — some of the older colonial hotels do not — we tell you before you pay rather than at check-in, and we offer an alternative.

Because Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek are the reason to go there, and that morning is not something to put in front of a child. Splitting the party so half of it goes makes a poor day for everyone.

Families whose youngest is sixteen or over often do want it. For those parties we route through Phnom Penh rather than flying Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap direct, and we quote it as a variation.

No driving day exceeds four hours, and the longest single leg is the Hanoi to Haiphong run at about two and a half. The driver stops every ninety minutes on every drive, without waiting to be asked.

Toilet stops are checked in advance on each route. Water is in the car on every transfer, and the vehicle is chosen for luggage space rather than seat count.

Because the flight is one hour forty minutes on a route with roughly a dozen departures a day, and the overland alternative runs through Cambodia and takes the better part of three days. Nobody who has costed both would choose the road.

It also means a cancelled flight costs you an afternoon rather than a day, since the next departure is usually within three hours.

Yes. Burning season in the north runs from late January to late April and peaks in March. PM2.5 in Chiang Mai hit 188 micrograms per cubic metre on 29 and 30 March 2026, twelve times the WHO guideline, and 158 wildfires were burning across fifteen districts on 24 March alone.

Thailand banned open burning from 1 February to 31 May 2026 and the smoke still arrived, much of it from across the borders. If you must travel in March we will end the trip in Bangkok or on the coast.

From 15 September 2026 the exemption for the sixty eligible countries and territories drops from 60 days to 30. One extension of up to 30 further days can be applied for at a Thai immigration office.

Fifteen days is well inside the limit, so this route is not affected. Visa-exempt land entries are capped at twice per calendar year; air arrivals are uncapped, and you arrive by air.

Yes, and it takes about ten minutes. It is mandatory, it is free, and it must be filed within 72 hours of arrival at tdac.immigration.go.th. Our office sends the link and a reminder at the right point in the countdown.

Any website charging a fee for the TDAC is not official. We do not file it on your behalf because it asks for your passport details and your first night’s address, and those should come from you.

Because the three-day Angkor pass at USD 62 is valid on any three days within ten, which means the temple mornings do not have to be consecutive. Four nights buys a full day off between them.

Three consecutive early starts at Angkor is how people come home saying the temples blurred. The day in the middle is the difference between seeing the park and enduring it.

In practice, no. Station ticket windows for the Laos–China Railway open only three days before departure and second class sells out in the dry season, which is precisely when you want to be travelling.

Our office buys through an agent weeks ahead. The alternative to a seat is about ten hours by road over the mountains, against 1 hour 50 minutes on the train.

Not one worth the connection times. The practical routings run via Bangkok or via Hanoi and take five to seven hours door to door, which is why day seven is written into the itinerary as a travel day rather than dressed up as sightseeing.

At the far end, Siem Reap–Angkor International is 40 to 50 kilometres from town, so allow a further 45 to 60 minutes.

No. It is the hardest half-day of any trip in this region and it can be declined without argument. Say so at breakfast and your guide will take you to the National Museum and the Russian Market instead. There is no cost either way and nobody will ask you to justify it.

If you do go, the guide is briefed to answer questions plainly, to keep the group small and to stop talking when you want silence.

No. Every official Thailand–Cambodia land crossing has been closed since 23 June 2025, including Poipet–Aranyaprathet, Cham Yeam–Hat Lek, O’Smach–Chong Jom and Ban Pakard–Pailin, following armed clashes in July and December 2025.

The ceasefire is holding in 2026 but Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen this year. If another operator has quoted you an overland day on this route, ask them which crossing they intend to use.

Techo International Airport, 19 kilometres south of the city, which took over all of Phnom Penh’s international traffic on 9 September 2025. The old airport now handles domestic flights and private jets only.

The transfer runs about 40 minutes with traffic. Allow a little more margin than you would have needed at the old airport, and check that any flight booked independently shows the new code.

Because the first eight days are temple-heavy and, in Phnom Penh, emotionally heavy. Four nights at the end gives Doi Suthep, the walled city, a day in the hills and one day with nothing in it at all.

Two nights in Chiang Mai is enough to visit it. Four is enough to stop, which is what this route is shaped around.

From 15 September 2026 the visa exemption for the sixty eligible countries and territories is 30 days rather than 60, extendable once by up to 30 further days at a Thai immigration office. Thirteen days is well inside it.

The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is mandatory and free, filed within 72 hours of arrival at tdac.immigration.go.th. Any site charging a fee for it is not official.

Because these are the places our journeys stop in. Adding pages for places we do not send people to would be padding. There is no Sihanoukville page, no Myanmar page and no Pattaya page, and none of the three is an oversight.

You can build the list of stops from them, which is the hard part. The joins are the part that needs us: which legs must be flown, how long each drive really takes, and which sequence avoids doubling back. Send the list and we will draw the route around it.

They are nights in the place, not days. A stop listed at three nights normally consumes about three and a half days of your journey once the transfer in and the transfer out are counted, and the individual pages state that arithmetic for each place.

Hanoi, Lan Ha Bay, Hoi An and Siem Reap, in that order, over about sixteen days. It gives you the north of Vietnam, a night on the water, the central coast and Angkor without a single leg that cannot be operated in 2026. Adding Luang Prabang takes it to twenty days and is the change we recommend most often.

It is a two-night city for someone who arrives fresh from within the region and a three-night city for someone who arrives from Europe or North America. The long-haul arrival takes a day out of the count before any sightseeing happens, and the second full day is the one that holds the Temple of Literature, the citadel and the museums. If you fly in from Bangkok or Siem Reap, two nights works.

Ten to seventeen degrees, with fine drizzle and high humidity, so it feels colder than the number. Hotel rooms have heating, older buildings and restaurants often do not. Bring a proper jacket and a layer under it. People arriving from a beach in Thailand two days earlier consistently underpack for this.

It can be done and we do not sell it. The road is two and a half to three hours each way, which leaves about four hours on the water in the middle of the day, when the light is worst and the day boats are thickest. The overnight is the whole point — the bay after 16:00 and before 08:00 is a different place. The bay page sets out the boat sizes and the safety position.

Yes, and the technique is real. Walk at a constant slow pace, do not stop, do not run backwards, and the motorbikes flow around you. Cars and buses do not, so wait for those. Your guide will walk the first few crossings with you and after a day it stops being a topic.

Cruises resumed after the safety review that followed the capsize of 19 July 2025, in which at least 37 people died when a boat went over in a squall during Tropical Storm Wipha. What changed since is the port rule: Quang Ninh authorities close the harbour outright on a storm warning and every departure is cancelled. That is the mechanism you are relying on, so build a buffer day and hold insurance that covers weather cancellation.

We rebook the cruise if the itinerary has room, which is what the buffer day exists for. If it does not, the cruise element is refunded and the night is spent ashore in Haiphong or back in Hanoi. What does not happen is a boat sailing against a closure, and that is not a commercial decision.

Yes, and it shows in boat count rather than scenery. The rock is the same drowned karst on both sides of the line. Lan Ha is licensed out of Haiphong, has far fewer overnight vessels on it, and its anchorages are narrower, so a small boat can moor where the large fleet cannot follow. We book Lan Ha by default and only use the Ha Long core when a specific vessel or a specific date makes it the better option.

Rarely. The bay is enclosed by hundreds of islands and the water is flat for most of the year; boats also anchor overnight rather than sailing. In the July to September window the sea can get up quickly, which is the same reason the port closes. If you are sensitive, take something before boarding rather than after.

Because of the arithmetic, not the place. Two nights in Sapa is really two and a half days once the five and a half hours of road each way are counted, and only Vietnam In Depth, 20 days has those days spare. On every shorter route, adding Sapa means removing a night from Hoi An or from the bay, and we think those are worse trips.

Road in daylight for most parties: five and a half hours on an expressway, arriving for lunch, with the valley visible on the approach. The overnight sleeper is the better choice when the itinerary is tight, because it converts a transfer day into a night, and the worse choice if you sleep badly on trains. Both end with the same hour of climbing road from Lao Cai.

A full valley day is eight to fourteen kilometres with 300 to 500 metres of descent and the same climbing, on farm tracks and irrigation bunds. After rain the clay is slippery and boots with ankle support matter. Shorter loops of three to five kilometres exist and we build them where a party needs them, but they give a diminished version of the day.

Not really, and we would rather you knew that in advance. It is a hillside of concrete hotel blocks under near-continuous construction, with a busy market and some good cheap food. Eat, sleep, and be in the valley by nine the next morning.

It is enough for the Imperial City at opening, two royal tombs, Thien Mu Pagoda and one dinner, provided you arrive by early afternoon. It is not enough for four tombs, the market and an unhurried day. Where a route already gives Hoi An three nights, one night here is the correct allocation and we say so in the itinerary.

Minh Mang and Khai Dinh, because they are the least alike. Minh Mang is a formal walled composition on an axis in a park; Khai Dinh is 1920s concrete covered in porcelain mosaic and looks like nothing else in the country. Tu Duc is the one to add third if you have the morning, for the lake and the garden.

Both are 2 to 3 hours. The train runs along the cliff above the sea where the road cannot go and is the best short rail leg in Vietnam, but it ends at Da Nang station and you still need a car for the last 30 minutes. The Hai Van Pass by road stops where you want and shows you the same coast from above. Some of our routes take the train south and drive back over the pass on the return.

Streets in the low quarters take water, the tomb access roads on the far bank can close, and the Hai Van Pass is occasionally shut for a day. Flights out of Phu Bai are cancelled more often than they are delayed. Routes we build in September to November carry a spare day on this leg for that reason, and the hotels in Hue handle it far better than a first-time visitor expects.

Not to walk the lanes, cross the bridges or look at the lanterns — none of that is ticketed. The 120,000 VND ticket admits you to five of the twenty-two heritage buildings, and it is checked at those buildings’ doors, in daylight, while they are open. Booths run roughly 07:00 to 21:30 in summer; the houses themselves open about 08:30 and close about 17:30. If you walk at 06:30 or after 21:30, there is nothing to check.

It gives you one full day, which means one early morning and one late evening with no second attempt if either is rained out. Three nights is the number we build, and it is the difference between seeing the town at the hours it works and seeing it at 18:00 with everybody else.

Central Vietnam floods September to November, worst in October and November, and Hoi An itself floods most years — water through the ground floors of the old town is a normal event, not a rare one. Hotels move guests upstairs, boats replace taxis on some streets, and the road to Da Nang can close for a day. If you travel in those months, keep a buffer day in the itinerary and buy insurance that covers delay.

Old town for a first visit and a short stay: you can be out at 06:30 without a taxi, which is the whole point. Beach for four nights or more, for families, and for anyone treating the coast as a rest between flights. The two are fifteen minutes and about 100,000 VND apart, so neither choice locks you out of the other.

Tan Son Nhat (SGN), 8 km from District 1. Long Thanh has not begun commercial service, so every flight still arrives at SGN. Allow 30 minutes off-peak and up to 50 in the morning or evening rush, and three hours before an international departure — the security queues here are long by regional standards.

It is a two-hour round trip by road, a short widened tunnel section you can crawl through, a film and a firing range where you pay by the round. Some travellers find it worthwhile and many find it a long drive for a theme-park treatment of a serious history. We book it only if you ask, and we say this first rather than after.

No. Southern Vietnam is wet from May to November, and the pattern is a heavy afternoon downpour of 30 to 90 minutes rather than a day of rain. It reorganises a day, it rarely ends one. This is a different thing from the central coast’s September to November flood season, which does end days.

Two if the museums and one evening of food are the point. Three if you want Cholon properly, or if you are continuing into the Mekong Delta and would rather not do a long transfer on a museum day. Beyond three the city stops paying you back unless you are using it as a base.

No. Cai Rang is 3 h 30 from the city by road and its trade is largely finished by 08:00, so a day trip arrives after the market has dispersed. Day trips go to My Tho or Ben Tre instead — a sampan ride and a coconut-candy workshop, no floating market. If you want Cai Rang, you sleep in Can Tho and leave the pier at 05:15.

No, and that is the point. It is a wholesale market where boats sell produce in quantity to smaller boats, with a sample hung from a bamboo pole so buyers can read the offer from a distance. It is smaller than it was, because bridges and trucks now carry much of the trade, and the vendors selling coffee and noodles to visitors are the minority of what floats there before seven in the morning.

Yes. Fast boats run from Chau Doc to Phnom Penh via the Kaam Samnor and Vinh Xuong posts, with immigration handled mid-river and the crossing taking most of a day. You need a Cambodian e-visa (USD 30 plus USD 6, about three working days) or visa on arrival, plus the free Cambodia e-Arrival form filed at arrival.gov.kh. Build in a night at Chau Doc, which is a working border town rather than a resort.

It makes it different. Water is highest September to November, which floods the rice fields, opens channels that are too shallow in March and brings the fish and birds with it. Some low roads go under. The trade-off is that the central Vietnamese coast is in its typhoon season at the same time, so a September delta usually means a compromised Hoi An.

As the ending of a long journey, yes. As a destination in its own right, it is a weaker case than the island’s marketing suggests. It has been built hard and fast, the resort strip on Long Beach is continuous, and the quiet parts are in the north and the far south rather than where most hotels are. What it offers is a one-hour flight from Ho Chi Minh City, calm water from November to April and three or four days with nothing on the schedule.

November to April, with December to March the reliable window. The southwest monsoon runs May to October and brings wind, rough sea on the west coast, debris on Long Beach and cancelled boat trips. Rooms are 40 to 60 per cent cheaper in those months, and we still tell clients to put the nights somewhere else.

Jet-ski hire, because the beach touts sell damage claims as often as they sell rides, and captive-animal attractions of any kind. We also do not book the mainland ferries: a 5 to 7 hour drive plus a 1 h 30 to 2 h 30 crossing, cancellable in bad weather, against a one-hour flight.

Three nights is two whole days plus two half days, because the arrival and departure both cost you a morning or an afternoon. Four nights gives you the boat trip to the southern islets or the drive north through the national park without losing a rest day. Two nights is a wasted flight.

No. It is a religious obligation for the people taking part and an optional twenty minutes for you. Some travellers decide that standing on a pavement watching a private act of faith is not for them, and that is a defensible position.

If you do want to see it, your guide will pick a street away from the main procession, brief the rules the night before, and stay silent throughout. Nobody will hand you a basket of rice unless you have asked for one in advance.

Yes, for almost everyone. The rail leg is 1 hour 50 minutes against roughly ten hours by road, and against a forty-minute flight that needs two airport processes around it. Second class is about USD 20.

The one thing it demands is planning. Station windows open three days before departure and second class sells out in the dry season, so the seats are bought through an agent weeks ahead. The station is also 12 km out, so allow half an hour at each end.

Bad enough that we will rebuild an itinerary around it. Agricultural burning across northern Laos fills the valley with smoke from late January, and March is the peak. On the worst days the far bank of the Mekong is not visible from the peninsula.

Flights into LPQ are occasionally diverted. If your travel dates are locked to March, Cambodia and southern Vietnam are the better use of the same fortnight, and we will say so.

Only if the river is the point. It is two days on the water with a compulsory overnight at Pakbeng and about six hours of sitting each day, and the arrival pier is 10 km outside town.

The public boat is around USD 23 and is a bench. A private or premium boat — Shompoo, Mekong Smile, Luang Say — is around USD 250 per person and is the version we book when a client asks for it.

One night, yes, on almost any Laos route. The COPE Visitor Centre is the reason, and it is free, unsentimental and takes about an hour. Wat Si Saket and an evening on the Mekong embankment fill the rest of the afternoon.

Two nights only if you are crossing from Thailand at the Friendship Bridge, or if your onward departure is early. Three nights we will argue you out of.

About 55 minutes, with second class around USD 12. The same trip used to be a four-hour drive on the old road, so the railway has changed what is possible in a day.

The Vientiane station is 15 km out and the Vang Vieng station about 2 km from town, so the transfers are short at the northern end and not at the southern one.

Yes. The First Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge is about 20 km from the city and crosses to Nong Khai, where the Thai rail network starts. The crossing takes 45 to 90 minutes depending on the queue.

This is one of the few land borders in the region that works cleanly in 2026. Note that the Thailand–Cambodia land crossings have been closed since June 2025, so a Thai land entry does not open a Cambodian one.

That is your call, and we will not make it for you. The exhibition covers cluster munitions, prosthetic limbs and injuries to rural children, and it is presented plainly rather than graphically.

Our practice is to raise it with parents in advance rather than at the door. Older teenagers usually get a great deal from it. For younger children we build the afternoon around That Luang and the riverfront instead.

The three-day pass at USD 62 on almost every trip. It is valid on any three days within ten, so a rest day in the middle costs you nothing, and three unhurried mornings is the right amount of temple for most people.

The one-day pass at USD 37 only makes sense on a transit stop we would not sell. The seven-day pass at USD 72 is for people with a specific interest in the pre-Angkorian and outlying groups. Under-twelves are free with a passport.

No, and we would gently steer you away from it. Between 800 and 2,000 people crowd the two reflecting ponds from 05:00 and the whole thing is over by 06:15. The photograph is real; the morning is a car park.

Our default is Angkor Wat at 07:30 when the crowd has gone to breakfast, or a sunrise at Srah Srang or Ta Prohm where there is almost nobody. If you want the pond shot we will take you at 04:45 without argument.

Siem Reap–Angkor International is 40 to 50 km from town, a 45 to 60 minute transfer costing USD 25 to 35. It opened in October 2023 and the old in-town airport no longer takes commercial flights.

This matters when you are comparing quotes. Any hotel or operator still costing a ten-minute airport pickup is working from the old airport and has not updated the transfer, which will show up on your arrival day.

No. Every Thailand–Cambodia land crossing has been closed since 23 June 2025, including Poipet–Aranyaprathet, and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026.

The leg is flown, about 1 hour 15. Any itinerary that still shows an overland Bangkok to Siem Reap day is selling something it cannot run, and you should ask the operator about it before you pay.

Techo International (KTI), 19 km south of the city. It took over all international traffic on 9 September 2025 and the old Phnom Penh airport now handles domestic flights and private jets only.

Check any transfer you have been quoted. Operators and hotels still working from the old airport will have costed a short drive, and the real one is 35 to 50 minutes depending on traffic.

No. It can be declined and a number of our clients decline it. We replace the morning with the National Museum, the Royal Palace and Wat Phnom, and we do not raise it again.

If you do go, allow four hours including the drive to Choeung Ek, and put nothing in the afternoon afterwards. Your guide will stay quiet inside the buildings unless you ask questions.

The city is. The genocide sites are not, and they are the substance of a visit here. We do not put them in front of children and we do not split a party so that half of it goes.

Our family journeys leave Phnom Penh out entirely and fly Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap direct. Where the youngest traveller is sixteen or over we route through the capital and discuss the morning with the parents first.

Either about five and a half hours on National Road 6, which is a real two-lane highway with heavy truck traffic, or a 45-minute flight. Most of our routes fly it and spend the saved day at Angkor.

There is also a boat across the Tonle Sap, but it runs only when the lake is high, roughly August to early January, takes five to seven hours and is uncomfortable. We rarely recommend it.

It is enough for a connection and nothing else. Arrival day is consumed by the flight, the transfer and a 14:00 check-in, so a single night gives you a bed and a breakfast, not a city.

Three nights gives you two full days, which is what the Grand Palace morning and one unhurried day of river, market and Chinatown actually need. If your route cannot spare that, we will connect you through the same day instead.

No. Every Thailand–Cambodia land crossing has been closed since 23 June 2025, including Poipet–Aranyaprathet, and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026.

The leg is flown, about 1 h 15 to Siem Reap and about 1 h 20 to Phnom Penh. Treat any itinerary that still offers the overland day as a warning about the operator.

Shoulders and knees covered, for men and women. It is checked at the gate and people are turned away, not waved through. Sleeveless tops, shorts, short skirts and torn jeans all fail.

There is a counter that lends cover-ups against a deposit, but the queue for it in high season is long and hot. Your guide will tell you the night before so it is not a surprise at 08:30.

The Chao Phraya express boat. Between roughly 16:00 and 19:00 the roads on both banks are solid and the river is not, and an orange-flag boat costs 16 baht.

It is public transport used by commuters, so it is crowded and it does not wait. Your guide will put you on the right pier and the right flag, which is the part visitors get wrong.

Bad enough that we decline bookings. Chiang Mai PM2.5 reached 188 µg/m³ on 29 and 30 March 2026, twelve times the World Health Organization guideline of 15, and the city ranked as the most polluted in the world on several days that month.

On 24 March alone 158 wildfires burned across fifteen districts and two districts were declared disaster zones. Thailand banned all open burning from 1 February to 31 May 2026 and the smoke came anyway. Late January to late April is the season; March is the worst of it.

If the trip can move, we move it to late November, December or January. If the dates are fixed, we take the northern nights out and put them into Cambodia and the Gulf coast — Siem Reap plus Koh Samui — or into central Vietnam, which is dry from February to April.

We do not substitute Luang Prabang. Northern Laos burns on the same calendar for the same reasons, so swapping one valley for another gains you nothing.

Not of the usual kind. No riding, in any form, and no camp that advertises bathing or riding. An animal that stands in a river for eight hours of visitor shifts has been trained to do it, and the training is the part that is not shown.

Where animals are the point of the trip, we can place you with an observation-only project where visitors do not handle the elephants and numbers on site are capped. It costs about the same and photographs less well.

Three works: one day for the walled old city on foot, one for Doi Suthep at 07:00 before the coaches arrive, and the flexibility to keep an afternoon free in 33 °C heat.

Four is better if food matters to you, if you want a day in the Mae Sa valley or on the Samoeng loop, or if your dates catch the Sunday walking street. Two forces the mountain and the old city into one morning, which puts you at Doi Suthep at 10:30 with four coach parties.

Because the Gulf runs opposite to the Andaman. Phuket, Krabi and the Andaman islands sit under the southwest monsoon from roughly May to October, with onshore swell, grey water and boat trips cancelled at short notice.

The peninsula shelters the Gulf from that monsoon, so June to August is Samui’s best window. A summer beach finish on the wrong coast is the most common mistake we are asked to fix.

November. It is the wettest month on the Gulf coast, the Ang Thong marine park closes for parts of it, and ferries are cancelled on bad days. October and December are only a little better.

Rates in November are 40 to 55 per cent below February and the beaches are nearly empty, so we will book it for a traveller who understands the trade. We do not put a honeymoon in it.

Usually yes for two travellers, often not for a family of five. Samui Airport is privately owned and fares from Bangkok are high for a 65-minute flight.

The alternative is Surat Thani on the mainland with a low-cost carrier, then about 1 h 30 by road to Donsak and 1 h 30 to 2 h on the ferry — four to five hours door to door. We quote both and let you choose.

The west and south. Lipa Noi and Taling Ngam face the mainland and the sunset with shallow calm water; Laem Set and Bang Kao in the south-east are quiet and small; Bang Por and Mae Nam on the north coast have long flat sand and a working village behind them.

Bophut’s Fisherman’s Village is the compromise if you want restaurants within walking distance without the Chaweng strip.

How many days, then when to go. Those two settle the shape of the trip between them, and everything else — countries, flights, hotels, guides — is a consequence. Visas matter enormously but they never change the route; they change what you have to do six weeks before you fly.

Yes, and plenty of people do. Send the month, the number of days and the party size and we will do the arithmetic for you. The pages exist because the same six questions arrive in almost every enquiry, and reading them first tends to make the first reply useful rather than a list of questions back.

In practice one of them is already fixed for you — usually the dates, because of school terms or leave. Start with whichever is genuinely immovable, then follow the order from there. What does not work is deciding the countries before either the length or the month, because that is the choice the calendar most often refuses.

Six to nine months for travel between mid-November and early February, because the better hotel rooms, cruise cabins and the Lao train seats go first. Outside that window three to four months is usually enough. Visa applications and arrival cards are a separate clock and belong in the last six weeks.

It can be sold and it cannot be enjoyed. Fourteen days minus arrival, departure and five internal flights leaves about nine days of ground time across four countries, which is two nights everywhere and four hotel check-outs before 07:00. We decline these rather than build them, and we say why in the first reply.

The two-night rule bends once per journey, usually for a night on the water in Lan Ha Bay or an overnight at Pakbeng on the slow boat, both of which are the point rather than a stop. The one-flight-per-48-hours rule bends only when a sector is cancelled and we are rebuilding around it. The five-days-per-country rule does not bend.

An extra night in a place you are already in runs roughly USD 180 to 320 per person — room, car day and guide if you are touring. An extra stop with a flight and two nights runs USD 520 to 900. Adding nights is always cheaper than adding places, which is why the 24-day answer is more nights rather than another stop.

It changes the buffer rather than the count. A cruise in the north between September and November needs a spare day more urgently than one in January, and a route through central Vietnam in October may need a rebuild rather than a buffer. See when to go for the month-by-month position.

Mid-November to early February, and nothing else comes close. Late November to mid-January is the strongest part of it. Outside that window at least one of the four is wet, burning or too hot, which is why routes built for other months tend to drop a country rather than stretch across all of them.

Bad enough that we redraw the route. The old town takes water through the ground floors most years, the heritage houses close and the streets flood for days at a time. It is not a matter of an umbrella. September is a gamble, October and November are the peak of the flood season, and by late December the town is dry and pleasant again.

You can, and we would rather you did not. PM2.5 in Chiang Mai reached 188 µg/m³ on 29 and 30 March 2026, twelve times the WHO guideline, with 158 wildfires across fifteen districts on 24 March. The mountains are invisible and the air is genuinely harmful for children and anyone with a respiratory condition. Bangkok and the coasts are unaffected.

It depends entirely which coast. Between November and April put the beach on the Andaman, at Krabi or Phuket, or on Phu Quoc in Vietnam. Between June and August put it on Koh Samui, which is dry then and wettest from October to December. Choosing the island before the dates is how honeymoons end up in the rain.

A Vietnamese e-visa, applied for at the Immigration Department portal — there is no exemption for US passports and this is the step most often missed. A Cambodian e-visa or visa on arrival at USD 30, plus the free Cambodia e-Arrival form. A Lao visa on arrival or e-visa, plus the free LDIF. Nothing for Thailand except the free TDAC, filed within 72 hours of arrival.

Thirty days, from 15 September 2026, for the sixty countries and territories that hold the exemption, with one extension of up to 30 more days available at a Thai immigration office. Seychelles and Mauritius get 15 days. Anyone who entered before that date keeps the 60 days they were granted. Any page still saying 60 for a new arrival is out of date.

In Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, yes, and they are separate from the visa. The Cambodia e-Arrival is filed at arrival.gov.kh within seven days of arrival, the Lao LDIF before arrival at Vientiane, Luang Prabang or Pakse airports and the Nong Khai bridge, and the Thai TDAC at tdac.immigration.go.th within 72 hours. All three are free. Vietnam has no equivalent form.

No. Every crossing has been closed since 23 June 2025 and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026. Bangkok to Siem Reap and Bangkok to Phnom Penh are flights of about 1 h 15. See flying between countries for how the sectors fit into a route.

No. All four official Thailand–Cambodia land crossings — Poipet–Aranyaprathet, Cham Yeam–Hat Lek, O’Smach–Chong Jom and Ban Pakard–Pailin — have been closed since 23 June 2025, and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen them during 2026.

The leg is flown instead, in about 1 h 15. If another operator has quoted you a road transfer through Poipet for 2026, ask them to confirm it in writing before you pay anything.

Usually four to six. A typical twenty-one-day route flies Bangkok to Luang Prabang or Siem Reap, one leg between Laos and Cambodia, one into Vietnam, and one or two inside Vietnam between Hanoi, Da Nang and Saigon.

Every one of those sectors is ticketed in advance and included in the land-only price. What is not included is the international open jaw into and out of the region.

Yes, and it is now our default for that leg. The EMU covers it in 1 h 50 against roughly ten hours on Route 13, and second class costs about USD 20.

The seats have to be bought weeks ahead through an agent, because station windows open only three days before departure and second class sells out in the dry season. Add an hour at each end for the station transfers: Vientiane is 15 km out and Luang Prabang 12 km.

The airline notifies the ticketing office rather than you. We rebuild the affected day, adjust the hotel and guide timings, and send you the revised plan. Where a cancellation forces an extra hotel night, we arrange it.

This is the main practical argument for holding the internal sectors on one ticketing file rather than booking them yourself on four separate airline websites, where each cancellation becomes your problem at an airport counter.

Comfortable is the top of the four-star band and the bottom of the five: a well-run hotel with a real concierge, a 30 to 45 square metre room and a pool. Excellent is the small group of landmark and design houses in each country — the properties people travel for.

In land-only price terms the two standards sit at roughly USD 250 and USD 450 per person per day, and about two-thirds of the gap between them is the room itself.

Yes. Every night of the quote names the property and the room category before any money changes hands. If a hotel becomes unavailable we propose a named alternative and you approve it or you decline it.

We do not use the phrase “or similar” except on enquiries priced more than a year ahead of published rates, and in that case we say so and reprice when the rates open.

We request and confirm them by name at the time of booking rather than noting a preference, and on family journeys the connecting inventory decides which hotels we can offer at all.

The supply is small — often four to six pairs in a hundred-room hotel — and it sells out months ahead between November and February. Book early or accept a shorter list of properties.

Rarely. A triple in this region is a twin plus a rollaway bed, and in a 32 square metre room that is a fortnight of stepping over a mattress. It is a cost saving, not a room type.

For a party of three we price two rooms and show the single-supplement arithmetic, and for parties of five or more we price two-bedroom suites and villas alongside separate rooms, which at the Excellent standard are often cheaper per person. How many days you need covers the pacing that goes with those parties.

Because the vehicle, the driver, the guide, the fuel and the parking cost the same whatever the party size, and that fixed daily cost is divided by the number of travellers.

At the Comfortable standard, land only, the figures are USD 320 per person per day for two travellers, USD 285 for three or four, and USD 250 for five to eight. The hotels, guides and entries are identical at all three.

If your budget is under about USD 200 per person per day, yes, clearly. A good small-group operator spreads its ground costs across twelve to sixteen people and can put you in better hotels than a private trip at the same money.

A solo traveller is also usually better off in a group, because a private journey charges one person for the whole vehicle and guide and adds a single supplement on every room.

No. A licensed national guide meets you in each country and hands over at the border. One guide travelling the whole route knows one country properly and reads the other three out of a book.

Guides are paid a fixed day rate by us regardless of what you spend, which is why there are no silk, gem or lacquer stops in any of our itineraries.

Capped at five hours behind the wheel, and four hours for a family party with children, with a stop at least every ninety minutes.

Where a route cannot be built inside those caps, we fly the leg or remove a stop rather than extend the day. This is the rule that most often takes a place out of a proposed itinerary.

About six. The limiting factor is not stamina, it is that flights, boats and trains run to fixed times that cannot pause for a nap, so the parent doing the carrying ends up doing the itinerary at a run. Above six the same route works well, and above eight children usually walk further than their grandparents.

A child under twelve sharing a room with two adults is quoted at 70% of the adult land rate. A child in their own room pays the adult rate, because the room is the biggest single cost in a day. At Angkor, under-twelves enter free but must show a passport at the ticket window.

We ask the hotel to confirm the connecting pair by room type at the time of booking and we print the confirmation in the itinerary. Where a property will not confirm it, we say so and offer a different hotel. Note that a room sold as a triple in this region is almost always a twin with a rollaway bed added.

Not on the family itinerary. Where the adults want to go, we build it as a half day for those who choose it while the children stay at the hotel with one parent. For travellers of about fifteen and over we will put both sites in the route and brief the party first.

June to August. The Gulf coast runs opposite to the Andaman coast: while Phuket and Krabi are under the southwest monsoon from May to October, Samui is at its driest. Samui is wettest from October to December, and November is the month to avoid entirely.

Not Samui. Phu Quoc is dry from November to April, and the Andaman side reopens through November, so either works while Samui does not. Central Vietnam is in flood season in November, so the coast around Hoi An comes out of the route and Laos and Cambodia carry the middle of the trip.

Lan Ha, entered from Haiphong, which carries far fewer boats than the Ha Long core. Take a small vessel or a private charter rather than a 46-cabin ship, and accept a buffer day afterwards: Quang Ninh authorities close the port on storm warnings and cruises are cancelled when they do.

We will hold a table, confirm a room category by name, and order flowers or a cake, all priced and printed in the itinerary. We will not put a photographer on a beach without telling you, stage a fake upgrade, or promise a room the hotel has not confirmed in writing.

Because guiding is licensed nationally and depth does not travel. A Cambodian licence does not permit guiding in Vietnam, and no single person holds fifteen years of knowledge in four countries. An escort crossing borders also adds their own flights, rooms and meals to your invoice while a local guide still works underneath them at each site.

Each country change costs a morning and an afternoon in transfers, airports and check-ins. Two changes inside ten days removes two days, and arrival removes a third. What is left is a sequence of first mornings rather than a journey, so short trips go to other operators.

Long multi-country journeys commit supplier money early: small-vessel cabins, regional flights, guides and drivers blocked out for weeks, and the better rooms in the November to February window contracted with deposits months ahead. The ladder steps at 90, 60 and 45 days and is printed on the quote you sign.

We publish none. A review we collected, edited and typed out is a review we wrote, and no reader can verify it. Instead we will connect you with a past client of your own nationality who travelled a comparable route, by email or phone, with their permission and without us in the middle.

Dates or at least a month, how many are travelling and their ages, how many days you have door to door, which countries if you have decided, a budget per person per day for land arrangements only, and the one place you refuse to miss. All six can change later, but with all six we can answer with a routing sketch instead of a questionnaire.

Within one working day for the first reply, and within three working days for a routing sketch showing countries in order, nights per stop and which legs fly. The named-hotel itinerary follows once the sketch is agreed. Nothing is charged until you have that itinerary and have said yes to it.

By July. The constraint is a small number of specific rooms rather than our capacity: the Lan Ha cabins worth having are a handful on each small vessel, and the best rooms in Siem Reap go early for that window. By September you are choosing from what is left.

No. We will tell you precisely what your nationality needs and link the official portal for each country, including the mandatory arrival forms for Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, but the applications are yours to file. We will also tell you when a third-party site is charging for something that is free.

Twenty-one days is the working minimum for Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand with any depth, and twenty-eight is the comfortable version. Below twenty-one, one country turns into a two-night stop and a pair of airport transfers.

Mid-November to early February is the only window that is dry in all four countries at once, with late November to mid-January the sweet spot. March to early May brings 35 to 40 °C at Angkor and the burning season in northern Thailand and northern Laos; Chiang Mai PM2.5 hit 188 µg/m³ on 29–30 March 2026.

No. All four crossings have been closed since 23 June 2025 and Thai authorities have said there is no plan to reopen during 2026. Bangkok to Siem Reap and Bangkok to Phnom Penh are flown, roughly 1 h 15 min.

Two travellers is the minimum. A solo traveller carries the full cost of a car, a driver and a guide, which puts the day rate above the two-traveller column rather than below it, and we would rather say that up front.

Take the one that matches your length and your countries, not the one that matches your interests — interests are easy to move, nights and flights are not. If you have twenty-one days and want three countries, start from Indochina Classic and tell us what you would change.

No. They are the starting point: per person, land only, twin share, five to eight travellers, Comfortable standard. Two travellers on the same route pay roughly 28 per cent more per head, and the Excellent standard runs about 55 per cent above Comfortable. The pricing page holds the grid.

Often, and it usually costs less per day than either one alone because the fixed cost of a car and a guide spreads across more days. The limit is the calendar rather than the routing: past about thirty days, hotel availability in the mid-November to early February window becomes the constraint.

None of them. Every journey on this site runs for one party — a couple, a family or a set of friends travelling together. There is no shared coach and no stranger added to fill a seat.