Built backwards from the beach
Hanoi, a night on the water in Lan Ha Bay, three days in Hoi An, three at Angkor, a connection night in Bangkok and five nights on Koh Samui. The beach is chosen first and the cities are arranged to reach it, which is the opposite of how most honeymoons are put together.
Who this journey is for
- Length
- 16 days, 15 nights
- Group
- 2 – 8, your party only
- Starts
- Hanoi
- Ends
- Koh Samui
- Pace
- Easy — five flights, no long drives
- From
- USD 4,800 per person
This is a honeymoon for two people who want a real trip and then a real rest, in that order, and who have worked out that most honeymoon itineraries fail at the end rather than the beginning. Five nights is the shortest beach stay that produces an actual holiday: one day to stop moving, three days of nothing, one day to pack.
The design starts at Koh Samui and works backwards. The Gulf coast season is inverted against the Andaman, so Samui is at its best from June to August, when Phuket and Krabi are under monsoon, and it is wettest from October to December. Anyone who tells you to finish in Krabi in July is selling you the more famous coast rather than the drier one.
January to March is the other window, and it is the stronger one for the cities: northern Vietnam is dry and cool, Angkor is in its best months before the March heat, and the Gulf is settled. Choose that window if the temples matter more than the sea, and June to August if the sea matters more.
What the sixteen days give you
- One night in a private cabin in Lan Ha Bay, entered from Haiphong, where the boat count is a fraction of the Ha Long core.
- Three nights in Hoi An, which is enough to see the old town early, spend an afternoon at An Bang beach, and eat properly twice.
- Angkor across three mornings on a USD 62 three-day pass, out of the temples before the heat each day.
- A guide and a driver in each country, working in their own country, not one guide dragged across three borders.
- Five nights on Koh Samui with nothing scheduled and no transfers.
- One honest connection night in Bangkok rather than a fake city stay.
- A table held for you on a night of your choosing, arranged by name, not by a form.
Two choices we make for you, and why
Lan Ha Bay rather than the Ha Long core
Lan Ha is entered from Haiphong rather than from Ha Long City, and the boat traffic there is a fraction of what sits in the main bay. The karst is the same limestone. The difference is how many other vessels are in your photograph and how far you have to go to swim off the back of the boat.
The safety history matters too. A tourist boat capsized in the bay on 19 July 2025 during a sudden squall in Tropical Storm Wipha, and at least 37 people died. Cruises were suspended for a review and have resumed. Quang Ninh authorities now close the port outright on a storm warning, which means a cancelled night is a real possibility between June and September. Every itinerary we sell carries a buffer day, and insurance is a condition of booking.
Koh Samui rather than Phuket or Krabi
The Gulf of Thailand runs on a different calendar from the Andaman Sea. The Andaman monsoon runs May to October; Samui is dry and settled through June, July and August, and takes its own rain from October to December. If your wedding is in June, the Gulf is the answer. If it is in November, we will move you to the Andaman coast and say why.
Samui also has an airport with direct flights from Bangkok, which removes a two-hour road and ferry transfer at the tired end of the trip. There is more on the island in Koh Samui, and on the three nights before it in Hoi An.
The Bangkok stop exists because the Thailand–Cambodia land border has been closed at every crossing since 23 June 2025 and Siem Reap to Samui has to be flown in two legs. One night gives you a bed, a dinner and a shower rather than an airport bench. It does not give you Bangkok, and we will not describe it as a city stay. If you want the Grand Palace and a river dinner, add two more nights and we will quote them.
Day by day
Arrive Hanoi
Your guide meets you at Noi Bai and the drive into the city takes 45 minutes to an hour. Nothing is scheduled beyond dinner, which is booked within walking distance of the hotel so that neither of you has to get back into a car.
Hanoi on foot
The morning is the Old Quarter on foot: the thirty-six streets, a coffee sitting on a plastic stool, the Bach Ma temple, and the rail line where the houses stand a metre from the track. The afternoon covers the Temple of Literature and the French quarter, and finishes at the Thang Long water puppet theatre only if you want it.
The evening is free. Hanoi eats early and the good places are empty by nine.
To Lan Ha Bay
The drive to Haiphong takes about two and a half hours on the expressway, and the boat leaves in the early afternoon. You have a private cabin with a balcony, lunch on board as the ship works into the bay, and a kayak or a swim off the tender in the late afternoon.
Dinner is on deck. The bay goes quiet after nine and the anchorage is chosen for that reason.
Lan Ha to Hoi An
Breakfast is early, the boat is alongside by mid-morning, and the drive back to Hanoi airport takes about three hours. The flight to Da Nang is 1 h 20 min and the transfer south to Hoi An another 45 minutes. It is the longest travel day of the trip and it is the only one.
Hoi An old town
You walk the old town from 08:00, before the tour groups arrive and while the light is still low on the yellow walls. The 120,000 VND ticket admits you to five of the twenty-two heritage buildings, and enforcement is at the doors of the houses in daylight, so the ticket is worth having.
The afternoon is yours. A tailor takes two fittings across three days if you want one, and we will name two who are honest about fabric.
Hoi An: the beach, or the river
Nothing is scheduled. An Bang beach is a fifteen-minute drive and the resort will run you there and back. The alternative is a morning on the Thu Bon river by sampan and an afternoon at the Tra Que herb village, which is a working market garden rather than a display.
The old town after dark is a different place from the old town at eight in the morning, and both are worth an hour.
Fly to Siem Reap
Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City is 1 h 20 min, and Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap another 1 h 10 min. Your Cambodian guide meets you at Siem Reap–Angkor International, 40 to 50 kilometres out, and the transfer runs 45 to 60 minutes.
Nothing is planned for the evening. The temples start early tomorrow.
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom
You are at the gates at 07:30 for Angkor Wat and its western causeway, then Angkor Thom, the Bayon and the Terrace of the Elephants. Lunch is back at the hotel and the afternoon is free, because the middle of the day at Angkor in any month is not worth the discomfort.
Shoulders and knees covered at the inner entrances. The upper level of Angkor Wat is refused to anyone dressed otherwise.
Banteay Srei and Ta Prohm
Banteay Srei first, 37 kilometres out, where the pink sandstone carving is the finest in the park and the best light is before nine. Ta Prohm on the way back, on the boardwalks, which are there to stop the roots being walked into dust.
The afternoon is free. Phnom Bakheng at sunset is available and has a hard 300-person cap, so it is booked or it is not attempted.
Fly to Bangkok
A late-morning flight of about 1 h 15 min. The land border has been closed since June 2025 so this leg is flown, and the hotel is chosen for the airport connection tomorrow rather than for the view. Dinner is nearby.
Fly to Koh Samui
Bangkok to Samui takes about an hour and lands at an open-air airport that is the pleasantest arrival in Thailand. The transfer to the north or west coast runs 20 to 40 minutes. From here nothing is scheduled for four full days.
Koh Samui
Nothing planned. The resorts on this coast sit on their own bays and most guests do not leave them on the first full day. A boat to the Ang Thong marine park is available with a day’s notice.
Koh Samui
Nothing planned. If you want the island there is a road right around it, the Na Muang waterfalls inland, and Fisherman’s Village at Bophut for an evening. If you do not, the beach is there.
Koh Samui
Nothing planned. This is the day people say they remember, which is an argument for five nights rather than three.
If you have asked for an anniversary dinner or a table on the sand, tonight is usually when we put it.
Koh Samui
The last full day. By now the pattern of the week has set itself and we do not interrupt it. If you want one thing on the calendar, an early longtail to Koh Tan or Koh Madsum leaves before the day boats and is back by eleven; the hotel books it the evening before, at the going rate, with no mark-up through us.
Dinner on the final night is the one reservation we will hold in advance if you ask, and we will tell you exactly what has been booked. Nothing is arranged behind your back, and there is no staged surprise.
Depart Koh Samui
A transfer to Samui airport for a connection through Bangkok or Singapore. Check-out is at noon and a late room can be held for a fee if your flight is in the evening.
What it costs
| Party size | Comfortable | Excellent |
|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 6,140 | USD 9,520 |
| 3 – 4 travellers | USD 5,280 | USD 8,180 |
| 5 – 8 travellers | USD 4,800 | USD 7,440 |
Anniversaries and proposals: what we arrange and what we do not
Couples ask for two different things and they get confused with each other. One is a booking: a table at a particular hour, a room with a particular view, a cake, a bottle chilled and waiting. The other is a performance: rose petals arranged by staff you have never met, a violinist, a photographer crouched behind a palm tree.
The first is straightforward and we do it properly. A table at the end of a jetty is held in your name at the hour you choose. A room is requested at the time of booking and confirmed by the hotel in writing, not hoped for at check-in. A bottle is in the room when you arrive because someone was told which day and which room, not because a note was added to a reservation and forgotten.
If you are proposing
Tell us and tell us early. A proposal needs one thing above all: for the other person not to know. That rules out most of what a resort will offer you, because a beach set with candles at six o’clock is visible from the terrace at half past five.
What works is small. A table booked for two at a time that is slightly odd. A guide told to walk ahead at a particular corner. A boat that leaves twenty minutes before the others. If you want a photographer we will find one and we will tell you exactly where they will be standing — we will not put a stranger on a beach with a long lens and leave you to notice them halfway through.
What we will not do
- We will not stage a photographer without telling both of you, and we will not pretend one is a passing tourist.
- No fireworks, no drones over a beach, no sky lanterns. Two of those are illegal in places on this route and the third sets fire to things.
- No hotel “romance package” sold on at a markup. If a hotel offers one and it is worth having, we will tell you the price and you can decide.
- No guarantee of an upgrade. Rooms are requested and confirmed or they are not, and we will tell you which.
What is and is not included
What the price includes
- Fifteen nights: two in Hanoi, one aboard in Lan Ha Bay, three in Hoi An, three in Siem Reap, one in Bangkok, five on Koh Samui.
- A private guide and a private driver in Vietnam, in Cambodia and in Thailand, each working in their own country.
- One night in a private balcony cabin in Lan Ha Bay, full board, with kayaks and a tender.
- Five flights: Hanoi–Da Nang, Da Nang–Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City–Siem Reap, Siem Reap–Bangkok and Bangkok–Koh Samui, booked in advance.
- The three-day Angkor pass at USD 62 and the Hoi An old town ticket at 120,000 VND.
- Breakfast every morning, plus the meals listed day by day, including one dinner held in your name.
- Every airport meet-and-greet and every transfer named in the itinerary.
- A buffer built into the Lan Ha night against a port closure, and a rebooking plan if it happens.
- A 24-hour contact number in each of the three countries.
What it does not include
- International flights into Hanoi and out of Koh Samui.
- Visas: a Vietnamese e-visa where your passport requires one, a Cambodian e-visa at USD 30 plus USD 6, and the free Thailand Digital Arrival Card.
- Travel insurance, which we require and will ask to see.
- Lunches and dinners on the days marked breakfast only.
- Drinks, spa treatments, laundry and anything charged to your room.
- The Ang Thong boat, tailoring in Hoi An, and other optional extras named as optional.
- Tips for guides, drivers and boat crew.
The journey in pictures
Who this journey is wrong for
Four kinds of couple should book something else, and we would rather say it here.
- Couples travelling in October, November or December who insist on Koh Samui. That is the Gulf’s wet season. We will move you to the Andaman coast or we will decline the beach leg.
- Couples who want Bangkok as a destination. One night here is a connection and calling it anything else would be dishonest. Add two nights or take a different route.
- Couples who want four countries in sixteen days. Adding Laos means dropping either Hoi An or three of the beach nights, and both trades make the trip worse.
- Couples who want a surprise proposal that the resort staff arrange without our involvement. That is how the surprise gets spoiled, and we have watched it happen.
- Anyone budgeting under USD 200 per person per day. This route does not exist at that number.
Tell us the month
The month decides the beach, and the beach decides the rest of the route. Start there.
Questions travellers ask most
Why Koh Samui and not Phuket?
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.
Can we go overland from Siem Reap to Bangkok?
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.
What happens if the Lan Ha Bay night is cancelled?
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.
Will you arrange a proposal?
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.
Read next
Tell us about the journey you have in mind
Dates, party size and the places you care about are enough to start. You get a draft route and an indicative price, not a brochure.