What if we cut out Thailand completely? I really want to go to Thailand and we will probably never go back to asia. IS there a nice beach we could go to in vietnam?

china beach area is a favorite of many.. not far from danang

you also have Nha Trang or Phu Quoc for great beach destinations.

Kathie, you're right, but we find that if we travel at night or early morning, we only lose half a day, not the whole day many complain about, and we're willing to do that provided we factor it in when planning the trip -- we knew how much time we needed/wanted in each location, and we had that, so the time in transit was essentially built-in "extra time".

To the OP, also, we stayed on the beach in HoiAn (which is, I think, technically still China Beach?) and found it lovely -- wide, soft sand, great hotels on the beach. A lot of people prefer to stay in town in HoiAn, but we liked staying at the beach and going into town (10 minutes via taxi or shuttle) in the late afternoons and early evenings.

I think it makes sense to eliminate one country, and with your plan, Thailand makes the most sense. I'd suggest you use Hoi An As your beach stop, otherwise, you'll be cutting two stops in Thailand only to add one more in VN. Using Hoi An as your beach stop and cutting Thailand, you are down to about 10 stops, a much more manageable number. Note that you will still be moving pretty fast.

Take a good look at your air connections so you can take transit times into consideration as you plan how much time for each place.

Okay Thank you all very much!