quick question about "avoiding the Tet holiday" in Vietnam
 

Hi all

Given that Tet is Tuesday Feb 5, is arrival the immediately following weekend still going to be caught up in it all (Feb 8-9)? Would it be advisable to arrive, say, Friday the 15th of February for a two week trip?

Or, if I abut it on the beginning - if I head home Sunday January 27 (28?) am I going to be caught up in any of the pre-stuff?

Given that this trip is going to be two+ weeks and my departure would be so soon after Xmas, it might be better for optics at work if I did it the last half of February rather than taking off after a week's holiday at Xmas.

But if it were up to you, and you hated heat and humidity and wanted to minimize it as much as you could, which month would you choose?

Humidity is worse than heat actually but if humidity is a fact of life I'd as soon it be as cool as it could be.

Thank you

For weather concerns, take a look at Travel Weather Averages (Weatherbase) You can look at each place you plan to visit in VN and see high and low temps, rainfall and relative humidity.

The reason to avoid the Tet holiday its because it is a family holiday in VN and people will be going home to their families. Thus, local transport will be booked up and some small shops may be closed.

If you plan to spend most of your time in northern VN, both January and February are relatively cool. In the south, February temps are higher than January.

Tet is not the big deal it once was and is probably observed more in the north than the south these days. The first time I went over the Tet holiday was many, many years ago and Hanoi was all but closed for business and bus, plane and trains were very hard to book. In more recent visits, the month long celebrations have shrunk to a week. Having said that, I would book transport arrangements as soon as you know your date as you are on a tight schedule. Better safe than sorry! IME trains especially get booked up well in advance and are not always easy to book from overseas. Accommodation , should not be much of a problem.



As far as the weather January and Feb are good months to visit most of the country. It will clearly be hotter in the south than the north - maybe by around 15c. Expect blue skies and little or no rain in either month. Humidity is perfectly manageable, north and south in both months, although Hanoi can get "cold and clammy” at times .

Essentially, I don’t think you can go far wrong whichever month you go as far as north and south are concerned. The central region, Hue etc. is a bit more problematic as it is on the cusp of the rainy season and Feb SHOULD see better weather but these are uncertain times as far as climate is concerned.

Thank you Kathie and crellston!

I hope to figure this out by November. I think I'd rather do this in January but as mentioned, office optics so close after Xmas (but also the fear that if I push this out too far something else is going to happen at work and I'll be "too valuable" to take off for two weeks). I suppose I could arrive Feb 8 but start in the south and end in the north, which expands the timing a bit.