dlai

We are a family living in Japan considering a Spring trip to Vietnam for the first time...Although we've done a bit of research, we are unsure of how much we should try to cover in only one week!

Should we stick to one city(such as Hanoi) and a beach destination (Danang?) or?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Kathie

Frankly, with just a week, I'd choose one city plus day trips. Hanoi is a fascinating city, and you could do an overnight cruise on Halong Bay.

If you opt for two locations, such as a city and a beach, you'll use up a lot of your time with moving from one place to another.

Since you are flying from Japan, you won't ahve the jetlag to contend with. How many full days on the ground? If you can eke out even another full day. say 8 full days on the ground, it would make two locations more practical.

dlai

Hi Kathie,

Thanks for your reply...It's a 6 hour (and very expensive-over 1000 USD currently) flight from Tokyo to Hanoi so we would want to be sure it is worthwhile. We've been wanting to see Vietnam for several years now but maybe it makes sense to wait for a longer holiday time. We could add an extra day, say leaving on a Friday night for Hanoi, and then returning on a Sunday morning a week later but that would still only be 8 full days on the ground.

Since you've been there, what do you consider to be your must-see or favorite spots? The kids going with us are 8, 10, and 12!

Thanks!

KimJapan

Can you navigate in Japanese? If so, www.tour.ne.jp has great discount fares collected from various agents around Japan. You should be able to do much better than ¥100,000 for that trip. I'm seeing RT fares for NRT - HAN as low as ¥66,000 for Golden Week, less at other times this spring.

dlai

Hi KimJapan!

Unfortunately, I don't read Japanese (am just starting to learn to speak it!) so that makes it a bit more difficult to find airfares. I did look at the website but no English! We're looking at the last week of March for our travel so not quite Golden week...

KimJapan

The whole month of March has fares starting at ¥41,000. RAJ Travel 03-5654-2444
Flex International 03-5330-0132
list low fares. You might also try the places that advertise in the Japan Times like HIS, HIT...

Just be careful about the tickets you get if you want to earn miles...some of the cheapest tickets earn no miles.

dlai

Thanks so much Kim!
We will check those out...