Day trips from Hanoi, ranked by what the road costs you

Four day trips from Hanoi are sold to every visitor who walks through the Old Quarter. Two of them work, one is a long way to go for a boat, and one is not a day trip at all.

What is the best day trip from Hanoi?

Ninh Binh, about two hours south. Limestone towers standing in flooded rice fields, a rowed boat between them, and a staircase with the best view in northern Vietnam at the top of it.

Ninh Binh is the only one of the classics that survives being compressed into a day, and it is still better with a night. The Ninh Binh things to do page covers which boat to take, and the two-day route covers what the night buys.

The other day trips from Hanoi are worth doing in a different form: as an overnight, as a half day, or not at all. The table below is that judgement in one place.

Should you do Ha Long as a day trip?

Only if the dates leave no other option. Ha Long is roughly four hours each way, which buys about four hours on the water in the middle of the day and in the busiest part of the bay.

The thing people remember from Ha Long is the early morning, before the day boats arrive, and a day trip is structurally incapable of delivering it. If the bay matters to you, sleep on it — or take Cat Ba instead and sleep on land.

What about the Perfume Pagoda?

The weakest of the standard trips and the most heavily sold. It is a boat up the Yen stream, then a cable car or a climb to a cave shrine, roughly two hours south-west of the city.

During the spring festival, from about the second lunar month, it is a genuine spectacle and an enormous crush. Outside it, the trip is pleasant and slight. If a tout in the Old Quarter is pushing one day trip hardest, it is usually this one.

What is worth doing in half a day?

Bat Trang, the ceramic village about 15 km southeast, where you can watch the workshops and throw a pot badly yourself. It is forty minutes out and back on a local bus.

Duong Lam, 45 km west, is the other one: a village of laterite-walled houses, some of them centuries old, and almost no visitors. Both are half-day trips that most itineraries never mention, and both are quieter than anything on the coach list.

Bat Trang in particular suits a hot afternoon, since most of it is indoors under workshop roofs. Duong Lam is better early, before the light goes flat on the laterite walls.

Which of these should become an overnight?

Sapa, first and absolutely. It is six hours each way and any day trip sold to it is not a real offer. Two or three nights is the minimum, and the where to stay page explains why the valley beats the town.

Ha Long is the second. Ninh Binh is the third and the most optional, since a day there genuinely works — it just works better with a dawn.

Tam Dao is the summer entry on this list, two hours north and ten degrees cooler than the city. Go midweek: at weekends it is Hanoi's own resort and the hill fills up.

How do you actually get to these?

Bus, train or a car with a driver, and the answer differs by destination. Ninh Binh has both frequent buses from Giap Bat and trains from Hanoi station, the train being the more pleasant.

Ha Long is bus or organised transfer; there is no useful rail. Bat Trang is a city bus. For anything involving several stops in a day, a car with a driver split between three or four people costs little more than the tour and goes where you want. The transport guide covers the general picture.

Where do these fit in a trip?

Most northern itineraries have room for exactly one day trip and one overnight out of Hanoi. The week in the north sets out the choice that forces, and the five-day route shows the shorter version.