About Vietnam Trekking
A small walking company with four routes, ten walkers maximum, and a short list of things we do badly. Here is how we work and what we pay the people who work with us.
What we are
A Vietnamese trekking operator selling four walking routes: three in the northern limestone and one across the southern grassland ridges. We do not sell cruises, city tours, beach extensions or the north-to-south loop. Every trip we sell is walked.
The company is licensed as an international tour operator in Vietnam under licence demo_tour_operator_licence_no, and the legal entity behind this site is demo_legal_entity_name. Those details are also in the footer and in the booking terms, and if a company will not put them where you can read them, that is worth noticing.
We are small. That is a real constraint rather than a marketing position: it means we can answer your email in a day and know which house in Kho Muong has the good mattresses, and it also means there are weeks in October when we have no guide free and will tell you so instead of subcontracting your trek to a company you have not chosen.
How we work
The guide walks the route
Not a driver-guide who meets you at the far end. This costs us USD 38 to 55 a day and it is the main reason our price sits where it does.
Ten walkers, hard cap
Above ten the group splits on every climb and the slowest walker spends hours alone. We turn away the eleventh booking.
Named houses
Every night on every itinerary is a named village and a named family, agreed before you pay. We do not write “local homestay, standard”.
No commission from shops
We take nothing from any workshop, silk outlet or jewellery shop your group buys from, which is why there are none on our itineraries.
We publish what we pay guides, village guides and drivers on the pricing page. Very few operators do, and the reason to do it is simple: it is the only way you can tell whether a cheaper quote is a leaner company or a worse-paid guide.
What we are not good at
Four things, honestly. If you want any of them, we are the wrong company and there is no point in either of us finding that out in week three of the email thread.
- Large groups. Above ten walkers we either refuse or run two guides at two guides' cost. Corporate groups of twenty-five should go elsewhere.
- Comfort. The best beds on our routes are clean village houses and small guesthouses. We do not have a luxury tier and we will not pretend a stilt house is one.
- Languages other than English. Our guides work in English and Vietnamese. We have worked with a French-speaking guide occasionally and cannot promise one. German, Spanish and Japanese, no.
- Everything that is not walking. Flights, cruises, Hoi An tailors, Mekong day-trips. Every operator in Hanoi does these and most do them better than we would.
Why there are no reviews on this site
Because we cannot prove any review we published was real, and neither can you. Every Vietnamese tour site carries a wall of five-star quotations with first names and nationalities attached, and a significant proportion of them are written in-house. We are not going to add to that.
What we offer instead is more useful and more uncomfortable for us: if you are seriously considering a booking, ask and we will put you in touch with two previous clients from your own country who walked the route you are asking about, by email, with no third party in the thread. They will tell you what went wrong as well as what went right. We ask their permission each time and some say no.
Our public reviews live on the platforms where they cannot be edited by us. If you find a bad one there, it is real, and you should read it.
The people
Guides are Vietnamese, most from the provinces they guide in, and every one of them has walked the route they lead at least six times before leading it. Two hold wilderness first-aid certification and we are working through the rest; the guide on Ta Nang always holds it, without exception, because that route has two nights without a road.
Village guides are paid direct, in cash, on the day, at USD 18 to 25. That money does not pass through a village tourism committee, which in several places takes a share. Host families are paid per bed and per meal at rates we publish, and we settle within a week rather than at the end of the season.
| Guide day rate we pay | USD 38 - 55 |
| Village guide day rate | USD 18 - 25, paid direct |
| Homestay bed | USD 8 - 14 per person per night |
| Walkers per guide, maximum | 10 on northern routes, 6 per staff member on Ta Nang |
| Routes we sell | 4 |
| Routes we run privately for returning clients | Fansipan, Y Ty, Bidoup |
Questions travellers ask most
Are you a Vietnamese company or a foreign one?
Vietnamese, licensed here as an international tour operator, paying tax here and employing the guides directly. The licence number and the legal entity are in the footer of every page on this site.
What happens if something goes wrong on the trail?
The guide carries a first-aid kit, a phone and, on Ta Nang, a satellite messenger. There is a 24-hour number that reaches a person in Hanoi, not a voicemail. Evacuation in Vietnam is a road evacuation or, rarely and expensively, a helicopter, and it is paid for by your insurance, which is why we check the policy before you travel.
Do you do anything about the environmental cost?
Two concrete things and no claims beyond them. We refill water from 20-litre carboys rather than handing out bottles, which removes roughly forty single-use bottles from a six-day group trek. And we carry out what we carry in on Ta Nang, including the group's food waste, because there is no collection anywhere on that route.
We do not buy carbon offsets and we are not going to put a leaf logo on the page. A trek that starts with a long-haul flight has a footprint and we would rather say that than dress it up.
Can I contact a previous client?
Yes. Ask, tell us your country and the route you are considering, and we will introduce you by email to two people who have walked it. We ask their permission each time and we do not sit in the thread.
Read next
Tell us about the trek 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.