Travel Blog: Culture + Landscapes + Delicious Eats + History = Vietnam

We brought reading glasses as these women spend som much time embroidering. They couldn't have been more appreciative.

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By the numbers, my Vietnam Adventure was 3 weeks, 10 hotels, 2 nights on the water and 1 night on the train. Breaking down this amazingly storied country by numbers doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a start. This Southeast Asian Republic has so much to offer travelers. You can expect to experience delicious and fresh food, welcoming people, stunning vistas, amazing beaches, loads of history, buzzing cities (I could write an entire missive about the motorbike scene) and ethereal skies over the meticulously terraced rice paddies.

Our Off The Beaten Track Travel Blog

Our family hiked through the Masai lands in Tanzania in 2019 and I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience another encounter as unique and “off the beaten track.” I’m happy to report I was wrong on that account. My husband and I took the overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (my first overnight train since college) to venture into in the mountains near the Chinese border. Our guide, Kien, treated us to two days of hiking through the rice paddies and villages of the indigenous communities from SE Asia. We met the sisterhoods of the Black Hmong, Red Dzao, Red Hmong and the Flower Hmong. They found us on the trails and accompanied us for hours to practice their English and sell us their handmade textiles.

Other highlights include: markets bustling with “Mama” shops, watching the ingenuity of cooking on the streets, the history and influence of Ho Chi Minh and Communism, the UNESCO Site of Halong Bay with its towering limestone islands, biking through the rice paddies of Hue, the magic of the beautiful lanterned city of Hoi An, cruising the Mekong Delta and a Vespa tour throughout Saigon.

At Trekese we carefully select our outfitters to ensure that you get off the beaten track too. We make the process painless for our clients and take care of details so you don’t have to.

Let Trekese get you off the beaten path - Trekese - Adventure for the Soul