Before the north, there's the south, and it's worth every extra day.

This four-night pre-trip extension drops you into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) before the main tour begins, giving you a head start on beating jetlag, an early taste of Vietnamese life, and the chance to bond with a small handful of your fellow travelers before the full group comes together. With a knowledgeable local guide leading the way, you'll experience a side of Vietnam that most one-week itineraries never reach.

Saigon is electric. It moves fast, sounds loud, smells incredible, and can make you feel invigorated within hours of arriving. You'll get your bearings on an orientation walk, learn the art of Vietnamese coffee, and spend a night weaving through the city's street food scene on the back of a motorbike — eating your way through dishes you won't find anywhere else. From there, a day trip takes you underground into the Cu Chi Tunnels, the remarkable wartime network that tells one of history's most extraordinary stories of resilience.

On Day 4, you leave the city behind and head to the Mekong Delta, where life is quieter, greener, and deeply rooted in the river. You'll drift through canals on a wooden boat, wander through fruit gardens, visit local homes, and be treated to traditional music drifting across the water.

The extension wraps on the evening of March 14th in Hanoi, where you'll fly to Hanoi (included flight) to unite with the rest of the group arriving for the first evening's activities.

Why add this on? If you're already crossing the ocean to get to Vietnam, five extra days is a small ask for an entirely different chapter of the country. This extension is ideal if you want to shake off jetlag before the main tour begins, explore southern Vietnam beyond the tourist trail, or simply make the most of a trip you've already committed to. It's a small group, just 2 to 16 travelers, so the experience feels intimate, unhurried, and down-to-earth.

What Airport Do I Fly Into?

For this tour, we recommend flying into Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN).

All included airport transfers are coordinated around arrivals at SGN, making travel logistics simple and seamless from start to finish. At the end of the pre-trip, you will fly from Can Tho to Hanoi (included flight) to meet with the rest of the group.

When Does the Tour Begin and End?

The first official activity of the tour begins in Ho Chi Minh City on March 10th, 2027. This is an arrival day and the evening is free to refresh. Your guide is available with recommendations and assistance as needed. The tour concludes in Hanoi following your included airport transfer to the host hotel. From there, the official Northern Vietnam tour begins.

• Electric Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) – Dive headfirst into one of Southeast Asia's most exhilarating cities. From a street-level orientation walk through its layered neighborhoods to the rituals of Vietnamese coffee culture, Saigon grabs you immediately and doesn't let go.

• Night Food Tour by Motorbike – Experience Saigon the way locals do — after dark, on two wheels, with something delicious in hand. Weave through illuminated streets and stop at the hole-in-the-wall spots that define the city's legendary street food scene.

• Cu Chi Tunnels Day Trip – Descend into one of the most remarkable chapters of Vietnamese history. This vast underground network — once the base of wartime guerrilla fighters — is a powerful, unforgettable reminder of the ingenuity and resilience that shaped modern Vietnam.

• Mekong Delta by Boat – Trade the city buzz for the gentle rhythm of the delta. Drift through narrow canals, explore lush fruit gardens, visit local homes, and let the sounds of traditional music carry across the water. Rural Vietnam at its most intimate.

• Can Tho's Floating Market – Rise early and take to the river for one of Vietnam's most iconic scenes — vendors trading fruit, vegetables, and goods from wooden boats as the morning mist lifts off the water. A living tradition and a photographer's dream.

• Small Group, Big Head Start – With just 2 to 16 travelers, this extension is your chance to arrive oriented, rested, and already connected to a handful of your fellow SideQuesters — so by the time the full group gathers in Hanoi, you'll feel right at home.

• The Perfect Jetlag Antidote – Four days of immersive activity is the best cure for a long-haul flight. By the time you arrive in Hanoi for the welcome dinner on March 14th, you'll be acclimated, energized, and ready to hit the ground running.

• What Airport Do I Fly Into?
  For this tour, we recommend flying into Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN).

  All included airport transfers are coordinated around arrivals and departures at SGN, making travel logistics simple and seamless from start to finish.

• When Does the Tour Begin and End?

  The first official activity of the tour begins in Ho Chi Minh City on March 10th, 2027. This is an arrival day and the evening is free to refresh. Your guide is available with recommendations and assistance as needed. The tour concludes in Hanoi following your included airport transfer to the host hotel. From there, the official Northern Vietnam tour begins.

• What Is The Cancellation Policy?
  If your booking is still pending, you’re eligible for a full refund — including your 25% deposit.

  Once your trip spot is confirmed, we will send you a confirmation notification and your deposit becomes non-refundable. If you need to cancel after confirmation, you’ll receive a Credit Voucher to be applied to a future trip within 1 year of cancellation, for the 25% deposit amount paid (minus a $100 cancellation fee). Optional Add-ons can be added and are fully refundable up to 60-days pre-trip.

  After the 90-day mark before the trip, all payments become non-refundable, since hotels, transportation, and activities have already been paid for. Any exceptions at that point are at the discretion of our local partners.

  We strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance — it really is worth it.
  
  > For more FAQ, find your answers here.

Overview

Welcome to Saigon! Upon arrival at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN), you'll be met by our local guide holding SideQuests welcome signage and transferred by private vehicle to our hotel in the heart of the city, Liberty Central Saigon. After check-in, the rest of the day is yours — rest up, take a first wander, or simply soak in the sounds of one of Southeast Asia's most electric cities. No agenda. Just arrival.

Exact meeting times and any optional evening plans will be shared on our group WhatsApp chat closer to the trip date.

Overnight Accommodation at Liberty Central Saigon Hotel

A stylish, centrally located 4-star hotel that puts you steps from the city's best streets, markets, and restaurants. A comfortable and well-positioned base as your Vietnam adventure begins.

Overview

After breakfast, we head out to meet Saigon on its own terms. This city moves fast, sounds loud, and smells incredible — and today is all about diving in. We'll start with a morning walk through the French Quarter to get our bearings and soak up the atmosphere, then slow things down with a proper Vietnamese coffee education before the city's energy picks back up again. After a break for lunch on your own, the evening belongs entirely to Saigon's street food scene — experienced the way locals do it, from the back of a motorbike.

French Quarter Orientation Walk

We begin the morning on foot, wandering through Saigon's French Quarter with your English-speaking guide. This is your first real chance to read the city — its layered history written into the architecture, the etiquette of its public spaces, and the quiet rituals of people going about their day. Don't rush it. Pay attention. Saigon rewards the curious.

Vietnamese Coffee Class

Vietnam is the second-largest coffee producer in the world, and the way they drink it here is a culture all its own. We'll settle into a local café and watch a barista walk through the full process — from the signature phin filter to the condensed milk, the ice, the patience. You'll leave with a deep appreciation for why this country takes its coffee so seriously. Egg coffee curious? This is your moment to ask.

Afternoon at Leisure

After the morning out, the middle of the day is yours. Grab lunch on your own — your guide will have plenty of recommendations nearby — and use the time to rest, wander, or duck into a market or two before the real main event of the evening.

Night Street Food Tour by Motorbike

This is the one. As the sun goes down and Saigon lights up, you'll climb on the back of a motorbike with an expert local driver and head straight into the city's most flavorful back alleys and side streets. Over the course of the evening, you'll stop at a rotating cast of local spots for dish after dish — banh xeo (crispy Vietnamese savory pancake), fresh seafood, pho, banana cakes, and whatever else the night decides to offer. You'll eat on plastic stools, on curbs, and in narrow lanes that a tour bus could never reach. This is Saigon as a lived experience, not a sightseeing one.

Street Food Dinner – Included Your motorbike food tour includes dinner across multiple stops: a curated and delicious spread of authentic Saigon street food, eaten exactly where it's meant to be eaten.

Overnight Accommodation at Liberty Central Saigon Hotel

We'll return to Liberty Central for the night. Breakfast is included the following morning before we head out for Day 3.

Overview

Today we trade the city for one of the most extraordinary historical sites in Southeast Asia. A 90-minute drive through rubber tree plantations brings us to the Cu Chi Tunnels — a vast, hidden underground world that once served as the nerve center of guerrilla resistance during the Vietnam War. It's a day that will stay with you long after you've left it. We return to the hotel by early afternoon, leaving the rest of the day free to explore, shop, or simply rest before our final evening in Saigon.

Cu Chi Tunnels Guided Experience

We depart the hotel in the morning by private van, heading northwest out of the city. As the urban sprawl gives way to open countryside and endless rubber tree plantations, your guide will begin setting the scene — sharing the history, the context, and the remarkable story of what we're about to see.

Upon arrival, we start with maps and scale models that lay out the full scope of the tunnel network before heading out on foot along the jungle trails with your guide. Over roughly two hours, you'll move through the real, preserved remains of the underground city that sustained thousands of people through years of conflict.

This isn't a museum. It's the actual place.

You'll see fighting bunkers, hidden tunnel entrances, underground hospitals, kitchens, meeting rooms, and schools — all part of a network stretching over 200 kilometers beneath the earth. Your guide will bring each relic to life with the stories behind it, offering genuine insight into the ingenuity, resilience, and sacrifice that defined this chapter of Vietnamese history.

Optional Tunnel Crawl For those feeling adventurous, you'll have the opportunity to crawl through a preserved section of the original tunnels yourself. It's tight, it's dark, and it's completely unforgettable. No pressure — but highly recommended.

Wartime Food Tasting Before we head back, we sit down together to try the simple food that sustained the people who lived in these tunnels — cassava, peanuts, salt, and whatever the land provided. It's a small and quiet moment, but one that puts everything you've just seen into a much more human perspective.

Afternoon at Leisure in Saigon

We return to Liberty Central by approximately 2:00 PM, and the rest of the day is entirely your own. This is a great afternoon to explore a local market, pick up some souvenirs, or simply wander the neighborhood around the hotel at your own pace. Your guide will have dinner recommendations ready for anyone who wants them.

Overnight Accommodation at Liberty Central Saigon Hotel

Our final night in Saigon. Breakfast is included the following morning before we begin our journey to the Mekong Delta.

Overview

Today the pace shifts completely — and deliberately. We leave Saigon behind and head deep into the Mekong Delta, one of the most fertile and fascinating regions on earth. This is rural Vietnam at its most intimate: a landscape of rivers, canals, fruit gardens, and floating villages where life has moved to the rhythm of the water for centuries. It's slower here. Greener. And genuinely unlike anything you've experienced in the city. By evening, we arrive in Can Tho — the heart of the delta — where we settle in for our one night on the river.

Mekong River Boat Trip

After meeting your guide at the hotel, we depart by private van for the 2.5-hour drive southwest toward the Cai Be region of the Mekong Delta. Your guide will use the drive to introduce the delta — its geography, its people, and the way of life we're about to step into.

On arrival, we board our boat and push off into the Mekong. From the moment you're on the water, the world quiets down. We drift along the main river and into its narrower canal tributaries, watching riverside life unfold around us — families on their porches, fishing boats passing, stilted homes disappearing into the tree line. There's nothing to do but look, and it's more than enough.

Local Village & Artisan Visits

We pull ashore to explore the villages up close. On foot and by short cycling stretches along canal paths, we visit local families and see their cottage industries at work: spiderweb rice paper being stretched by hand, hammocks woven from natural fibers, and intricate handicrafts crafted entirely from coconut and water hyacinth. These aren't demonstrations — this is simply what these families do, and we're invited in to watch and ask questions.

Further along the canal, we stop at additional homes where you'll see how local people supplement their rice farming income with small-batch production of pop rice, popcorn, and hand-rolled rice paper — goods that make their way to markets across the region.

Sampan Crossing

At one point, we swap our main boat for a traditional hand-rowed sampan to cross one of the Mekong's river branches. It's a short crossing, but one of those quietly cinematic moments — just the sound of oars on water and the view of the delta stretching out in every direction.

Tropical Fruit Tasting & Folk Music

We arrive at a local riverside house where the afternoon slows to a beautiful stop. Plates of tropical fruit arrive — rambutan, longan, dragon fruit, jackfruit — alongside the gentle sounds of traditional Vietnamese folk music performed live. It's the kind of afternoon that makes you genuinely reluctant to move on.

Lunch – Included Served here at the riverside house, lunch is a spread of Mekong Delta specialties: fresh river fish, local vegetables, and dishes rooted in the ingredients and traditions of this region. Simple, seasonal, and outstanding.

Afternoon Village Walk After lunch, we take a final wander through the surrounding village on foot, visiting a few more local homes before making our way back to the boat and continuing our journey toward Can Tho.

Overnight Accommodation at Victoria Can Tho Resort

We arrive in Can Tho by late afternoon and check in to the Victoria Can Tho Resort — a stunning 4-star property sitting directly on the Mekong riverbank. The evening is entirely yours. Walk the riverside promenade and catch the sunset over the water, take a dip in the pool, or venture into town for dinner on your own. Your guide will have recommendations ready.

One of the delta's finest addresses, the Victoria Can Tho sits right on the river with beautiful gardens, a pool, and an atmosphere that perfectly matches the slower pace of Mekong life. A memorable one-night stay before our early morning on the water tomorrow.

Overview

We rise early today — and it's absolutely worth it. The morning belongs to the Mekong, with a dawn boat ride out to one of Vietnam's most iconic and alive scenes: the Can Tho Floating Market. After the market and one final stop in a tropical fruit garden, we make our way to the airport for our flight north to Hanoi. By evening, you'll be checked into your hotel and seated at the welcome dinner with the full SideQuests group — rested, oriented, and already carrying four days of stories the rest of the group hasn't lived yet.

Early Morning Floating Market by Boat

We check out of the Victoria Can Tho and step directly from the hotel's boat quay onto the river as the sun is still finding its footing. The ride to the Can Tho Floating Market takes us through the morning mist, past fishermen heading out and families already at work along the banks.

The market itself is something else entirely. Dozens of wooden boats loaded with produce — watermelons stacked to eye level, bananas in enormous bunches, mangoes, coconuts, and vegetables of every kind — all trading in the middle of the river the way they have for generations. We weave through the action by boat, close enough to reach out and touch the passing cargo. At one point, we pull alongside a vendor's boat and buy fruit directly from the water, eating it right there on the river. It doesn't get more local than this.

Canal Drive & Tropical Fruit Garden

After the market, we board our bus and drive along the canal roads for one last look at delta life moving through its morning. We make a final stop at a lush tropical fruit garden — a peaceful, green end to our time in the south. Wander through the trees, taste whatever's in season, and take a quiet moment before the pace of travel picks back up.

Transfer to Can Tho Airport

We make our way back to the bus and head to Can Tho Airport (VCA) for our included domestic flight north to Hanoi. At the airport, you'll say goodbye to your southern guide — and thank them generously, because they've earned it.

Domestic Flight to Hanoi - Included

Your flight from Can Tho to Hanoi is included as part of the extension package. Specific flight details and timings will be confirmed and shared closer to the trip date.

Arrive in Hanoi & Hotel Transfer

Upon landing at Noi Bai International Airport (HAN), you'll be met by a new guide holding SideQuests welcome signage and transferred by private vehicle to the group hotel in Hanoi. You'll have time to check in, freshen up, and decompress from the travel day before the evening's events begin!