First published December 2024 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle
Tom Divers is the founder and creator of Vietnam Coracle. He’s lived, travelled and worked in Vietnam since 2005. Born in London, he travelled from an early age, visiting over 40 countries (he first visited Vietnam in 1999). Now, whenever he has the opportunity to make a trip, he rarely looks beyond Vietnam’s borders and his trusty motorbike, Stavros. Read more about Tom on the About Page, Vietnam Times and ASE Podcast.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
If I’m honest, I have spent so many years living in southern Vietnam, that a tropical Christmas no longer seems unusual to me. After nearly two decades away from my native UK, the irony of all the snowy winter displays in shopfronts and cosy Christmas songs playing in cafes while the sun beats down outside and humidity is at 80% completely passes me by. Christmas for me is symbolized by the coming of the dry season: clear skies, dry heat and pleasantly cool evenings, the prospect of camping with friends in the forests of the Central Highlands, and swimming in the irresistibly calm seas surrounding the southern islands; the smell of grilled seafood on the breeze along the south-central coast and the scent of night jasmine in the mountains. And teaching. Christmas is not a public holiday in Vietnam, so over the years I have worked on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s; in fact, the first class I ever taught was on New Year’s Eve in 2005.
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The Year in Brief:
2024 has been a pretty interesting year for me personally and for this website, and for travel in Vietnam more generally. My motorbike, Stavros, finally reached the milestone of 250,000km; I published dozens of big guides to different regions of the country, including many penned by contributing writers; I won a tennis tournament for the first time since I was 17 years old; I made trips with my family and my friends, and a 2-month solo road trip up and down the nation researching guides; tourist numbers in Vietnam were very nearly back to their pre-pandemic levels; I opened a Vietnam Coracle shop for special offline packages of my guides and maps; I contributed a chapter for an established guide book publication; and I started to feel the physical effects of my profession, namely too much sitting down writing and motorbiking taking its toll on my spine.
Mainstream Tourism Grows:
By the end of 2024, the total number of international travellers to Vietnam is expected to be around 16-17 million. That’s just one million short of the 2019, pre-pandemic total, which was the highest ever recorded in Vietnam. This represents a year-on-year growth of around 40-50% and is a remarkable resurgence since international travel to Vietnam resumed in March 2022, after Covid restrictions were lifted and tourist numbers were essentially zero. The vast majority of tourists to Vietnam are from Northeast Asian nations, with South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan leading the way, followed by the USA, Southeast Asian (ASEAN) nations and then European countries. The government is actively encouraging the growth in tourism and sees it as a major part of the economy going forward. For many nationalities, visas on arrival are valid for 30 days and e-visas for 90 days, and the application process is easier than ever via two new government visa portals: https://evisa.gov.vn/ and https://thithucdientu.gov.vn/. There are obvious signs of tourist development and major investment in almost all of the country’s major destinations, and it is clear to see the rise in tourist numbers in places like Hội An, Sapa, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City compared to the last couple of years. It’s also great to see some of the travel-related businesses – that have suffered so much since the pandemic – rejuvenated.
But tourist numbers are still well below regional rivals, such as Thailand, which received some 35 million visitors in 2024. It is also apparent that most travellers are concentrated in just a handful of cities and destinations, while the rest of the country feels very empty and unvisited. This is partly due to a post-pandemic slump in independent, adventurous, off-the-beaten-path travel, in favour of must-see, established sights (often driven by Instagram) and group package tours.
Right Time for Independent Travel:
I spent 2-3 months between April and June this year on a nationwide road trip up and down Vietnam twice over. During that trip, I hardly met, saw or encountered any independent foreign travellers beyond the established tourist destinations. On my 9,000km journey throughout the nation – during some of the best months to travel in Vietnam – the only places that I saw foreign travellers in significant numbers were Hanoi, Cát Bà Island, Huế, Hội An, Đà Nẵng and Nha Trang. Beyond those places, I was either the only independent traveller or one of just a handful in every place I visited. This wasn’t the case in pre-pandemic days. In 2019, you could travel to somewhere like Kon Tum in the Central Highlands or Hà Tiên on the Cambodian border in the Mekong Delta, neither of which are well-known tourist destinations, and there would be many dozens of independent foreign travellers there. This year, I have visited both of those towns twice and there were no foreign travellers to be seen.
There are several contributing factors for this slump in independent, off-the-beaten-path travel in Vietnam. It seems to me that, in the post-Covid era, travellers are a little more adventure-shy and less willing to take ‘risks’ – to rent a motorbike instead of taking a tourist bus, to skip a famous destination in favour of a lesser-known one, to eat street food at a local market instead of dining at a highly-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor or Google; to forge their own path, make their own itinerary and have their own adventure, rather than pursue the follow-me, must-see, bucket list, been there, done that travel itineraries that are heavily influenced and fed by social media platforms, such as Instagram, not to mention AI recommendations. In many cases, I think we may have outsourced adventure to algorithms. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with all of the above, but it seems a shame to me, because Vietnam, right now, is such a great place for a real, independent, travel adventure. Not a holiday, not a hotspot checklist, not a selfie photoshoot, but a real adventure. Now is the perfect time for the more independent-minded, adventurous traveller to come to Vietnam and get off-the-beaten-path; especially, but not exclusively, for anyone on two wheels. Personally, I don’t understand what everyone is waiting for; the country is ripe for independent exploration: accessible, hospitable, exciting and jam-packed with potential adventures.
The biggest travel success story of the year by far has been Hà Giang. Just a few years ago, Hà Giang was still a fairly remote, seldom-visited mountainous region; a destination only frequented by independent travellers or adventure tour groups. Now it is a travellers’ hotspot and one of the first places that comes to mind when you mention Vietnam to someone considering a trip. The rise in popularity of the Hà Giang Loop in the post-pandemic era has been phenomenal. This is great for the travel-related businesses in Hà Giang and there is no denying the majesty of the landscape there. But obviously there are downsides. Such is the influx of tourists that there are often queues at gas stations, at viewpoints, at waterfalls, at tour agency shops, and there have been traffic accidents which are an increasing concern for the authorities and the resulting negative image of travel in Vietnam. This website covers Hà Giang in detail, and the Hà Giang Loop Guide is one of the most popular pages, with over 2.5 million views. I encourage travel to Hà Giang – it is an amazing part of the country. But I also encourage travellers to consider other, equally beautiful, mountainous regions where there are similar loops and scenery, but without the crowds and without the tourist paraphernalia. There are many such examples of this in my Motorbike Guides Archive.
In general, this website focuses on and promotes destinations, regions, sights, activities, dining and drinking that are at a slight tangent to the mainstream, and not in line with most travel guides and travel resources. The reason for this is that in over 19 years of travel in Vietnam, my most memorable experiences have been in more off-the-beaten-path destinations, and I want to encourage, help and enable other travellers to experience this side of Vietnam too. If you want to see the ‘main’ sights and destinations, these are well covered by established guidebooks and any number of YouTube channels and social media accounts that tend to repeat the same itineraries and destinations over and again. My site advocates for lesser visited destinations, sights and regions of the country. Or, when we do focus on a famous destination, we try to do so from a different perspective, rather than covering all of the so-called ‘must-see’ places. I hope that independent, adventurous travel will re-emerge from its post-pandemic slump. And when it does, I hope that this site will be a useful resource in creating a Vietnam adventure for willing travellers.
Predictions for 2025:
So what about 2025? Well, I think the northeastern province of Cao Bằng will experience a rise in visitor numbers. On the one hand, it has always been an attractive region of the country and it deserves a lot more attention than it currently receives. There are mountains, forests, rivers, waterfalls, good food, historical sites, ethnic and cultural diversity, great riding opportunities, homestays and borderlands. But I also think that some travellers will start choosing Cao Bằng as an alternative to Hà Giang as the latter gets busier and more crowded. This is exactly what happened with Sapa a few years ago when travellers starting choosing Hà Giang instead.
2025 will surely by the last year on the road for my motorbike, Stavros, which is now very old, rusty and increasingly unpredictable and tiring to ride. I plan to make a couple more long rides on Stavros for research trips in the first month or two of 2025, but after that I will buy a new bike – I already have a couple of models in mind. I need a bigger, more powerful, more reliable and more comfortable motorbike to accompany me on my research road trips from now on.
2025 will also see the addition of one or two new contributing writers for the site, as well as more articles from Joshua Zukas to look forward to. In addition, I intend to continue to research, write and map new guides for the site, as well as updating previous ones and adding to the Offline Guides & Maps store. Happy New Year!
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Free | Independent | No Sponsored Content
“Hello, if you enjoy my website, please support it.
Thank you.” Tom
*Disclosure: I never receive payment for anything I write: my content is always free and independent. I’ve written this post because I want to; not because anyone has paid me, sponsored me or hired my services. For more details, see my Disclosure & Disclaimer statements and my About Page
