Northern Vietnam Mountains

You reserve your spot for free and pay nothing to join. Once enough travellers have signed on, usually around 10, we confirm the departure and email you a confirmation with an invoice for the full trip price. You pay it by card or bank transfer within 7 days, in US dollars, pounds, euros, Australian, Canadian or New Zealand dollars or Indian rupees, and the price shown for your date is what you pay.

Reserve as soon as you can, since reservations close 7 days before the start and a departure only goes ahead once enough people have joined. Groups are up to 16, so popular dates can fill early.

Ha Giang Loop Adventure is the loop on its own, five days, nothing else. Vietnam Complete adds the loop to the rest of the country over 21 days. This trip sits between the two: the full loop plus Sapa trekking, with no bay, no centre and no south, for travellers who want the mountains and nothing else.

Solo travellers aged 18 to 40, mostly on their own and some with a friend. The maximum for each departure is shown with its dates and is never more than 16. The Trip Host travels with the group for all ten days, sorts out the permit, the vans, the homestays and the meals, and is the person you go to if anything goes wrong. Local easy riders and a local trekking guide handle the parts of the trip that need one.

It starts and ends at our hotel in Hanoi, in the afternoon of Day 1 and after breakfast on Day 10. We send the hotel address when you book. Fly into and out of Hanoi (HAN).

The Ha Giang Loop is best in October and November and again in March and April. It's wet from May to September, with landslides on the mountain roads, and cold and foggy from December to February. Sapa's rice terraces run on a different calendar: gold in September and early October, bare after the harvest, flooded for planting from about March to May and green from June to August. So the loop and the terrace colour rarely peak together. On most dates here you'll see bare or newly flooded terraces, and each departure's note says what to expect.

If a section of the loop or the Sapa road is closed by a landslide or unsafe in heavy rain, the Trip Host and the local operator change the day's plan rather than push on. That is why we run the trip outside the wettest months.

Some passports get 45 days visa-free in Vietnam and others need an e-visa. Rules change, so check our Vietnam visa guide for your passport before you book flights. Only apply on the official site, evisa.gov.vn. Vietnam also has an online pre-arrival form, which is encouraged at the main airports.

Hotels in Hanoi, Ha Giang and Sapa, and family homestays in Yen Minh, Dong Van, Du Gia and Ta Van. Homestay rooms are simple, often a shared loft with mattresses and mosquito nets. 19 meals are included, and you pay for other meals and all drinks. Tell us about vegetarian, vegan or allergy needs when you book, and we'll pass them on to each homestay before you arrive.

Layers, and more than you'd think. Nights in Yen Minh, Dong Van and Ta Van are cool even outside winter, and the homestays don't always have heating. Bring a warm layer, trousers you can walk in, shoes with grip for muddy valley trails, a rain jacket, a refillable water bottle, sunscreen and a headtorch. Pack one soft bag of about 20 to 30 litres for the loop; the Trip Host will confirm before you travel where the rest of your luggage waits in Ha Giang. A helmet is compulsory in Vietnam and is fitted on Day 2; the Trip Host will also confirm what other protective gear the operator provides, and you're welcome to bring your own gloves or knee guards. For the trek, boots or trail shoes with grip matter most, since the paths turn to clay and get slippery after rain.

Averagely fit, and you ride behind a local easy rider rather than yourself. You need to be comfortable sitting on the back of a motorbike for up to about four and a half hours of riding time on the longer days, plus a full day of valley walking on Day 8, some of it on slopes and steps. Riding yourself in Vietnam legally needs a motorbike licence plus a 1968-convention International Driving Permit, so we don't offer it on this trip.

It carries real risk, and travel insurance is a condition of joining. It must cover medical treatment and evacuation, including from the mountain roads around Ha Giang and the Muong Hoa valley, so check that it covers you as a motorbike passenger. On 29 March 2026 a 19-year-old British traveller was fatally injured in a crash while riding as a passenger on the loop, and died on 2 April. In April 2026 the province said only licensed travel agencies may run or sell these tours, with roadworthy bikes, helmets and protective gear. We only book through a licensed operator, and you can ask your rider to slow down at any time.