Vietnam Feb/Mar 2026

[dontwanttoregister]

Celebrating a significant personal achievement in Feb/Mar next year and would love to share it with my family (2 adults + 2 teens) in Vietnam. Timing isn't particularly flexible, the alternative is June/July which I'd rather avoid (although I could do with sweating out a few kilos!).

We've travelled extensively, always self-managed and very little rest! The teens are great, so no issues there. This time I am thinking we'd do something a bit different - a mix of luxury restful resorts and some guided travel. Thinking 2 weeks, so could break up in to a couple of trips.

No particular must dos, but we love local food (well, who doesnt when they are in Vietnam!) and are fairly adventurous.

A few questions I'd love to hear your perspectives on:

• General advice on where to go, your essential spots, hidden gems, is Halong Bay still worth a trip or is it overcrowded and overdone, etc?
• Flights from Sydney - I have a bounty of VA and QF points, and we aren't averse to budget airlines so Jetstar is the obvious choice. We could also swing by Singapore and stopover for a little while. Splurge could be business on Vietnam Airlines. Any thoughts here and best times to lock in the flights? Seems to be plenty of cheap flights to HCMC at that time, but the return is a little high. Expect we'll see some more Feb fares come online in coming weeks.
• Tours - any ideas or thoughts for guided tours, preferable no more than 1 week long at a time. Happy to join groups, but maybe we could find operators that will take the 4 of us in a mini van.
• Anything else?

Thanks so much in advance everyone!