Why Vietnam Should Be on Every Traveller’s Bucket List 

Travel is a wonderful thing, and often easily undervalued. At least, it is when we reduce our own travel to predict annual holidays, resting up in the same slice of the Mediterranean each summer, getting the same beach tan as everyone else. There’s value in this kind of restful, relaxing getaway, but the world also has so much more to offer.

The bucket list is a great way of recontextualising the holiday, and showing you what it can mean to well and truly get away. There’s a wide world out there, with countless incredible destinations begging for you to explore them. Vietnam is one such place – and while it may be one of many, it is undoubtedly one of South-East Asia’s most captivating destinations. If you’re in the market for stunning landscapes, rich cultural heritage and unforgettable food, you’ll want to bump Vietnam up your bucket list a few notches; here’s why. 

1. Spectacular Landscapes

First, let’s start with the landscapes – of which Vietnam is in possession of a great many. There’s a huge and incredible variety of scenery on display from top to tip, including the irreplicable limestone karsts of Ha Long Bay and the man-made marvel terraced rice fields, stepped into the steep valleys of Sapa. Vietnam tours can take in so many different scenes, from these edificial mountains to the beautiful sands of Vietnam’s central coast. On coasts, too: you could devote a year of your life to exploring Vietnam’s shores, and still not see everything.

2. A Fascinating Heritage

As much as the natural landscapes of Vietnam deserve your notice, perhaps the real reason to visit is the things that happen – or have happened – within it. Vietnam is an incredible country shaped by millennia of history, with a cultural heritage that extends far beyond its impossibly long coastline. The temples that stippled its rural landscape are shrines to history, and its cities wear layers of history like clothing; that it has nine World Heritage Sites to its name says a great deal about Vietnam’s cultural import.

3. Unforgettable Food

This is a subjective matter, but it is this author’s humble opinion that the most important reason to visit Vietnam is the food. It’s a postcolonial melting-pot of deliciousness that has breached its own borders and won international adulation. It is the origin point for street-food culture, and home to regional specialities that launched a thousand imitators. French occupation saw some unique blendings of technique and flavour too, from stews to banh mi and beyond.