When to visit Vietnam, region by region
Vietnam is 1,650 kilometres long and has three different climates at once. There is no single best month — there is a best month for where you are going.
A waterfall and a bamboo footbridge in the hills above Sapa, northern Vietnam
The question we are asked more than any other is when to come. The honest answer is that it depends entirely on where you are going, because Vietnam is a very long, very thin country. Hanoi sits at roughly the same latitude as Havana; Ca Mau, at the southern tip, is closer to the equator than Bangkok. Between them the weather does not change gradually — it changes into something else.
Here is what each region is doing, and what that means for a trip.
The north: Hanoi, Halong, Ninh Binh, Sapa
The north has four proper seasons, which surprises people who expect the tropics.
- December to February is cool and often grey. Hanoi can sit at 15°C for days under a fine drizzle the Vietnamese call mưa phùn. Halong Bay is frequently misty — atmospheric in photographs, but you see less of it. Sapa can drop near freezing and very occasionally sees snow.
- March to April warms up and dries out. One of the two best windows.
- May to August is hot and humid, 32–38°C, with the heaviest rain of the year. Afternoon storms are common rather than constant.
- September to November is, for most people, the best the north gets: dry, clear, and warm without being oppressive. October in particular is hard to beat.
The centre: Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An
The centre runs on a different calendar from the north, and this is where itineraries most often come unstuck. The dry season here is long and very hot; the rain arrives late and arrives hard.
- February to May is the sweet spot — dry, clear, comfortable beach weather by April.
- June to August is dry but genuinely hot. Da Nang regularly passes 35°C and the middle of the day is for shade and swimming, not for walking round a citadel.
- September to December is the wet season, and October and November are the wettest months of the Vietnamese year in this region. Hoi An's old town sits low on the Thu Bon river and floods most years — usually briefly, occasionally for days.
We are based in Da Nang, so this is the part of the forecast we watch most closely. If your dates fall in October or November and the centre is on your list, ask us before you book flights. There is usually a way to rearrange the order of a trip rather than lose a region.
The south: Saigon, the Mekong Delta, Phu Quoc
The south has two seasons and no real winter. It is warm every day of the year, roughly 25°C at night and low-to-mid 30s by afternoon.
- November to April is the dry season and the easiest time to travel here.
- May to October is the wet season. This worries people more than it should — the typical pattern is a heavy downpour in the late afternoon that clears within the hour, not days of grey. Mornings are often bright, and the delta is greener and fuller than in the dry months.
So when should you actually come?
If you are seeing the whole country, two windows work best, and each asks a small compromise:
- March and April. The centre is at its best, the south is dry, and the north has warmed up. This is the strongest all-country window.
- October and November. The north is lovely and the south is drying out, but the centre is in its wet season. Workable if you keep the central leg short or flexible.
If you are only seeing one region, the answer is simpler: go in that region's dry season and ignore the rest of the country entirely.
Two dates to know about
- Tết, the lunar new year, falls in late January or February. It is the most important holiday of the year: families travel home, many businesses close for several days, domestic transport fills up and prices rise. It is a wonderful time to be in Vietnam if you know it is coming, and a frustrating one if you do not.
- Typhoon season runs roughly August to November and affects the central and northern coast most. Cruises in Halong Bay are suspended when the port authority closes the bay, which is a safety decision nobody can appeal. It happens a handful of times a year.
Tours that suit each window
If you already know your dates, these are the itineraries we would point you at first.
