Motorcycling in Vietnam

A Pa Chai is Vietnam's westernmost point - a remote peak in Điện Biên province where the borders of Vietnam, Laos, and China meet at a tri-border marker, reached via Đồn Biên Phòng 317 in Mường Nhé district's Sín Thầu commune.

Angel Eye Mountain - also known as God Eye Mountain or Núi Thủng - is a limestone karst peak in Cao Bằng with a perfectly circular 50m hole piercing through its summit, set in the Thang Hen valley where the surrounding flatland floods into a 15-hectare lake each rainy season.

Bắc Sơn Valley in Lạng Sơn is a wide basin of patchwork rice paddies ringed by dramatic limestone karst peaks - 80km from Lạng Sơn city, home to Tày, Nùng, and Dao communities in traditional stilt houses. One of northern Vietnam's most photogenic and least-visited valley landscapes.

Bình Liêu in Quảng Ninh is often called a 'mini Sa Pa' - a highland border district with year-round mild climate, ethnic minority villages, and nearly 50km of frontier with China. The border ridge trek to Cột Mốc 1305 crosses the famous dinosaur spine ridge above a sea of reed flowers in October and November.

Bình Sơn Beach is Phan Rang's city beach, just 2-3km from downtown and connected directly to Ninh Chữ beach, with a modern seafront park, fine white sand, and reliably clear water in a province that gets less rain than anywhere else in Vietnam.

Cape Cà Ná is a dramatic headland on the Ninh Thuận coast where granite boulders meet the East Sea against a backdrop of near-desert scrubland - one of the most visually distinctive coastal landscapes on the north-south motorbike route, with small sheltered swimming coves alongside longer stretches of rock better suited to sightseeing than swimming.

Cù Mi Beach is a quiet working fishing beach in southern Bình Thuận, with colourful boats, low-key local life, and almost no dedicated tourist infrastructure. Its distinctive access via a narrow wooden footbridge makes it an interesting stop on the coastal motorbike route between La Gi and Phan Thiết.

Đa Ploa Stream in Đạ Huoai district of Lâm Đồng is a multi-tier stream in the transitional forest zone between the southern highlands and the lowlands - much of the wider Đạ Huoai stream area remains genuinely undeveloped, though at least one organised camping site with basic facilities has emerged nearby in recent years.

The Hmong King Palace (Dinh thự họ Vương) in Sà Phìn, Đồng Văn is the former residence of the Vương clan - the most powerful Hmong family in colonial-era Hà Giang - a stone compound built 1898-1907 that blends Hmong, Chinese, and French architectural traditions, funded by control of the plateau's opium trade.

Hòn Sơn is a large mountainous island in the Gulf of Thailand, Kiên Giang - calmer seas and a shorter crossing than Phú Quý, with clear water, Ma Thiên Lãnh peak, fishing villages, and almost no resort development. Minimum 2 nights to do it properly.

Khau Cóc Chà Pass, sometimes called the '15-tier pass,' is one of Cao Bằng's most dramatic mountain roads - just 2.5km long but packed with 14 hairpin switchbacks connecting Xuân Trường commune to Bảo Lạc town near the Chinese border, with a short hike leading to the best panoramic viewpoint over the whole switchback sequence.

Khau Phạ Pass is one of Vietnam's four great mountain passes - a 30km road through the clouds between Tú Lệ and Mù Cang Chải, with the most dramatic views of rice terraces in the country, and the only paragliding launch site in the entire Mù Cang Chải region.

The Km 0 milestone in Hà Giang city centre marks the starting point of National Highway 2 toward the Đồng Văn Karst Plateau - the traditional first stop for motorbike riders before embarking on the Ha Giang Loop, and one of the most photographed check-in spots in northern Vietnam.

Lũng Pô in Bát Xát district, Lào Cai is where the Red River first enters Vietnam from China at border marker 92 - the starting point of one of the two great rivers that built Vietnamese civilization. A 31.43m flagpole (2017) marks the site. Most visited for photography and the symbolic weight of standing at this geographic threshold.

Mã Pí Lèng Pass - Vietnam's most dramatic mountain road, a 20km switchback carved into sheer limestone cliffs above the turquoise Nho Quế River canyon. Built 1959-1965 by over 2,000 workers from 16 ethnic groups who hung from ropes on the cliff faces for nearly a year.

Masara Hill in Đức Trọng district, Lâm Đồng is a 30-hectare expanse of open grassland that turns pink from mid-November to mid-December - one of the few places in Vietnam where this seasonal transformation happens at scale, and largely unknown to foreign visitors.

Mẫu Sơn is one of the few places in Vietnam where snow falls - a highland massif topped by Phia Pò peak (1,541m) in Lạng Sơn province near the Chinese border, with abandoned French colonial ruins, a sea of clouds, and genuine subalpine conditions in winter.

The Moc Chau Tea Hills are vast rolling plantations of trimmed green tea bushes covering the highland plateau of Son La province, about 10km from Moc Chau town. Most photogenic at dawn when mist settles between the rows - the smell of tea leaves in the cool morning air is one of the defining sensory experiences of the plateau.

Mũi Điện (Cape Varella) in Phú Yên is a dramatic 110-metre headland crowned by a working lighthouse - traditionally regarded as the easternmost accessible point of mainland Vietnam, and one of the first places on the country's coastline to receive sunrise.

Ô Quy Hồ Pass is one of Vietnam's 'tứ đại đỉnh đèo' (four great passes) - the longest mountain pass in the northwest at 50km, crossing the Hoàng Liên Sơn range at 2,035m between Sapa and Lai Châu. Named after the mournful cry of a bird in a tragic love legend.

Cầu Ông Cọp is Vietnam's longest wooden bridge - a roughly 700-800 meter hand-built structure of timber and bamboo spanning the Bình Bá river (also called Phú Ngân river) in Phú Yên. Privately funded and built in 1998, opened in 1999, and rebuilt after every flood season, it became famous as a filming location for the 2015 Vietnamese film 'Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass' and is now one of Phú Yên's most photographed landmarks.

Phi Liêng is a 7-tier, 70m waterfall deep in the forest of Đam Rông district, Lâm Đồng - nicknamed 'Tây Nguyên Đệ Nhất Thác' (the greatest waterfall of the Central Highlands). 80km from Đà Lạt, no phone signal inside, a 40-45 degree descent with ropes - genuinely remote and genuinely rewarding.

Phước Bình Beach is a 4km stretch of quiet coastline next to Phước Tĩnh fishing village, tucked behind a row of resorts between Long Hải and Hồ Tràm. Almost no tourist presence - barely shows up in Google search results. Best October to November.

Quản Bạ Heaven Gate is the first dramatic viewpoint on the Ha Giang Loop - a mountain pass at 1,500 metres where the road crests and the entire Quản Bạ (Tam Sơn) Valley opens below, with the Twin Mountains rising from the valley floor and, in the right season, a sea of clouds filling the basin at dawn.

The Quản Bạ Twin Mountains - Núi Đôi, also called Núi Cô Tiên ('Fairy Mountain') - are two symmetrical, rounded dolomite peaks rising from the Quản Bạ (Tam Sơn) Valley floor, an icon of the Ha Giang Loop tied to a well-known fairy legend.

Sơn Trà Peninsula is Đà Nẵng's wild backyard - a 4,439-hectare nature reserve rising directly from the sea, home to one of Vietnam's last populations of the endangered red-shanked douc langur. Known for scenic mountain roads, quiet northern beaches, and Linh Ứng Pagoda with its 67m Lady Buddha.

Ta Pa Fields are a landscape of traditional floating rice paddies in the Seven Mountains region of An Giang province, submerged each flood season when the Mekong Delta rises. The combination of water-covered fields, distant mountain silhouettes, and Khmer stilt village architecture makes it one of the most distinctive seasonal landscapes in southern Vietnam.

Thẩm Mã Pass (also called Dốc Chín Khoanh, the 'nine-bend slope') is a dramatic, historically named mountain pass on Highway 4C between Yên Minh and Đồng Văn on the Hà Giang Loop - one of the route's most famous photo stops, which also means it's one of its most crowded, especially during the Sep-Nov buckwheat flower season.

Thung Khe Pass (Đèo Đá Trắng / White Rock Pass) on National Highway 6 sits at 1,000m with sweeping views of Mai Chau valley and dramatic white limestone cliffs that look like snow from a distance. A mandatory stop on any Hanoi - Mai Chau motorbike route, 100km from Hanoi.

Vĩnh Trung Fields in Tịnh Biên district stretch across the flatlands beneath the Thất Sơn mountain range - a pastoral landscape of rice paddies, Khmer pagodas, and water buffalo with the dramatic profile of Núi Cấm rising from the plain.

The Yên Minh Pine Forest is an unexpected stretch of highland pine on the Ha Giang Loop between Quản Bạ and Đồng Văn - a 10km section of road through dense Pinus kesiya forest at 1,200 metres, with morning mist threading between the trees and a completely different atmosphere from the surrounding karst landscape.