Route Planning

Mapping out itineraries: Buy yourself an old fashioned Road map lay it out this way you can gage how big of an area you want to cover.

Select which direction you want to ride: South-North or North-South. The Vietnam Coracle is an independent travel Guide to Vietnam and basically a Bible for any Motorbike rider. It list lots of routes, has extensive info about them and has maps and distances.

Their are two main highlighted routes to take.

• The coastal roads
• The mountain inland roads

You can also just spend weeks riding in certain areas doing loops, or mix up the coast with the mountains of the North. I had two months and managed to do a nice blend but i also missed out on some beautiful passes I would love to go back and do; The North East close to the Chinese  boarder and Pu Huong Nature Reserve.

Tip: Look at routes offered by easyrider and bike touring companies for maps

• The Ho Chi Minh Road is the most famous or routes just a spectacular ride.

Theres a big difference to the highway road National Route 1A which is a crappy not so scenic route in parts. Where as the HCMH runs mostly though national parks. 

I met lots of guys who where simply riding 1A road from North to South and had not even made it onto the Ho Chi Minh road. I did not really understand why there where riding at all as you miss some of the most amazing roads and scenery you will ever see. After all you can ride a motorway road at home! 

There are some amazing National Parks which the Ho Chi Minh road runs though. I nicknamed them Jurassic parks as literally, they are just over grown with greengage. A giant pterodactyl would not look out of place swooping down to grab you off your bike. The Ke Bang National Park is most famous for Hang Son Dong Cave which is listed as the largest cave in the world. 

The North offers more of a cultural experience, travelers mainly just go to Sapa and do not ride though the valleys and mountain passes. Here you will see more local villages and different Hmong tribes dressed in traditional clothing. The North also has some incredible windy mountain roads to test your riding skills and skills out on. 

The costal routes provide camping sites and as you head more towards the south you will find a lot more development and tourist places. Nha Trang was basically a mini Miami beach and to me and of no real interest. Although I did stop to get my open water certificate here and found a prefect dive center. Beaches further towards and past Phan Thiet are a little less touristy. Sadly Vietnam is developing at a super fast rate, welcoming new modernization and with that comes heaps of discarded trash, rapid mishap constructions. Some coastal fishing areas are just piled up with trash leaving local camping, picnic area and beach covered and looking like landfills. 

Riding though the Mekong Delta had lots of fun quirky bridges and ferry crossing to take on, along with a totally different scenery as its mostly flat farm land.

This book was a great travel guide as it lists an even amount of sightseeing with great regional maps:  DK Eyewitness Travel Vietnam & Angkor Wat

• Personally you can plan as much as you like but that´s never as much fun as just letting things unfold.
• Before I left I did do a few calculations to get a basic time frame for my whole trip but there is never enough time to do everything.

I had also mapped out a rough route but on day two of my arrival in Hanoi everything changed. I had originally planed to spend a week in Halong Bay  but the weather was accommodating. Then I met up with Tom who had just spent a few months riding about everywhere and he pinned some great routes on my map. I also met up with another friend and we then head North to Sapa. My trip basically continued in this manner, I would meet people along the way who would tell me about places they had found and roads they liked and I would seek them out. If I found I did not like one place that much, I would move on to the next place and if I discovered a place I really liked I would stay a bit longer.

• There is also nothing more exciting then getting lost as you will hopefully find out for yourself. p.s your never really lost.