Simple stays with essential amenities. Typically guesthouses, hostels or hotels rated below 3 stars — clean, no-frills, and great for value-conscious travelers.
Comfortable and reliable 3-star stays. Expect private rooms, en-suite bathrooms, and solid amenities — a great balance between comfort and cost.
Ba Be National Park - Ba Be Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in Vietnam with exceptional biodiversity including a population of langurs, over 200 bird and 350 butterfly species, geological treasures, and mature primary limestone forests. In places like this, careless tourism can bring human disturbances and endanger this heritage, while thoughtful tourism with a controlled impact can provide excellent support to conservation projects in the area and help the economies of local people. We share your desire for the latter option and promise that nature knows how to return your kindness. Surrounded by the lush green of the forest, we hope you enjoy your time spent exploring the lakes, caves, mountains, and jungles.
This small-group trekking trip four days in Ba Be will takes you into the remote villages on the western side of Ba Be National Park and gives you the opportunity to experience the real tropical forests. It is for people with at least moderate to good fitness levels and a good spirit of adventure.
This was a wonderful, varied trip with a good mixture of culture, beautiful scenery, activities and history, both ancient and soberingly more recent. Our guide Binh was fantastic; funny, kind, patient and very knowledgeable, he was a highlight of our trip. The accommodation was all very comfortable and the food was amazing. As a vegetarian, travel can be tricky, but there were lots of delicious options. I highly recommend this trip for the first time visitor to Vietnam.
This trip was made extraordinary by two absolutely outstanding guides, one in Cambodia (Sokchea) one in Vietnam (Truong). Their knowledge, communication skills, good humour, organisational skills and sheer passion for what they do was incredible. We arranged additional tours with our guides, and being able to depend on them for taking care of every detail, from supporting with transport arrangements, recommending and taking us to great local restaurants and evening shows, sometimes joining us for fun, ensuring that our access to sites of interest was smooth and hassle-free, whilst providing a fascinating and insightful perspective on history, culture and lifestyle. In Vietnam, Truong is an incredible asset to Explore: he went above and beyond his remit every day to ensure that everyone in our group had the best, most enjoyable experience. This was priceless, his energy and enthusiasm, and superb social skills ensured that this was an unforgettable trip of a lifetime. We learned so much, and genuinely shared laughter, food and good company. This Explore trip, due to the local guides, and wonderful company of our small group, totally exceeded our expectations.
Having a small group of 5, meant that we were able to get to know each other along the way too, and shared a lot of fun. We hugely enjoyed our “Happy Team” and hope we’ve made some new friends too.
Hotels were mostly great, some more basic but overall good, clean standards. Some excelled, like Cat Ba Paradise Hotel; only one was quite disappointing and a bit frustrating in their really inefficient check-in processes, Trang Hotel in Bangkok, which wasn’t helpful after long-haul journey. Otherwise, good accommodation and friendly helpful staff along the way.
