Best time to visit Vietnam

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The best time to visit Vietnam is spring (February to April) and autumn (August to October). The temperatures are more moderate and rainfall is lighter. In spring, March and April have the lowest rainfall across all destinations and temperatures are pleasant, though still cool in the far north.
Vietnam weather between January and March is characterized by cool and occasional light rain in the North, warm and dry in the centre and the south. Temperature in Hanoi and Halong ranges between 15 and 22, in Hue and Hoi An between 22 and 32 and in Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang between 28 and 35. If you plan to trek early in the year to rural Northern mountain, make sure you bring extra coat to keep warm. Temperature in places like Sapa can drop to near 0 point. During this time period also sees the most colourful festivals taking place all over the country, including Tet festival. Certain precautions need to be taken if you travel in late January and early February to best enjoy the time. Towards March, the weather gets warmer and the intensity of festivals lessens. From mid February to mid March, tourism volume is among the lowest in the year for both international and domestic tourists.

Tet festival

JUNE - EARLY SEPTEMBER

You must find it interesting, learning that Vietnamese hardly travel solo - mostly family form and increasingly in friends or like-minded forms. What this means is that parents
often wait for their children to finish school for family vacation. From June to early September, Vietnam sees a record high in domestic tourists volume, crowding in beach and mountain retreats. Popular places like Halong Bay, Sapa, Danang, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc, will see lines after lines of travellers - hotels will be full, food price rockets, and the worst of it all - tourist spots of all sorts will be crammed with people.
In terms of weather, June to early September is a wet and hot period. It does not sounds like an ideal condition to travel, but for beach and sun lovers, they cannot find a better time to visit Vietnam than this. All through out the country from top north to bottom south, you will see the golden sun shining from 7AM to 7PM, and the evening usually gives way to thunderstorm. If you are from a tropical country - great - since you are already accustomed to this type of weather. If you are not - bring some sun-screen with you to avoid sunburnt. If you are not into crowd, avoid travelling off the city during weekends.



MID- SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER
A golden time to visit to Sapa, Hanoi, Halong Bay and other provinces nearby, the sky is clear and the wind is gentle. As time gets closer to December, temperature drops and one cannot realize that they are in a tropical country any more. Coupled with the many colonial buildings here and there in the downtown area, Hanoi will charm you like what Paris and other romantic capital usually does. Late September and early October is also a great occasion to travel up north to Sapa, to see the beautiful colour of terraced rice paddy field ready for harvest. In other words, the period between September and December in Northern part of Vietnam can be characterized by the words "romance and tranquility". Temperature is moderate and often hovers in the 20s.
Dry air will make the trip even more enjoyable - walking or strolling, you will love it all.

Sapa valley

On the contrary, this all-too-perfect time period may not be the best fit for Southern beach. For example, October and November are rainy months in Nha Trang and the damp weather could spoil your long-waiting holiday with the sun and beach. Similarly in Centre Vietnam, especially Hue and Hoi An, it often rains dogs and cats in November and December, though the water may subdue as it gets closer to Tet. Still, the rain may make your plan on outdoors activities fall through. In exchange, travelling in this period and you can avoid all the notorious heat of Vietnam summer.

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