A thousand miles tall, Vietnam’s packed with beaches, faded French villas, friendly locals and tasty noodle shops. With major airports at either end, and easy bus/train/plane connections between, travel here’s a breeze. Once you do see Vietnam, you’ll have a hard time going anywhere else again.

Go with this full free web guide, freshly created by me, Lonely Planet veteran author Robert Reid. Researched and written in summer 2007, and published by September 2007, it includes the equivalent of 179 guidebook text pages and includes free PDF maps, all yours to use as you wish. Plus a few new non-award-winning videos to the Mekong and Phu Quoc to see. This is the most in-depth, independently researched guidebook online for any destination. And there are scores of things here that you won’t see in guidebooks.

NEWS from ReidOnTravel Land…
(May 27, 08) I wrote a story on Halong Bay for the UK magazine Wanderlust, available at some US bookstores… I just had my typhoid shot and prepare for a two-month trip to Russia’s Far East for the Lonely Planet Russia guide… A Swedish journalist in New York interviewed me about guidebooks for a publication called Bok Handel. I don’t know what it says, but it looks good to be quoted in Swedish… The guidebook publishing world has been consumed by Thomas Kohnstamm’s book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? I’ve read it and written my take for World Hum… …

WHERE & HOW TO GO

Vietnam’s skinny but packed with months-worth of attractions. Before planning a trip, scroll through my HIGHLIGHTS of just some of Vietnam’s more famous adventures. Also read my ITINERARY PLANNER, which outlines the three main regions of this guide and offers a few one- to three-week itineraries, including where I’d send my friends.

VIETNAM DESTINATIONS

South Vietnam SAIGON, CU CHI TUNNELS, MEKONG DELTA, PHU QUOC ISLAND, MUI NE
Central Vietnam DALAT, NHA TRANG, HOI AN, DANANG, BACH MA, HUE
North Vietnam HANOI, HALONG BAY, CAT BA ISLAND, HAIPHONG, NINH BINH, SAPA

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

Anywhere on the site, you can hit the thumb tabs below the banner above to reach the sections for Vietnam’s three regions (South, Central and North), where you’ll find tabs for each individual ‘chapter sections’ like the Mekong Delta, Hoi An or Hanoi. Feel free to print what you want; there’s a tab at the bottom of every page for a printer-friendly format. If you see things you disagree with or find new things you’d like to see here, go to the RoT Forum and post away — look forward to hearing your input.

Soon I’ll have free PDFs available of the full guidebook and each chapter.

THE ‘VIETNAM EXPERIENCE’

Sure the red flag flies, but today’s Vietnam feels more like the old Hong Kong than the old Moscow. Traveling through it, visitors field a mind-numbing array of entrepreneurs’ options — ‘you need Sapa trek?,’ ‘you need shirt made?’ — and so many visitors just hop-scotch town-to-town and jump on the same group tours. Many are super fun, but do try to get out of these ruts a time or two. Check out my ‘Tours vs DIY’ sections to see how you can get more out of the same itineraries by opting for the alternatives: DMZ tours with a South Vietnamese vet, homestays in towns not mentioned in guidebooks, eating local specialties in simple food stalls, or going to Mekong Delta towns no one goes to.

ROBERT REID

The Reid behind ‘ReidOn’ is Brooklyn-based Lonely Planet veteran Robert Reid: me. I’ve written a dozen LP guidebooks that have sold nearly one million copies since 2003. LP asked me to update their Vietnam guide in 2006 – something I’ve wanted to do since living in Saigon in the late ‘90s – but I decided to make one myself. I grew up in Oklahoma and now live in Brooklyn.

Click here to see more of my writings.