About Joy Nguyen & Day Trips Vietnam

How a central-Vietnam kid ended up writing this

I was born and raised in the central provinces of Vietnam — the stretch of country between Hue and Hoi An that travel writers usually pass through in three days and call “authentic.” For me it was just home. My parents loved travel, and even short family trips to Ho Chi Minh City, Da Lat, Nha Trang, and Hanoi were treated as serious business — proper itineraries, packed sandwiches, the lot. That’s where the bug got planted.

At university in Vietnam, my friends and I rode old Honda motorbikes the length of the country — from the Mekong Delta in the south to the Ha Giang Loop in the far north. With a scholarship and savings, I also crossed into Thailand and Indonesia. In my final year I interned for Viettel Post in Cambodia and spent three months living in Phnom Penh, working in an office full of Khmer colleagues, weekending across the country from Angkor Wat to the Koh Rong islands. That was the trip that taught me the difference between visiting a place and being from one.

After graduating, my family moved to the United States. The first few years were hard — long shifts, English that didn’t catch up to my brain, the strange American particulars of car ownership and tax forms. The hardship paid for itself in dramatic English fluency, the chance to walk through New York, Atlanta, and the Grand Canyon, and a stack of online writing certificates that turned a hobby into a portfolio.

Two years into a corporate job, with a fresh promotion in hand, I quit. I’d been waking up dreading the day too many times in a row. I bought a one-way ticket to Lima with a single goal — visit all seven Wonders of the World — and started backpacking. Peru came first; I rode Peru Hop the length of the country and still recommend it without an affiliate link. Then Brazil (Christ the Redeemer), Bolivia (the Uyuni salt flats), Italy (the Colosseum), Jordan (Petra), India (the Taj Mahal), China (the Great Wall), and a dozen more along the way. Six months, twenty-plus countries. The journey didn’t answer every question, but it gave me back the version of myself who chose the Honda over the desk.

I started Day Trips Vietnam to do for other travellers what strangers did for me on those trips: tell you the truth about a place before you spend money getting there. Every page on this site is what I wish I’d had when I was a backpacker in my own country, then someone else’s, then my own again with different eyes.

How I research

Every destination on this site is written or reviewed by me, and most of them I’ve seen on the ground over the past decade — sometimes as a Vietnamese university student on a 250-cc motorbike, sometimes as a returning visitor with a laptop. Where I haven’t been recently, I say so and lean on named primary sources: government tourism statistics, peer-reviewed studies, operator-published timetables, official park fees.

Prices, durations, and rules are noted as of the publication date shown on each page. I revisit anything older than 12 months. When a fact comes from an operator or official site — a train timetable, a visa rule, a national-park fee — I link it. When it comes from personal experience, the page says so explicitly. Every research summary on the site cites its primary source in the article header; you can verify any figure I quote by clicking through.

No sponsored placements. No affiliate links. No exceptions.

I take no money, free tours, comped hotel stays, or affiliate commissions from operators in exchange for rankings, mentions, or reviews. Every recommendation on this site is made on editorial grounds only. The numbers I publish on costs are ranges from named sources, not single-supplier marketing pricing in disguise.

Why this matters: most Vietnam content online is paid for — either directly through commissions on the “book here” buttons, or indirectly through tour operators who comp the trips writers describe. The result is a slow drift toward recommending whichever operator pays best. I started this site specifically to opt out of that economy. If I ever change the model, the change will be disclosed on every page it affects, with the date the change took effect.

Why “pay it forward” isn’t marketing copy

On my Peru Hop trip, a stranger in Cusco walked me to the right bus terminal because I’d been confidently going to the wrong one for ten minutes. In Petra, a Bedouin family fed me tea and told me which paths were safe at night. In Hoi An, every second taxi driver is a small kindness. None of these people were paid to help. None of them are listed on TripAdvisor.

The site is the same idea, scaled. If a single guide saves a traveller from booking the wrong cruise operator or paying triple for a sleeper bus, the time I spent on it has earned itself. The full corpus — 16 cities, 30+ transport articles, 20+ research summaries, 6 destination comparisons — is here for that reason.

Corrections policy

Found an error? Email info@daytripsvietnam.com with the page URL and what’s wrong. I reply within two business days, publish a correction note where appropriate, and update the page’s updated date so readers can tell the guide has been revised. Vietnamese tourism rules change — visa policies, operator licences, entrance fees — and I’d rather hear from you fast than have a stale page mislead someone.

Press & partnerships

Journalists, editors, and fellow travel publications: see the press page for bio, logos, and quotable lines. I’m available for interviews on Vietnam itineraries, central-Vietnam upbringing, independent travel after a corporate exit, the Seven Wonders backpacking circuit, and on Vietnam’s evolving visa policies (the research hub has the data backing the talking points). Typical reply time is under 24 hours.

Want to say hello?

Email is the fastest way to reach me: info@daytripsvietnam.com. Travel questions, corrections, journalist enquiries, all welcome.