Best time to visit Vietnam

There’s no wrong time to visit Vietnam. The country has a tropical monsoon climate, with the south or southwesterly monsoon dominating from May to September and the northeast monsoon from October to April. So figuring out the best time to visit Vietnam depends on which parts of the country you want to visit – unless you’re willing to be caught in a daily downpour or don’t mind fierce temperatures and high humidity.

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Climate of Vietnam
When is the best time to visit Vietnam?
Visiting Vietnam in winter (December - February)
Visiting Vietnam in spring (March - May)
Visiting Vietnam in summer (June - August)
Visiting Vietnam in autumn (September - November
Visiting Vietnam during festivals
Festivals and holidays in Vietnam
Festival origins
Most common ceremonies
Tet: the Vietnamese New Year
Tet celebrations
Food during Tet
Public holidays
Vietnam’s major festivals

Climate of Vietnam

The weather in Vietnam is defined by the monsoon season. The southern summer monsoon brings rain to the two deltas and west-facing slopes. At the same time, the cold winter monsoon picks up moisture over the Gulf of Tonkin and dumps it along thecentral coastand the eastern edge of the central highlands.

There are marked differences according to altitude and latitude; temperatures in the south of Vietnam remain calm all year round, while the north experiences distinct seasonal variations.

When is the best time to visit Vietnam?

If you intend to see a bit of everything, you need to work around the regional weather differences. Overall, autumn / winter (September - December) and spring (March and April) are probably the most favourable seasons if you’re planning to cover the whole country.

To make your planning easier, this month by month guide to visiting Vietnam looks in detail at weather patterns and how these can affect any sightseeing plans, getting around, outdoor activities, and festivals taking place throughout the year. All this will help you to work out when is the best time to travel to Vietnam.

Visiting Vietnam in winter (December - February)

Visiting Vietnam in December

Most of Vietnam enjoys dry conditions and basks in sunshine by December. Central Vietnam is the exception, which is gradually emerging from its rainy season. So it’s a good time to head to the southern coast if you want to soak up some rays and rack up some time on Vietnam’s gorgeous beaches. Beaches such as Mui Ne, or on the island of Phu Quoc are great in this month.

It’s also a good time to visit Ho Chi Minh City, with temperatures averaging a comfortable 26ºC.

If you’re planning a Christmas getaway be aware that things get booked up way in advance, so plan ahead.

Outdoor activities in the north are good in December. It is somewhat chilly, however, especially in the mountains – so pack extra layers.

Visiting Vietnam in January

In January, cold winter weather hits the north. This is often accompanied by fine persistent mists, which could spoil your views at Ha Long Bay. There’s also the chance of ground frost in higher regions, or even a rare snowfall. Don’t let it put you off outdoor activities though – while January is the coldest month in mountainous areas, such as Sa Pa, rainfall is at its lowest, making perfect trekking conditions. Hanoi averages a pleasant 20ºC.

The southern end of the country is firmly into the dry season come January, so it’s a good time to explore cities such as Ho Chi Minh. And for post-city downtime make for beaches within easy reach of the capital, such as at Phan Thiet and Mui Ne. It’s a fantastic time to try water-related activities, such as diving, around Phu Quoc.

Nha Trang and Da Nang beaches also start to beckon in January, as the central coast sees the tail end of the rains.

Visiting Vietnam in February

Vietnam sees optimum weather conditions all-round in February. The south and the central coast, are perfect for beach bums, with just a smattering of rain perhaps on the beaches between Hoi An and Da Nang. If you can tear yourself away from the sands near Da Nang to dip into the back streets of the city, you’re in for some of the best street food in Vietnam. The north sees the chill lifting, leaving clear and warm days for hiking and exploring the region.

Dominating the calendar is Tet, or the Lunar New Year, and the biggest festival in Vietnam. While it’s wonderfully festive throughout, note that much of the country shuts down during this period, such as restaurants and museums. Also, accommodation can be hard to come by, as the Vietnamese take their holidays, and the transport system is stretched.

Visiting Vietnam in spring (March - May)

Visiting Vietnam in March

In terms of the weather, March is perhaps the best month to visit Vietnam, especially if you want to see the whole country. Temperatures in the north are rising, making March a perfect time for adventure and trekking in the highlands and mountains. Clear skies around Ha Long Bay make it an ideal time to take a boat tour, stopping off at the beguiling Cat Ba Island.

Dry weather means you can visit the awesome Phong Nha Caves in Phong Nha-ke Bang National Park, which boasts the world’s biggest cave.

You can be sure of sunshine and hot days in the south, which means lazy days on the beaches and water-based activities are a must, also on beaches on the central coast, such as at Nha Trang.

The central highlands are generally warm and dry now, so it’s a good time to visit Da Lat and surrounding areas.

Visiting Vietnam in April

Temperatures in the north are rising as summer approaches, and some rain is not uncommon. But it’s still very pleasant and great for hiking, with spring flowers in full bloom making the region especially beautiful.

The centre of Vietnam entices with blue skies and sunshine, so make for charming town of Hoi An and the nearby beach of An Bang, and the broad sands at Da Nang. Further south, Nha Trang is at its best. Temperatures in the city of Hué are agreeable and the highlands experiences great weather at this time.

There's a chance of some rain in southern Vietnam, but with mostly clear skies and temperatures hitting 31ºC it’s still great for sun worshippers on the south’s beautiful beaches.

Visiting Vietnam in May

The south is getting wetter as it moves into its monsoon season, but it’s easy to avoid the short afternoon downpours. The north is hotting up and seeing more rain, although it’s still mostly dry and great for exploring the great outdoors. The central coast is the place to be this month, with hot, sunny days.

Visiting Vietnam in summer (June - August)

Visiting Vietnam in June

The rainy season in the south is in full swing and floods are common, and rainfall is increasing in the central highlands. The north is heating up and getting wetter too, meaning trekking can be hazardous – so bring appropriate footwear and outer layers if that’s on your itinerary. But don’t let the rain deter you from visiting Vietnam. The central coast is at its best, so perfect for idling away some time on the beaches near Hoi An, Da Nang and Lang Co, and the south still has plenty of dry hours in the day. Hanoi in the north and the Mai Chau Valley are still mostly dry. Added to which, visitor numbers in Vietnam tend to be fewer in June.

Visiting Vietnam in July

July is a similar story to June: heavy downpours occurring at both ends of the country. Temperatures reach their peak in the north and the central coast is a searing 31ºC, on average. But if you don’t mind a roasting, it’s still a good month to hit the beaches, as there are still plenty of clear days, and the rain offsets some of the heat. Rain in the central highlands means trekking conditions are poor. Also, transport can be more complicated, sometimes washing out roads and cutting off the more remote villages. Hanoi tends to be very wet.

Visiting Vietnam in August

If you’re planning on trekking in Vietnam avoid visiting in August: the mountains of the north and the central highlands are experiencing peak rainfall now. And the deluge of rain at Ha Long Bay means you should forget about going on a boat tour this month. Conditions on the central coast are, on the whole, still pretty good, especially at Nha Trang, although the fine days are coming to an end. While the south is fully ensconced in its wet season, it’s not exactly a bad time to visit, with plenty of rain-free hours in the day to enjoy.

Visiting Vietnam in autumn (September - November

Visiting Vietnam in September

The north and south are experiencing a similar story: temperatures are high but it’s getting drier, opening up the possibility of trekking once more in the north, around Sa Pa. The central coast and central highlands, however, are getting very wet indeed, with storms on the horizon.

Visiting Vietnam in October

If trekking and other outdoor adventure activities are your bag and you’re wondering when to visit Vietnam, October is a great month. The sun puts its hat back on in the north, and dry weather makes for ideal conditions in Sa Pa and the Dong Van Karst Plateau Geopark in Ha Giang province. It’s a good time to explore the picturesque Mai Chau Valley, its rice fields a golden colour during the harvest season, against a backdrop of jagged mountains, and visit the minority White Thai villages.

Sunbathing in central Vietnam is over, however, as the rain dumps down, and storms make it difficult to get around. It’s best to avoid Hoi An, in October and November, when serious flooding can mean water in the streets can be knee- or waist high.

Meanwhile, the south is drying up, and warming up. It’s a great month to visit the Mekong Delta and its floating markets.

Visiting Vietnam in November

Balmy temperatures in the south and favourable conditions in the north make this an ideal month to visit either end of the country. Take your pick of the beaches in the south, or go trekking in the north. November is also the best time of year to visit Vietnam for a cruise at Ha Long Bay.

It’s a different picture along the central coast. The wet season starts with a flourish around Nha Trang, and be warned that when the northeasterly winter monsoon hits, the riptides between Da Nang and Hoi An become particularly dangerous.

Visiting Vietnam during festivals

When you are deciding on when to go to Vietnam it's worth taking a look at the calendar of annual festivals, so that you can perhaps plot them on your itinerary.

The most important festival is Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, and lasts for seven days sometime between the last week of January and the third week of February. Families get together to celebrate and there's a party-like atmosphere in the cities, with colourful decorations adorning the streets, the scent of incense in the air, and glorious fireworks displays filling the skies.

Festivals and holidays in Vietnam

The Vietnamese year follows a rhythm of festivals and religious observances, ranging from solemn family gatherings at the ancestral altar to national celebrations culminating in Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. In between are countless local festivals, most notably in the Red River Delta, honouring the tutelary spirit of the village or community temple.

The majority of festivals take place in spring, with a second flurry in the autumn months. One festival you might want to make a note of, however, is Tet: not only does most of Vietnam close down for the week, but either side of the holiday local transport services are stretched to the limit and international flights are filled by returning overseas Vietnamese.

Festival origins

Many Vietnamese festivals are Chinese in origin, imbued with a distinctive flavour over the centuries, but minority groups also hold their own specific celebrations. The ethnic minorities continue to punctuate the year with rituals that govern sowing, harvest or hunting, as well as elaborate rites of passage surrounding birth and death. The Cao Dai religion has its own array of festivals, while Christian communities throughout Vietnam observe the major ceremonies. Christmas is marked as a religious ceremony only by the faithful, though it’s becoming a major event for all Vietnamese as an excuse to shop and party, with sax-playing santas greeting shoppers in front of malls.

Most common ceremonies

The ceremonies you’re most likely to see are weddings and funerals. The tenth lunar month is the most auspicious time for weddings, though at other times you’ll also encounter plenty of wedding cavalcades on the road, their lead vehicle draped in colourful ribbons. Funeral processions are recognizable from the white headbands worn by mourners, while close family members dress completely in white. Both weddings and funerals are characterized by streetside parties under makeshift marquees, and since both tend to be joyous occasions, it’s often difficult to know what you’re witnessing, unless you spot a bridal gown or portrait of the deceased on display.

Most festivals take place according to the lunar calendar, which is also closely linked to the Chinese system with a zodiac of twelve animal signs. The most important times during the lunar month (which lasts 29 or 30 days) are the full moon (day one) and the new moon (day fourteen or fifteen). Festivals are often held at these times, which also hold a special significance for Buddhists, who are supposed to pray at the pagoda and avoid eating meat during the two days. On the eve of each full moon, Hoi An now celebrates a Full-Moon Festival: traffic is barred from the town centre, where traditional games, dance and music performances take place under the light of silk lanterns.

All Vietnamese calendars show both the lunar and solar (Gregorian) months and dates, but to be sure of a festival date it’s best to check locally.

Tet: the Vietnamese New Year

“Tet”, simply meaning festival, is the accepted name for Vietnam’s most important annual event, properly known as Tet Nguyen Dan, or festival of the first day. Tet lasts for seven days and falls sometime between the last week of January and the third week of February, on the night of the new moon. This is a time when families get together to celebrate renewal and hope for the new year, when ancestral spirits are welcomed back to the household and when everyone in Vietnam becomes a year older – age is reckoned by the new year and not by individual birthdays.

There’s an almost tangible sense of excitement leading up to midnight on the eve of Tet, though the welcoming of the new year is now a much more subdued – and less dangerous – affair since firecrackers were banned in 1995. Instead, all the major cities hold fireworks displays.

Tet celebrations

Tet kicks off seven days before the new moon with the festival of Ong Tau, the god of the hearth (23rd day of the twelfth month). Ong Tau keeps watch over the household throughout the year, wards off evil spirits and makes an annual report of family events, good or bad, to the Jade Emperor. In order to send Ong Tau off to heaven in a benevolent mood, the family cleans its house from top to bottom, and makes offerings to him, including pocket money and a new set of clothes. Ong Tau returns home at midnight on the first chime of the new year and it’s this, together with welcoming the ancestral spirits back to share in the party, that warrants such a massive celebration.

Tet is all about starting the year afresh, with a clean slate and good intentions. Not only is the house scrubbed, but all debts are paid off and those who can afford it have a haircut and buy new clothes. To attract favourable spirits, good-luck charms are put in the house, most commonly cockerels or the trinity of male figures representing prosperity, happiness and longevity. The crucial moments are the first minutes and hours of the new year as these set the pattern for the whole of the following year. People strive to avoid arguments, swearing or breaking anything – at least during the first three days when a single ill word could tempt bad luck into the house for the whole year ahead. The first visitor on the morning of Tet is also vitally significant: the ideal is someone respected, wealthy and happily married who will bring good fortune to the family; the bereaved, unemployed, accident-prone and even pregnant, on the other hand, are considered ill-favoured. This honour carries with it an onerous responsibility, however: if the family has a bad year, it will be the first-footer’s fault.

Food during Tet

The week-long festival is marked by feasting: special foods are eaten at Tet, such as pickled vegetables, candied lotus seeds and sugared fruits, all of which are first offered at the family altar. The most famous delicacy is banh chung (banh tet in the south), a thick square or cylinder of sweet, sticky rice that is prepared only for Tet. The rice is wrapped round a mixture of green-bean paste, pork fat and meat marinated in nuoc mam, and then boiled in banana leaves, which impart a pale green colour. According to legend, an impoverished prince of the Hung dynasty invented the cakes over two thousand years ago; his father was so impressed by the simplicity of his son’s gift that he named the prince as his heir. Tet is an expensive time for Vietnamese families, many of whom save for months to get the new year off to a good start. Apart from special foods and new clothes, it’s traditional to give children red envelopes containing li xi, or lucky money, and to decorate homes with spring blossoms. In the week before Tet, flower markets grace the larger cities: peach blossoms in the north, apricot in Hué and mandarin in the south. Plum and kumquat (symbolizing gold coins) are also popular, alongside the more showy, modern blooms of roses, dahlias or gladioli.

Public holidays

January 1

New Year’s Day

Late January/mid-February

(dates vary each year): Tet, Vietnamese New Year (four days, though increasingly offices tend to close down for a full week)

April 30

Liberation of Saigon, 1975

May 1

International Labour Day

September 2

National Day

Vietnam’s major festivals

Spring festivals (Jan–April)

Tet

The most important date in the Vietnamese festival calendar is New Year (Tet Nguyen Dan). After an initial jamboree, Tet is largely a family occasion when offices are shut, and many shops and restaurants may close for the seven-day festival. Officially only the first four days are public holidays, though many people take the whole week. First to seventh days of first lunar month; late January to mid-February.

Tay Son Festival

Martial arts demonstrations in Tay Son District, plus garlanded elephants on parade. Fifth day of first lunar month; late January to mid-February.

Water-Puppet Festival

As part of the Tet celebrations a festival of puppetry is held at Thay Pagoda, west of Hanoi. Fifth to seventh days of first lunar month; February.

Lim Singing Festival

Two weeks after Tet, Lim village near Bac Ninh, in the Red River Delta, resounds to the harmonies of “alternate singing” (quan ho) as men and women fling improvised lyrics back and forth. Thirteenth to fifteenth days of the first lunar month; February–March.

Hai Ba Trung Festival

The two Trung sisters are honoured with a parade and dancing at Hanoi’s Hai Ba Trung temple. Sixth day of the second lunar month; March.

Perfume Pagoda

Vietnam’s most famous pilgrimage site is Chua Huong, west of Hanoi. Thousands of Buddhist pilgrims flock to the pagoda for the festival, which climaxes on the full moon (fourteenth or fifteenth day) of the second month, though the pilgrimage continues for a month either side; March–April.

Den Ba Chua Kho

The full moon of the second month sees Hanoians congregating at this temple near Bac Ninh, to petition the goddess for success in business; March–April.

Thanh Minh

Ancestral graves are cleaned and offerings of food, flowers and paper votive objects made at the beginning of the third lunar month; April.

Summer festivals (May–Aug)

Phat Dan

Lanterns are hung outside the pagodas and Buddhist homes to commemorate Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and the attainment of Nirvana. Eighth day of the fourth lunar month; May.

Chua Xu Festival

The stone statue of Chua Xu at Sam Mountain, Chau Doc, is bathed, and thousands flock to honour her. Twenty-third to twenty-fifth day of fourth lunar month; May.

Tet Doan Ngo

The summer solstice (fifth day of the fifth moon) is marked by festivities aimed at warding off epidemics brought on by the summer heat. This is also the time of dragon-boat races; late May to early June.

Trang Nguyen (or Vu Lan)

The day of wandering souls is the second most important festival after Tet. Offerings of food and clothes are made to comfort and nourish the unfortunate souls without a home, and all graves are cleaned. This is also time for the forgiveness of faults, when the King of Hell judges everyone’s spirits and metes out reward or punishment as appropriate. Until the fifteenth century prisoners were allowed to go home on this day. Fourteenth or fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month; August.

Autumn festivals (Sept–Dec)

Do Son Buffalo-fighting Festival

Held in Do Son village, near Hai Phong. Ninth and tenth days of the eighth lunar month; August.

Kate Festival

The Cham New Year is celebrated in high style at Po Klong Garai and Po Re Me, both near Phan Rang; September–October.

Trung Thu

The mid-autumn festival, also known as Children’s Day, is when dragon dances take place and children are given lanterns in the shape of stars, carp or dragons. Special cakes, banh trung thu, are eaten at this time of year. These are sticky rice cakes filled with lotus seeds, nuts and candied fruits and are either square like the earth (banh deo), or round like the moon (banh nuong) and containing the yolk of an egg. Fourteenth or fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month; September–October.