Thailand and Vietnam with Children: Twelve Places, Six Bases

A family planning three weeks over Christmas might send a wish list like this: Hanoi, Ninh Binh, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City, then Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Doi Inthanon, Railay, the Hong Islands and Phi Phi. That is twelve places, two children, and perhaps a grandparent.

Three weeks is twenty nights, and twelve places in twenty nights means eleven moves. That is a new hotel almost every other morning. With children, each move costs a morning, sometimes a whole day. The list does not have to be cut in half, though. It has to become six bases, with most of the other places as days out from them.

At a glance

Bases, not places

With children, the unit that matters is the base: the hotel where the suitcases come out and stay out. Plan two to three nights in each. Make it at least three where the family needs to rest, wash clothes and stop living out of a bag. At about three nights a base, twenty nights give six or seven bases, and the rest of the list has to fit inside them.

One move a day, at most. That means a flight or a drive of up to about three hours, not both, and no sightseeing on top. Even a short flight fills the day once the checkout, the airport and the transfer at the other end are counted.

The days between moves need a shape too. One main outing of two or three hours works best in the morning, then lunch, then the pool through the hottest hours. After every three or four days of touring, plan one day with no transfer and no guide. Children do not ask for it. They show you on the fourth day that they needed it.

What stays and what goes

The six bases keep ten of the twelve places. Ninh Binh, Doi Inthanon, the Hong Islands and Phi Phi become day trips, and so does Railay if the family sleeps in Ao Nang.

Hue is the first to go. It is about three hours by road from Hoi An, over the Hai Van Pass, so with children it costs two more nights or one very long day. Ho Chi Minh City goes too: it lies far south of the rest of the route. The exception is a family whose long-haul flights land or leave there anyway. Then it is worth two nights at the start or the end.

Flights do most of the joining. The useful one is the direct flight from Chiang Mai to Krabi, which saves going back through Bangkok.

Ha Long Bay is the one long road leg, and the family drives it twice. From a Hanoi hotel to the main cruise pier takes about four hours door to door, which is too far for a day trip. Ships that leave from the Lan Ha Bay pier, just to the south, save about an hour. On the way back, the same road leads to Hanoi airport and the flight to Da Nang. This is the one day with a long drive and a flight, so book nothing else for it. Our guide to transfer times has the door-to-door figures for the other legs.

Railay needs a boat. Limestone cliffs cut it off from the mainland, so the way in is a longtail from Ao Nang, about fifteen minutes away. With luggage, a pushchair or a grandparent who is unsteady on a boat step, Ao Nang is the easier base, and Railay becomes a day on the beach.

With two weeks in place of three, the same arithmetic gives four bases. Our how many days guide sets out the lengths that work in each country.

Which beach, and when

The rains reach each coast at a different time, so somewhere in the two countries there is a good beach in almost every month. The dates decide which one.

At Christmas, go west in Thailand and south in Vietnam. On the Andaman coast the dry season should have settled in by December, which is why the plan above puts its six beach nights in Krabi. It is the drier side, not a promise of sun on the 24th: Phuket and Krabi still average ten or eleven rainy days in December. Koh Samui, on the other coast, is the trap. It averages about 263 mm of rain in December, roughly three times as much as Phuket, and January is still wet.

In Vietnam, Phu Quoc is in its dry months from November to April. Hoi An and Da Nang stay cool and rainy until about February. That is fine for the old town and poor for the beach.

A Christmas trip also needs a warm layer. Hanoi in December is cool and misty, and from late December the nights can drop to about 10°C. Ha Long Bay is cool and misty from December to March, and January there can be very cold. The mountains in northern Thailand are colder still: on a January morning in 2026, the park reported 3°C at the summit of Doi Inthanon, with the grass just below freezing.

February to April is the easier window. February is the driest month on the Andaman coast. The rain builds again through March and April, so a later trip leans to Koh Samui, which is at its driest from February to April.

The catch is heat. By April, Bangkok's average high is about 36°C and Chiang Mai's about 37°C, so city mornings start early and afternoons belong to the pool. The north has a second catch. Roughly February to April is the burning season in northern Thailand, usually at its worst in March, and haze settles over Chiang Mai and hides the mountain views. In those weeks, with young children, give Chiang Mai fewer nights, or swap it for a second beach. Our guide to when to avoid Thailand and Vietnam has the weeks to avoid in every region.

Both windows miss the island parks' annual closures, which fall in the wet months. The Similan Islands close from mid-May to mid-October, and Maya Bay on Phi Phi in August and September. Six marine national parks, Phi Phi and Phang Nga Bay among them, have used electronic tickets since October 2025. Buy them ahead, and take the passports on boat days.

When the family arrives from two countries

A large family may not land on the same day. Grandparents fly in from one country, a son's family from another, a cousin a day later. The first days set the tone for the trip, so plan them around the arrivals.

Start with a base that each part of the family can reach on one flight, or with one change. Here the two countries help. A direct flight joins Ho Chi Minh City and Phuket in under two hours, so grandparents landing in one and cousins in the other can meet on the same beach.

Make that first base an easy one: a hotel with a pool and a beach or a garden, where nobody minds who arrived when. Book nothing in the first two days that needs the whole family. Start the first shared outing on day three. By then everyone is in, past the worst of the jet lag, and the children have found the pool.

Paperwork goes per person, babies included, and the visa rules depend on each passport:

• Thailand Digital Arrival Card: free, and needed by every non-Thai traveller. File it online within the three days before arrival.
• Passports for Vietnam: valid for at least six months beyond the date of entry, with two blank pages.
• Vietnam's 45-day visa exemption: it asks for an onward ticket to a third country, and the flight on to Thailand counts.
• Thailand's 30-day visa exemption: since 15 September 2026, for passports from 60 countries and territories. Our post on the 30-day visa exemption lists them.

With grandparents

The pace that suits small children mostly suits grandparents too. Three things change.

The first is the road. One hour in the air is gentler than four on a road with mountain bends, so choose flights over long drives. Where a drive cannot be avoided, plan the breaks into it.

The second is walking. Old towns, temples and ruins mean more walking than the map suggests, and steps in the heat. This is where a private guide helps most: the visit can end early, everyone can sit down in the shade, and the rest of the day can change order. In Vietnam, Pai Dai coordinates a private car and driver in each region, with a guide for the touring days. Our page on private family travel in Vietnam shows how those days are paced.

The third is boats. Getting in and out of a longtail boat takes balance, so ask how each boat is boarded before anything is booked.

If your list has twelve places on it, send it to us with the children's ages and the arrival cities, and we will send back the bases we would keep.