A Taste of Hanoi | Traveling Vietnam with Kids
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- čas přidán 1. 08. 2021
- These are our moments traveling as a family of four through Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Hanoi is located in the northern part of the country and home to nearly 5 million people. We spent one week in Hanoi following some time in Japan and China, before making our way out to the coast to see Ha Long Bay, and then further south in Vietnam to Hoi An.
Here are some Hanoi travel ideas for you, as seen in this video:
1) Eat all the street food!
2) Enjoy the sidewalk restaurant culture.
3) Visit the Old Quarter/Historic Quarter.
4) Visit the French Quarter.
5) Walk around Hoan Kiem Lake. The streets are closed to cars on Sundays and the perfect places for families and communities. There will be food, music, street performers, games, and more.
6) Rent a powerwheel for the kids on Sundays in the Old Town. They will love driving on the actual streets in an unlimited number of vehicles. The rental runs just $1 USD/20 minutes of endless fun.
7) See lesser-known neighborhoods too! We visited another lake area in Nguyen Du.
8) Get out of town and see the countryside. Tam Coc (the inland version of Ha Long Bay) is about 3 hours away, and Ha Long Bay is about 4 hours away. Both well worth the trip! You can get out of town easily by train, taxi, or bus.
If you have other suggestions of things to do in Hanoi, please share your suggestions with fellow travellers in the comments below.
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*** this video was recorded pre-pandemic
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ABOUT US:
We are the Salas Family, an Indigenous traveling family with roots in Wisconsin, United States. After deciding we had too little time for family and travel while chasing the American Dream, we decided to rent out our house and take a lap around this big, beautiful Earth. This is our journey as a full-time traveling family with two small kids.
- Watch our RTW trip from the start: • OUR ROUND-THE-WORD TRI...
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- Check out our website: www.findingsalas.com
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Hi fellow (or future) travelers! Please let us know if you have questions about Vietnam, or travel in general. We are happy to answer them! 😁♥
Love your content! What area would you recommend staying for families for one month? Walk to lake would be nice
@@michellemckenzie7455 hello and thank you for watching! And apologies on the delay, we were off the grid.
We stayed near the Vincom Center and walked many places, but taxis are very plentiful and affordable. Most travelers stay in the Historic or French Quarters (near each other and the lake).
Any other questions please let us know! ❤️
I love how you stayed positive, especially after coming from Japan. HUGE contrast and I'm sure a culture shock! Thanks for sharing!
Oh wow, this is appreciated so much! Hanoi caught us by surprise for sure, but we tried to enjoy the ride. It probably would have been a little easier without a toddler (and have been more thankful for places with sidewalks ever since), so we're counting Hanoi as a place we want to redo when the kids are bigger.
I love how they shut down streets for fam + kids play 💜. We are frm a small town so my 3 kids are not used to traffic. I’m contemplating what country/city in SE Asia would be fun + not too stressful for our fam
Hi bluestarfishsea! Yes, this is such a fun aspect to the bustling city, though unfortunately only a respite offered on Sundays in one or two locations in the historic part.
Your comment is something really important to consider, and one that is understated in picking out travel destinations. Is this area a good fit for my family, and at this point in time, beyond being generally popular? The good news is you are likely ahead of the game with this realization, at the planning stages.
If it makes you feel better, we are also from rural areas so this has shaped our interests too. We have visited cities, but are always drawn to more remote spaces and usually seek these out to book-end our time in cities.
Having said that, we are not sure we would recommend Hanoi to your family. The sidewalks are nearly non-existent and crossing the street is at legendary, Olympic levels here. There is some charm in that experience, but it can be quite stressful if you have small people to also navigate, who are not used to traffic. At some points, Hanoi has the greatest motorbikes per capita and that could be really overwhelming.
If you are looking for some place a bit quieter, we enjoyed Hoi An, also in Vietnam: czcams.com/video/6TAE6warXx0/video.html. There is an adjacent beach community called An Bang that was much more chill. We made friends with a family who had located there to get out of the "pressure cooker of Hong Kong" and that comment stuck with us.
Speaking of beach communities, there are so many sleepy islands in Thailand you could also explore. We visited the Krabi area, and had our eyes on Ko Lanta for some of the reasons you mentioned. We unfortunately didn't make it over there, but if that sounds appealing to you, you would fly into the Krabi area, which we did make a video on here, and where traffic was much more manageable because there were wide-open spaces for the kids to play: czcams.com/video/KjmhVk-Fgn8/video.html
See also Ko Lanta on a map here: goo.gl/maps/4ni4uPAeVRv2UEJf7
Please let us know if we can answer any other questions. ❤
@@FindingSalas Wow! Thank you for this thoughtful response, so helpful! I will stick with my plan to try out SE Asia in Thailand first, then Visit Vietnam after my fam gets used to traffic + culture shock-like no sidewalks!
@@bluestarfishsea no problem! Happy to help, and please let us know if you think of other questions. 😊
Great video thks for sharing! What month did you go? It seems cooler than i expected, lots of ppl wearing jackets
Hi! Thank you for your lovely comment, and thank you for watching too!
It was indeed a bit cool here, especially by Vietnamese standards. But really just temperate if you're from a place that has a proper winter. This was in January, the coldest month at 14-20° C / 57-68° F.
why i will not do airbnb internationally. at least you guys made the most of it.
Hi, thanks for connecting! I know, Airbnb can be a little bit of a gamble. 🫣 But so can hotels. We've definitely had good and bad at both.
But one thing we've learned that has helped on the Airbnb front is to only rent from "Superhosts". They invest a lot more into the experience to get that label, and frankly can't get away with deceptive listings -- such as being two completely separate units like this one. 🫤 Not sure if that fixes things entirely, but may help your international Airbnb experience.
For us, we can't avoid Airbnbs entirely because traveling longer term we need to have more of a home setup, with a kitchen and multiple rooms. It gets a little tight even in a hotel suite with four people, especially when some of us need to work while the other ones want to do cartwheels. 😂 Haha!
Wishing you safe travels! ❤️
Great video. Good to see you enjoyed your break.
Hey Tony! Thanks for watching and for your kind comment. We hope it's useful in your future travels, or travel daydreams! 😁
@@FindingSalas I’m thinking about going to Hanoi. This was more than helpful.
@@tonyb9578 that's very exciting! If you start planning, let us know if you have any questions. Happy to help!
This is the real Tony B. 😘
Haha, welcome to the party Tony B! ❤️🥳
this is a great video guys. Thanks for #atasteofhanoi
Hello and thank you for watching! Wow, that's a high compliment coming from folks who know Hanoi well! ❤
For anyone looking for more in depth and local knowledge of Hanoi, please check out their channel too: czcams.com/channels/wDZssDbBL2K-faVWnrNSIA.html
Looking at taking our two year old to Vietnam, first trip outside of North America. How did you travel around the city. Did you bring a car seat with you on your travels or do you just sit them on your lap in the taxi and such. Great and informative video !
Hi Paul! Thanks for watching and for your kind comments!
We used Grab Car (an app service similar to Uber, since there is no Uber) around town. We did bring car seats, but they are portable booster seats. Age two is perhaps borderline for their use depending on the child's size, but we found they gave our two year old sufficient height to use the in-car seat belt and also have a better window view to ease carsickness. We did a lot of walking around town (wearing the two year old), so generally the booster seat was used between the airport and our Airbnb, and then for daytrips out of town.
We used the Trunki brand, who became famous for those kids suitcases you can ride on in the airport. Their booster seat is also a backpack so that was big for us that it could also hold their things (given longer term travel). See here: trunki.com/products/boostapak-green-car-seat
Another option we've heard great things about is this one -- especially if you're leery of the booster option alone with no built-in straps: wayb.com/products/pico-car-seat?variant=18872782061625&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwJuVBhCAARIsAOPwGASzWFSMH8rTct2xVpz_FWmJ32Y1MoKjoyuUoFMZjhMtJ2X1w0berVwaAvY0EALw_wcB
Please let us know if you have other questions. And safe, happy travels to you and your family! ❤️✈️