One-Week Tailored Tour of Vietnam’s Paramount Places

The recommended hotels were nice. All flights were well coordinated; however, travel time between regions was not well thought out; in some cases, it took 2 days to get from one itinerary destination to another. We were dropped at the wrong hotel in one instance and pre-arranged fast track service was not provided in a major airport. Tour guides and drivers were ok. Many of the tours need to be revamped; some being pointless (planting rice in mud, taking a concrete boat ride through a shallow cave, cycling through rice fields on rickety bikes), others being unhealthy (a salt rice lunch, food tours), or way too far of a drive out of the way (the Mekong Delta from Ho Chi Minh City). More guidance should have been offered in selecting the travel months so as to avoid extreme heat and smoke pollution conditions in the first 3 weeks of our 6 week trip.

Zicasso's tour company did a fabulous job arranging our 10-night trip to Vietnam.

We visited Vietnam from south to north, starting in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and the Mekong River, then to Hội An and Huế, and finally to Hanoi and Hạ Long Bay.

At each location, the travel company provided us with very knowledgeable local guides who taught us the history and the culture of the area, which was our main ask.

The guides and our coordinator were professional and fun, and we enjoyed our time with the guides as much as we enjoyed the beautiful country. 

The coordinator even met us at our hotel in Hanoi to make sure we were well taken care of.

We would use this travel company in the future.

Thank you.

We traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia from May 8 to 22, 2025. This was my fifth trip through Zicasso. As expected, the itinerary was excellent and exactly what we were looking for. I did double my budget from what I initially sent to Zicasso.

All of the lodging selections were outstanding. Along with the tours of the Ho Chi Minh complex, Hue Imperial City, the Angkor Wat complex, and numerous other temples and pagodas, we experienced a cable car ride to a mountain summit, a walk through an ethnic village, a water puppet show, a Cambodian circus, a Vietnamese cooking class, an evening lantern boat ride in Hoi An, and dinner in one of the top 50 restaurants in Asia. The water puppets are an ancient Vietnamese art (11th century) and the show was extraordinary.  

We recently completed a 29-day custom-designed tour of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam with Zicasso’s travel company. As a couple, we have toured 100 countries on six continents. We always travel by ourselves and not in groups. We often plan and book our itinerary and activities on our own. We have experienced tour operators in the past who just string together “cookie-cutter” activities and call it a custom tour. I commend the travel company for not taking this path.

Our tour was completely tailored to our needs. We went through several iterations of the itinerary to match it to our interests and they were untiring in making adjustments to suit our particular needs. The hotels were all of excellent quality and very well located. The itineraries in each of the locations we visited met our expectations and addressed the interests we had discussed with the representatives of the travel company. All of the guides were good and several were amongst the best we have ever had. The support of the travel company was outstanding throughout our trip, with daily check-ins and immediate reactions when assistance was requested. I would rate the tour as exceptional. I unhesitatingly recommend the travel company.

Zicasso’s travel agency worked patiently with us over several months to organize a perfect four-country tour through Indochina, doing exactly what we asked, including a Khmer cooking class with a local chef.  

We were met on arrival in each county by an experienced English-speaking guide who was well-versed in the history, geography, and culture of each location, and they were just delightful people too. They took us to rural villages and through urban mazes to get a close look at the daily life of the citizens. We chatted with farmers in the field and had meals in local homes. Our agency booked amazing hotels for each stop, from an eco-lodge in the mountains of Vietnam to a spectacular seaside resort in Thailand. 

We had contact names and numbers for agency representatives in each country. They were incredibly responsive, even after hours, when we had a small medical issue. They gave us a completely seamless experience from arrival to departure, with no wasted time. Vacation time is very precious, so we prefer to work with professionals who know the area intimately and take the time to understand our objectives rather than pushing a canned itinerary.

We could not have been more pleased with our trip with Zicasso’s tour operator. Our travel specialist and all of the guides were highly professional, thorough, knowledgeable, flexible, and kind. They listened to us and planned and executed a trip of a lifetime for us. We were amazed at the unique experiences they arranged. We felt that we gained insight into the culture, history, and life of Japan and Vietnam that we could never have gained on our own.

FYI, this review is for both countries we visited: Japan for three weeks and Vietnam for three weeks.