Vietnam

Nearly 2,000 limestone karst islands and islets rise from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, their cliff faces draped in jungle vegetation and their bases hollowed into caves and grottoes by millennia of wave action. The finest way to experience Ha Long is on a private or boutique vessel that crosses into the quieter Bai Tu Long Bay to the east — away from the tourist flotillas — for a night or two of genuine, unhurried solitude among the peaks.

A remarkably intact 15th to 19th-century trading port on the Thu Bon River, Hoi An's Old Town is a fusion of Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and French colonial architecture preserved in amber since the town's commercial decline in the 19th century. The lantern-lit streets after dark — particularly during the monthly Full Moon Lantern Festival when electric lights are extinguished and the whole town glows — are among the most beautiful in Southeast Asia.

The capital of the Nguyen Dynasty from 1802 to 1945, Hue's Imperial Citadel encloses a purple Forbidden City, royal pavilions, gardens, and the mausolea of former emperors scattered through the surrounding countryside along the Perfume River. The royal cuisine of Hue — refined over centuries for palace banquets, now available at a handful of specialist restaurants — is considered the finest in Vietnam.

The oldest karst system in Asia, Phong Nha's cave network is the most extraordinary in the world — Son Doong Cave, discovered only in 1991, is the largest cave passage on earth, large enough to contain an entire jungle, its own weather system, and clouds forming inside it at a height of 200 metres. Expedition access to Son Doong, limited to a few hundred visitors per year, is one of the most exclusive travel experiences in the world.

The ancient commercial heart of Vietnam's capital, Hanoi's Old Quarter is a dense labyrinth of 36 guild streets — each historically specialising in a single trade, from silk to paper to tin — where traditional shop-houses, pagodas, and communal houses sit among contemporary restaurants and galleries. The Hoan Kiem Lake at its centre, with the Turtle Tower rising from its waters at dawn, is one of Vietnam's most tranquil and beautiful urban settings.

The vast river delta where the Mekong fans into nine branches before reaching the South China Sea, the delta is the most productive agricultural region in Southeast Asia and home to a floating market culture unlike anything in the rest of Vietnam. Private motor sampan journeys through narrow canal networks between fruit orchards, rice paddies, and villages accessible only by water offer the slowest and most intimate form of travel in the country.