Halong Bay Daytrip from Hanoi: Good or Too Rushed?

Rating: 3/5 (A very beautiful place, but overcrowded and weather dependent)

Price (Per Person): $60USD (prices can vary, but are generally quite affordable)

Is Halong Bay worth an overnight stay? My opinion: if the weather is good (read: blue skies) and you have time, yes. Otherwise, no, a daytrip is fine.

Introduction

I only had two days in Hanoi on my Southeast Asia trip, so I portioned one full day for exploring the city, and another full day for a daytrip tour from Hanoi to Halong Bay. There are tons of guided daytrips from Hanoi, all of which follow pretty much identical itineraries. I went with whoever had the best ratings I could find online so I won’t put my exact tour here, but I’d assume your experience for a daytrip to follow the same (if not exactly the same) itinerary.

Most tours generally will start early in the morning (7am / 8am) and drop you off back to your hotel 12 hours later (~8pm).

This makes for a generally long day, although it’s great for maximizing a crunched schedule and avoiding some (potentially) dodgy overnight boat food.

The general itinerary for day tours to Halong Bay will proceed as follows:

1. Bus Ride from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay
2. Pearl Factory Tour (Tourist Trap)
3. Halong Bay Cruise and Activities (Speedboat, Kayak, etc)
4. Cave / Island Exploration
5. Bus Ride Back to Hanoi

What you’ll find in this post:

1. Introduction
2. Drive to Halong Bay
3. Halong Bay Cruise (Very Pretty)
4. Halong Bay Activities
5. Sung Sot Caves
6. Conclusion

Drive to Halong Bay

The drive to Halong bay is pretty uneventful and not very scenic either, at least until you reach close to Halong bay.

The drive usually takes 2- 3 hours, depending on traffic. What was super annoying was the tour began at a “pearl museum”, which was clearly just a tourist trap, filled with other tourists, peddling local pearls at the “museum”. The “museum” had all of exhibits for sale though… strange how that works?

Sometimes I can understand these detours on guided tours for providing tangential cultural relevance, but this one was just a blatant tourist trap. This was definitely the lowlight of the tour, but only up from here…

Halong Bay Cruise (Very Pretty)

We pulled up to port around ~11am for our boat cruise in Halong bay. This was our ride for the day:

Unfortunately, today was completely overcast in Halong Bay, so we didn’t have the prettiest views. In fact, people I spoke with on the tour said it had been like this for almost a month straight – I visited in late February which usually has clearer weather, but I got unlucky this time. The bay was still stunningly beautiful, and at least it wasn’t rainy at all.

The boat had an indoor section and a rooftop area we could hang out, after a provided lunch (which was ~mediocre~).

Halong Bay Activities

Our first stop in the cruise was a small island with an artificial beach and mountain. We were given 45 minutes on the tour to explore on our own, so I checked out the beach then headed up to the top of the mountain (hill):

The view from the top of the mountain was really cool. There were 400 or so steps in the stairs up to the top.

The only “real” problem with Halong Bay in general is overcrowding. Everywhere I went there was a sea of other tourists (Chinese, European, American, etc), to the point where there were lines for public bathrooms, people flying drones, etc. It definitely made the experience less special. Great views, but hard to enjoy it when you’re focusing not tripping on the person in front of you half the time.

Our next stop was our activity for the day, which was choice between kayaking and a speedboat ride. The speedboat was an extra $10 USD (kind of steep by Vietnamese standards) but was well worth it. This was the highlight of the tour in general for me. The driver was actually quite aggressive (i.e I felt like I was going to fly out of the boat multiple times) which made it fun, and we got to see a lot of cool rock formations along Halong bay, away from the bigger boats.

I’d highly recommend choosing the speed boat when doing these tours:

Sung Sot Caves

Our final stop for the day were the Sung Sot caves, which is a really deep network of caves within Halong Bay. Crowds again were definitely a bit insane, however.

The end of the cave trail actually ends up at a really cool vantage point with a great view of Halong bay (and further from the crowding inside the cave):

After the cave, the tour group headed back to the boat. We then cruised back the way we came from, which took around an hour and a half. It was then another 2 1/2 hour drive back to hectic Hanoi.

Conclusion

All in all, I actually was happy I ended up choosing the daytrip instead of the overnight experience. I think if you have a lot of spare time and the weather looks good a few days before your trip, the overnight experience could be worth doing. Otherwise, the daytrip helps maximize your time and you still see all the same sights. The main downside is it’s a relatively long day, and left me pretty tired afterwards (compounded with Jetlag). The bus was comfortable and they did make a bathroom stop along the way where we could also buy water or snacks.

All in all, I really enjoyed my Halong Bay day tour (minus the crowding). If I’m back one day, I’d be happy to return on a (sunny) day.