Vietnam Culinary Tour June 2017 – Join Us on a Vietnam Food Adventure

on February 11, 2017 at 11:48 pm

Our Vietnam Culinary Tour is scheduled for June 2017 and we're just putting the final touches to the itinerary. We're so excited we thought we'd share the most delicious highlights with you now. More details coming next week so watch this space!

A few of the lovely participants from our 2016 Cambodia Culinary Tours and our Travel and Food Writing and Photography Retreats asked us to host a Vietnam Culinary Tour this year and we simply couldn't resist the opportunity to escort such fun food-loving people through one of our favourite foodie countries.

Vietnam Culinary Tour – Join Us on a Vietnam Food Adventure in June 2017!

As some of you know we lived in Vietnam before we moved to Cambodia. It was only for seven months, but I say 'lived' because we rented an apartment, took cooking classes and did street food tours, shopped the markets and cooked every day – despite such fantastic Vietnamese food available right on our doorstep.

We made loads of friends and felt right at home, especially in Hoi An, which we thought would be the place we'd be calling home right now. It was our time in Hoi An that made us realise how much we loved the intimacy of small towns compared to big cities, which is what drew us to Siem Reap over Phnom Penh.

We were in Vietnam working on a number of food and travel stories for now-retired Feast, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, The Guardian, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, Ocean, and Lifestyle+Travel among other publications, on everything from Hoi An's specialties, including the legendary cau lao and its famous chilli sauce to Hanoi's beloved bia hoi and the contemporary art scene. Although I have to say one of our favourite pieces was on heavenly Halong Bay, for which we compared four different cruises. That was a dream job.

So we're excited to be hosting this Vietnam Culinary Tour, and we're especially delighted that some of our participants from our Cambodia trips will be joining us. We know we're going to have a fantastic time.

Our approach will be the same as the Cambodia trips we run, in line with our Grantourismo philosophy – slow, local and experiential – so you can expect:

a relaxed vibe – our trips feel more like immersive holidays with local friends than tours with travel companies;

an insider perspective thanks to our Vietnam experience and our carefully chosen Vietnam guides and experts – from chefs and food vendors to artisanal producers and art historians;

local insights – we'll be taking you to a combination of spots that we know and love, as well as places that our local hosts who live in places frequent;

engaging experiences – from cooking classes and street food tours to farm visits and coffee appreciation classes.

Vietnam Culinary Tour 2017 – Highlights

We've pencilled in a start date of 24 June 2017, kicking off our Vietnam Culinary Tour in Ho Chi Minh City and ended just over two weeks later in Hanoi. If you choose to do the add-ons it will be a three week trip.

These are some of the tantalising experiences that we have planned for you:

memorable sleeps – stays in small atmospheric boutique hotels, stylish colonial resorts with swimming pools and charming historic properties that ooze history;

hands-on cooking classes in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi covering everything from local specialties at the best cooking classes to dessert making with a legendary local vendor;

an epic train journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi on the Reunification Express, which runs the length of the country;

mouthwatering market and street food tours in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi;

authentic street food feasting at favourite local spots for breakfast, lunch and snacks in every destination – from the best pho and bun cha places in Hanoi to our favourite banh mi spots in Hoi An, including Banh Mi Phuong, which we ate at every day, which Bourdain made famous;

memorable meals at some of Vietnam's best restaurants with the chance to meet the chefs and owners behind these fine establishments;

an exclusive visit to a noodle making family in Hoi An to observe the process followed by a tasting tour to sample Hoi An's famous noodles;

fascinating visits to organic farms and the chance to observe traditional artisanal producers, making fish sauce, chili sauce and noodles among other things, on the Mekong Delta and in the rice fields and countryside around Hoi An and Hanoi;

coffee appreciation tour in Hanoi taking in historic cafés and hipster coffee shops, sampling everything from the traditional ca phe sua da to the famous egg coffee;

a bia hoi tour to sample the fresh local unpasteurised beer and bia snacks at local 'bia hoi' joints;

a fun Vietnamese language lesson on basic greetings and food-focused vocabulary at the start of the trip;

walking tours in every destination, taking in Saigon's elegant opera house and cathedral, Hoi An's ancient houses and incense-filled Chinese temples, Hue's own 'forbidden city' and handsome tombs, and Hanoi's splendid art deco architecture and striking communist monuments;

wonderful cultural experiences, including an enchanting ca tru performance in Hoi An, a Hanoi architecture walk, and a Saigon art tour;

an optional 2-day/1-night Mekong Delta excursion at the start of the trip; and

an optional 3-day/2-night Halong Bay cruise at the end of the journey.

If you know you'd like to join our Vietnam Culinary Tour or you just wish to express interest in coming at this stage, please get in touch ASAP on info@grantourismotravels.com and we'll put you on the mailing list as we expect these spots to sell fast once we finalise things.

We'll be updating this post as details are confirmed, so do check back frequently. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments below or email us on the address above.

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A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller, Wanderlust, Get Lost, Travel+Leisure Asia, DestinAsian, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored some 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.

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