Our trips take us to Vietnam’s vivacious essence. We slowly voyage up the Mekong (words guaranteed to quicken the traveler’s pulse!). We revel in the country’s sparkling city hotels, and its Paris- and New York–class restaurants. We dally in the historic sites, temples, and markets set amidst the bubbling streets of Saigon (or, if you prefer, Ho Chi Minh City). We pamper ourselves in luxury resorts on the postcard-perfect beaches of the South China Sea. And we enjoy contrasting those modernities with serene sojourns in Vietnam’s resplendently green countryside, visiting remote hill tribe villages whose inhabitants still wear their traditional garb.

To experience Vietnam’s vibrant landscape, observed British journalist James Cameron, “is like living in the heart of a 17th-century Oriental watercolor.”