A Week in Hanoi - Access Hanoi

Motorbikes filling an Old Quarter junction between ochre shophouses — Photograph by Alexkom000, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

A week is enough to stop sightseeing. It adds the night train north, which is the journey that changes what people think Vietnam looks like, and it leaves a day at the end to do nothing in particular.

The plan

Days 1–5 — As above.
Day 6 — ⭐ the night train to Lào Cai — Roughly eight hours from Hanoi, in a sleeper berth, arriving near the Chinese border for Sapa and the terraced rice valleys above it. The expressway coach is faster and much less fun. ⛔ Not a day trip under any circumstances — give it two nights or leave it out.
Day 6, the alternative — Mai Châu, about four hours south-west: a valley of stilt houses and rice, far less visited than Sapa and reachable in a long weekend. Or Hải Phòng and Cát Bà — trains run from Hanoi in around two and a half hours, and Cát Bà gives you the same limestone as Ha Long with a fraction of the boats.
Day 7, morning — Bát Tràng, the ceramics village half an hour across the river — the shortest worthwhile trip from Hanoi and a good use of a last morning.
Day 7, afternoon — The Old Quarter, slowly, with no list. ⭐ If it is a Friday, stay for the walking streets.

The track with Vietnamese flags hanging from the buildings on either side — Photograph by NKSTTSSHNVN, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

⛔ Do not try to add Huế or Hội An. They are a long way south and they deserve their own trip; folding one into a Hanoi week costs you two days of travelling and gives you an afternoon.

A junk with red sails among the limestone karsts of Ha Long Bay — Photograph by Arianos, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

What this plan is built around

Not a list of sights, but the constraints. ⛔ The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is mornings only, is traditionally closed on Mondays and Fridays, and shuts altogether for several weeks most years — so it goes first in any day it appears in, or it does not appear at all. ⚠️ The food stalls sell out: breakfast before eight, lunch before one, and a famous bún chả at three in the afternoon is a shutter. ⭐ The Old Quarter core closes to traffic from Friday evening to Sunday night, which is the best evening of the week and the one to keep free. And everything else is walking — twenty-five minutes between clusters at eleven in the morning, an hour at half past five.

The temple gate with traffic passing on the road in front — Photograph by Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Other lengths

5 daysFive Days in Hanoi 3 daysThree Days in Hanoi 1 dayOne Day in Hanoi

Checked on 7 September 2026. Closing days, dress rules and journey times change — confirm before you travel. All sixteen sights, one page each, in Landmarks & Sights.