Vietnam has one of the most famous overland routes in the backpacker world: the motorbike trail that runs the length of the country, mostly between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, ridden by generations of travellers on cheap underbones with their luggage bungeed to the rack. The 2008 Top Gear Vietnam Special — three presenters, three ridiculous bikes, Saigon to Hanoi — turned what backpackers already did into a bucket-list item, and touring companies still trace that arc today. Here is what the trail actually is, and what riding it in the 2020s looks like.

The classic stages

Travellers ride it in both directions; the traditional backpacker flow (following the open-tour bus route) runs south to north:

  1. Ho Chi Minh City → Mui Ne — the coastal warm-up, sand dunes and fish sauce factories.
  2. Mui Ne → Da Lat — the first real climb, into the highlands (the classic accounts describe it as a full 8-10 hour day before road improvements).
  3. Da Lat → Nha Trang — the famous descent day, 100 km of mountain road dropping to the sea.
  4. Nha Trang → Hoi An — the long central hop, usually split across Quy Nhon.
  5. Hoi An → Hue — over the Hai Van Pass, the trail’s postcard.
  6. Hue → Hanoi — the long middle, and where most riders choose the Ho Chi Minh Road over the QL1A.
  7. Hanoi → Ha Giang loop — the trail’s modern summit: the far-north mountains that even the QLHCM cannot match.

Our full route guide does the day-by-day planning; the seasonal guide decides which month suits which end of the country.

The bikes that built the trail

The legend is the Honda Win — a cheap Chinese-assembled 100cc manual that a decade of backpackers bought in Hanoi for a few hundred dollars, abused for 2,000 km, and sold in Saigon. The fleet has moved on: today’s trail bikes are overwhelmingly Honda Waves and semi-automatic underbones, plus automatic scooters for the coast sections. The buy-in-Hanoi, sell-in-Saigon tradition survives in the buyback schemes run by touring specialists — our buying, selling and one-way rental guides cover the modern mechanics of it.

What has changed

  • Paperwork got serious. The licence rule (over 50cc needs a Vietnamese licence or 1968-convention IDP) is now enforced and insurance-relevant — see our legal overview. The trail’s older “no licence, no problem” era is over.
  • The roads got good. The Ho Chi Minh Road turned the middle of the trail from an endurance test into the country’s best touring.
  • The fleet got automatics. The scooter changed who can ride the trail — most of it is now rideable by a confident automatic-scooter rider, Ha Giang excepted for novices.
  • The direction flipped. The riding consensus now tilts north-to-south for the scenery crescendo — save the mountains for… actually the reverse: many now start in Hanoi to ride the north first, because the northern loops have become the point of the whole trip.

How riders run it today

Three broad styles: buy-sell (weeks-long, total commitment, cheapest per day), one-way rental with a drop fee (see our one-way rental guide), and — increasingly dominant — the chapters approach: ride each region on a local rental and connect by train or bus. The chapters approach is what we support best from our side of the country: contact us to confirm current availability for the northern chapter, take the train south, rent again. The trail is a state of mind; the bike under you just needs to be the right one for this week’s chapter.