Name any place in Hanoi and we build the day around it. The train street, a command bunker under the old citadel, a mural wall, a bridge, a coffee shop somebody recommended. No fixed route, no category, no list to pick from. A young local meets you and goes wherever you want to go.
Real tours, real guests. Photographed by our own members.
Most tours advertised as customizable give you a list of six places and let you choose four. That is a menu, not a custom tour.
This one has no list. You tell us where you want to go and we go there. A museum and a mural wall and a bowl of noodles and a bridge, in one afternoon, in whatever order makes sense. Somewhere you read about on a forum. A pagoda your grandmother mentioned. A street you saw in a film and cannot name but can describe.
The only thing we ask is that you tell us in advance, ideally a day before, so your guide can work out the route and check what is open. But if you turn up with an idea on the morning, say so when you meet: the first thing every guide does is sit down and agree the day with you, and changing it there and then is normal.
If you would rather have a route already designed for you, take the private Hanoi city tour instead. This page is for people who already know what they want to see.
These are suggestions, not a menu. They are places guests ask for that do not appear on any of our other tours, and you are free to ignore every one of them. Tap any to read more.
A working railway line that runs between houses with about half a metre of clearance on each side, so the residents fold their chairs in when the train comes and put them back out afterwards. It is the most requested place in Hanoi that is not on any of our tours. Access has been restricted more than once and the rules on the cafés have changed several times, so ask your guide what the situation is on your date. They will tell you honestly rather than promising something that may not be possible.
Vietnam was governed from this ground for close to thirteen centuries, and UNESCO listed it in 2010. Most of the palaces are gone; what survives is the Doan Mon gate, the stone platform of Kinh Thien Palace with its fifteenth-century dragon balustrades, and an open archaeological pit at 18 Hoang Dieu where six dynasties of foundations lie stacked on each other. The part almost nobody expects is underground: House D67 and the bunker beneath it, where the Politburo and the General Staff met during the American war, preserved with the original desks, wall maps and telephones still in place. The night programme here does not go anywhere near it. We also run a Thang Long Citadel night tour if you want the performance version instead; by day it is 70,000 dong and you set your own pace.
The arches under the old railway viaduct on Phung Hung street were bricked up for decades. In 2018 a Korean and Vietnamese art project opened some of them and painted the walls with scenes of Hanoi in the 1980s and 1990s: the tram that no longer runs, a shop selling rationed goods, a family on one motorbike. Vietnamese visitors come here for nostalgia; foreign visitors come for the photographs. Both work.
Built by the French between 1899 and 1902, bombed repeatedly during the American war and repaired each time, which is why the spans do not match: some are the original lattice, some are replacements welded on in a hurry. It still carries trains, motorbikes and pedestrians. Walking out onto it at the end of the day, with the river underneath and the trains passing a metre away, is not a comfortable experience and is the reason people remember it.
The largest lake in the city, fifteen kilometres around, with the oldest pagoda in Hanoi standing on a spit of land at its southern end. Tran Quoc is more than fourteen hundred years old and its stupa rises in eleven tiers, each with a statue inside. The lake is where Hanoians go to escape the Old Quarter, which is a useful thing to understand about the city. Sunset from the western shore is the best in Hanoi.
Eight kilometres from the centre and consistently rated the best museum in the country, which is why it is strange how few visitors make it out there. It covers all fifty-four recognised ethnic groups in Vietnam, and behind the main building there is an outdoor park of full-size traditional houses moved here and rebuilt, including a Bahnar communal house nearly twenty metres tall that you can climb into. It needs a taxi and half a day, and it is worth both.
A mosaic mural made of ceramic tiles running along the dyke wall beside the Red River, built for the city’s thousandth anniversary in 2010 and long enough to have held a world record. It runs for several kilometres, so nobody walks all of it. Your guide will take you to the section worth seeing and tell you which panels were made by which country, because a good number were contributed by artists from abroad.
From Friday to Sunday evening the streets north of Hoan Kiem Lake close to traffic and fill with stalls running up to Dong Xuan Market. Most of what is sold is not worth buying and everybody knows it; the reason to go is the crowd, the food carts along the side streets and the games being played in the middle of the road. Bring your guide if you do intend to buy something, because the opening price is not the price.
Guests have asked us for a particular tailor, a specific bookshop, the market where their guide’s family shops, a war memorial connected to a relative, a football match, a barber, and a lake in a suburb because of something they read. All of those happened. If you can name it or describe it, tell us and we will work out whether it is possible. The answer is usually yes.
Badly is fine. You do not need a finished itinerary and you do not need the right names. Write what you can in the form: a list of places, a sentence about what interests you, a photograph you saw, a link to something you read. Your guide will do the rest.
If you have no idea at all, that is also useful information. Tell us what you liked in the last city you visited, or what you do not want to do, and your guide will propose something on WhatsApp the day before for you to accept or reject.
The one thing worth saying clearly is anything that constrains the day: a flight time, a child who will not last four hours, a knee that does not like stairs, food you cannot eat, a budget. Those change the route far more than your interests do, and guides would rather know at the start than discover it at the third stop.
Both work, and plenty of guests do half of each. Here is the honest difference.
Send the form the day before and your guide will message you on WhatsApp that evening with a plan.
Some of our best days started with a guest saying they had no idea what they wanted.
Put it in the form, however roughly. We reply by email within 24 hours with the name of your guide, and they will build the day around it.
Two of those need explaining. Our guides walk and take public transport or taxis with you, but nobody drives you: if the day needs a car, you arrange and pay for it, and your guide will help you get the right one at the right price. And some sites have their own hours and restrictions that nobody can work around, notably the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which opens mornings only and closes on Mondays and Fridays.
If what you want is a day trip beyond the city, we do run two: Duong Lam ancient village at 45 km west, and the craft villages at 10 to 35 km out. Both have their own pages because the transport changes everything about how they work.
This is the question we are asked most, and on this tour it is asked with more suspicion than usual, because a free custom-built day sounds like there must be a catch.
There is not. Our guides are not paid a wage. They join this club to practise English with visitors, and a custom day is the best practice of all: they cannot rehearse it, they have to improvise, and they end up explaining things no script covers. That is exactly what they want.
There is no commission from anywhere we take you, no shop stop, and no upsell at the end. If your guide helps you agree a price for something, they are negotiating on your side. Tips are optional.
That depends entirely on where you choose to go, which is the one drawback of a tour with no fixed route. What does not vary is that the guide is free, and that you cover your guide’s costs wherever they cover your own.
| Typical day | Cost for you and your guide |
|---|---|
| Streets, bridges, murals and lakes only | Free, apart from what you eat |
| Adding the Imperial Citadel by day | 140,000 VND |
| Adding one museum or temple | 80,000 to 140,000 VND |
| A full day with two or three paid sites and lunch | 300,000 to 500,000 VND |
| Anything needing a taxi across the city | add 100,000 to 200,000 VND for the car |
Not a tour company employee. Your guide is a young Hanoian who joined a volunteer club to practise English with visitors, and who trained for two and a half months before being allowed to lead anyone anywhere.
Some are still at school or university. Some graduated years ago and kept coming back. Some fit tours around a full-time job at a company in the city. What they share is that they grew up here, and that nobody pays them a wage to be here with you.
Because there is no script, who you get matters more here than on any other tour. Tell us your interests and we will send someone who shares them: a history student for a war route, a food-obsessed member for an eating day, somebody who grew up in the district you want to see.
A guide leading a fixed route can rehearse it. A guide leading your route cannot, which is harder work and much better English practice. This is the tour our more experienced members volunteer for, and it is why they enjoy it most.
If your hotel is inside the Old Quarter, your guide comes to the lobby. If your first stop is somewhere else entirely, it is often simpler to meet there instead, and your guide will send a photo of the exact spot the night before. On this tour more than any other, the meeting point follows the route rather than the other way round.
Yes. There is no list to pick from. Name the places, or describe them if you do not know the names, and your guide will work out the route. Guests have asked for museums, markets, bridges, murals, pagodas, a particular tailor, a bookshop and a football match, and all of those happened. The only limits are places outside Hanoi and sites with their own restrictions.
A day ahead is best, because it lets your guide check what is open and plan an order that does not waste time in traffic. But same-day requests often work, especially in the morning, and you can change the plan when you meet. The first thing every guide does is sit down and agree the day with you.
Then say so, and tell us what you liked in the last city you visited or what you would rather avoid. Your guide will propose something on WhatsApp the day before for you to accept or change. Some of our best days started with a guest saying they had no idea.
It is the most requested place in the city and it is not on any of our other tours, so this is where to ask for it. Access has been restricted more than once and the rules on the cafés have changed several times, so your guide will tell you the current situation on your date rather than promising something that may not be possible.
Yes, and it is one of the better additions to a custom day. The daytime ticket is 70,000 VND and you walk it at your own pace: the Doan Mon gate, the Kinh Thien Palace platform, the open excavation at 18 Hoang Dieu, and the D67 command bunker where the war was directed from underground. We also run a separate night tour there, which is a staged performance on fixed evenings and a different thing entirely.
The city tour is a designed route: six or seven recommended stops, and you pick three to six of them. This one has no route and no list. If you want somebody to have thought about the day for you, take the city tour. If you already know what you want to see, take this.
The guide is free and tips are optional. Everything else depends on where you go. A day of streets, bridges and lakes costs nothing but what you eat. Adding one museum or the Imperial Citadel is 80,000 to 140,000 VND for you and your guide together. A full day with two or three paid sites and lunch is 300,000 to 500,000 VND.
Not on this tour. For Duong Lam ancient village, 45 km west, and the craft villages at 10 to 35 km out, we run separate tours, because the transport changes how the whole day works. Ha Long Bay, Ninh Binh and Sapa are beyond what we do.
We cannot promise one by name, but we do match on what you asked for. Tell us your interests and we will send someone who shares them: a history student for a war route, a food-obsessed member for an eating day, somebody who grew up in the district you want to see.
However roughly you can describe it. We reply by email within 24 hours with the name of your guide.
Six recommended stops across both halves of the city. Pick three, or all of them.
The 36 trading streets, if you would rather go deep than go wide.
No destinations at all. Just an afternoon of conversation with local students.