By Tony Jaa, Apr 14, 2023
Sapa Tours from Hanoi is the best way for you who want to visit Sapa. Sapa Tours are the best tours when you visit North Vietnam. If you love adventurous travelling by hiking or trekking, Sapa Tours from Hanoi would be one of the best options for you. Joining Sapa Tours is the great way to know more enjoy the landscape and learn more about local life there. Travel to Sapa and you will see that is amazing to do it. Located at 350 km far north-west from Hanoi City Center, Sapa is the Capital of Lao Cai Province, where you could witness the most breathtakingly beautiful mountainous town in the north of Vietnam. Joining a tour in Sapa, you will have a valuable chance to communicate with the ethnic minorities here and gain a deeper understanding of their local life.
There are some ways for you to get to Sapa from Hanoi and it can be by bus, car or train. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of going by this kind of vehicles? You may find the answer for your question as below depending on your request, budget and interest.
To join in any of Sapa Tours from Hanoi there are some different ways. As you may know, the bus is a common transportation that people choose to move from place to place with the best cost. From Hanoi City Center, you also could catch a bus to Sapa and it can be a day bus or a night bus depending on your schedule. It takes about 06 hours from Hanoi to Sapa (including the short break in a middle way). Normally, the price depends on the size, types or standard of the buses, Limousine or just normal bus, sleeper bus or soft seat bus.
You could travel by a night bus to Sapa with Inter Bus Lines at 22:30 pm and arrive at 03:50 am next day, the pick-up point is at 110A Tran Nhat Duat Street. You also could go with Hung Thanh bus at 19:00 pm or 20:00 pm and the pick-up point is at Gia Lam Station (it takes about 30 minutes away from The Old Quarter). Almost the buses will depart at 07:00 in the morning with the pick-up point in the Old Quarter and arrive Sapa at 13:00. You could also request the bus to pick you up at your hotel; however, the pick-up time will be earlier at around 06:15 – 06:30 then the buses will go to the meeting point for departing.
Bus to Sapa
The second choice for you to get to Sapa is an overnight train to Sapa from Hanoi. Some people want to have an interesting experience with the train in Vietnam to enjoy the beautiful sceneries both side of the train while travelling. Furthermore, some people also believe an overnight train to Sapa is more comfortable and safer than travelling by bus or car.
Schedule and price for overnight train to for your and of Sapa Tours from Hanoi: There are 4 main sleeper train schedules leaving from Hanoi Center at Tran Quy Cap Station gate (the western entrance of Hanoi Railway Station): SP1 at 21:10 arrive at 05:25, SP3 at 21:50 arrive at 06:15, SP5 at 19:40 arrive at 04:20 and SP7 at 20:35 arrive at 04:55. You will spend 8 hours and a half on a train from Hanoi to Lao Cai Station then transfer about almost an hour from Lao Cai station to Sapa Town by private car or bus. Along the way, there are many beautiful sceneries of mountain ranges for you to take some photos as well.
With those schedules, you may use some good operators with more private cabins (2 berths or 4 berths) include Livitrans, Sapaly, Fansipan, King Express, Chapa Express, Orient Express or Victoria Express with the higher price. For standard cabin is from USD30$ - USD40$/way ticket and for the luxury cabin is from USD80$- USD150$.
Comparing to the other train in Vietnam the train to Sapa has different choices from the standard train to luxury train for you to choose. Enjoy your Sapa trip by experiencing a train.
Night train to Sapa
If you travel with a group, family or even you just want to have your own private area, Doing a Sapa Tour with a private car/van would be the third option for you to get to Sapa. You will have more space to put your luggage along with you or chitchat with your companions. Especially if you are a businessman, the private car for your Sapa Trip is a good choice to get to Sapa if you want to work on the way if you have to.
You could book the private car with your travel consultant. The driver just can understand simple sentences enough to communicate with you. The price depending on how long you will stay in Sapa and how much you do the trip in Sapa but we advise to use the package tour with a tour guide for more convenience. Normally the price includes the parking fee, petrol, tolls fee. The duration of the private car would be around 5.5 hours and it is almost the same as the bus. You could leave at 07:30 am or 08:00 am from Hanoi for a good tour schedule but that depends on your schedule.
So how to get to Sapa depends on your budget, needs and your interests of experience.
Private car/van to Sapa
For your convenient duration, you could consider Sapa Tour 2 days 1 night by bus or Sapa Tour 3 days 2 nights as well. It doesn’t matter if you travel by bus or private car, you should be ready in the morning to start Sapa trips.
If you travel by bus to Sapa, you could request a pick-up at your hotel and they will come to pick you up at around 06.15 am – 06.45 am depending on each bus and their schedule as well.
If you travel to Sapa by private car, the tour guide and driver will come at around 07:30 am to pick you up for the transfer from Hanoi to stunning Sapa. Otherwise, you could just go with driver and you will meet your tour guide in Sapa upon your arrival.
Duration to get to Sapa by private car/van takes approximately 5-6 hours on the highway. You will have a short break in a middle way.
Popular Sapa Tours:
Sapa Tours 2 days 1 night is an option for many clients visiting Sapa by or by train. The first day will be easier, after arriving Sapa Town, you will check in at your hotel then visit Cat Cat Village- one of the age-old villages of H’Mong ethnic minority with their specific customs and daily activities. It is a good time for you to take some photos here, talk to the local and have a remarkable experience. After finishing Cat Cat village exploration, you will come back to your hotel, take a rest and spend your free time in the evening to discover the town of Sapa. There are several restaurants with the special dishes such as Clamped-under-the-armpit pig, Meo Cabbages, Salmon in Sap. Nevertheless, barbecued stick meat, fish, and veggies on the street are the attraction to travellers who visit Sapa. The more time you spend on discovering about the place, the more special things you see.
The second day of Sapa Tours you may spend your time on trekking to Lao Chai and Ta Van villages where Black H’Mong and Zay hill tribes live. You could have a chance to trek along local paths and enjoy the wonderful view of the terraced rice paddy fields on the way. Lao Chai and Ta Van Villages are located in Muong Hoa Valley – one of the most spectacular villages where offered you the gorgeous panorama views facing by the river and backed by the mountain. Here you will absolutely relax and commune with nature by feeling the fresh air, see their tribal life, interact with ethnic minorities. In the afternoon around 15:00, you will get back to your bus private car to go back to Hanoi. You finish the Sapa Tours 2 days 1 night.
Terrace rice paddy field in Sapa
In case you choose Sapa Tour 3 days trip, you can stay overnight in Sapa hotel or homestay then you will have one more day in Sapa for visiting Ma Tra Village, Silver Waterfall or Fansipan Peak with the cable car to admire the most breathtaking of “The Roof of Indochina”. Sapa Tours days trip will bring you the best experience for learning about the local life on the mountainous area.
As mentioned before, if you would like to have a unique experience of transportation while enjoying a Sapa tour in Vietnam, travelling by train is a good option for your trip to Sapa. Different from a bus/private car, the night train will depart at around 21:30 so you have to move from your hotel to the Hanoi Railway Station at 20.30 for check-in. Travelling by train to Sapa will give you the bumpy feeling but it is safer and you will have experience on the local train in Vietnam.
You will arrive at Lao Cao Station at around 05:00, our tour guide will pick you up, and transfer to Sapa Town by private car (estimated 35 km). Along the way, there are many beautiful sceneries of mountain ranges for you to take some photos.
It is very flexible with the itinerary for Sapa, similar to bus or private car, you could do the Sapa Tour 2 days 1 night or Sapa Tour 3 days 2 nights. You may trek to Cat Cat, Lao Chai- Ta Van Villages or Ham Rong (Dragon Jaw Mountain) or Ma Tra Villages – a rural village that less touristic like the others. There are nearly 50 homes living here and most of them are the H’ Mong tribe minority people. Your tour guide may take you to see the small primary school meet little children here and you will have time discovering the village and have an overall view of the tribal culture and custom. They earn their living by using their craft such as carving silver; weaving brocade, silk and some of them make decorated cloth to sell on the main street in the centre of Sapa. You will have an opportunity to learn about their living by growing rice and corns on terraced fields, make traditional handicrafts or cotton cultivation and unique fabrics. Sapa tours by train is a popular choice for many clients from long time ago because in the past it was the best way or doing a Sapa Tour from Hanoi.
Love Market in Sapa
One important part of your Sapa trip must be accommodation. There are a hundred hotels in Sapa, hostels, resorts, and homestays from standard to luxury service. You could find good hotels, Sapa Dragon, U Sapa, Sapa Legend Hotel & Spa to the Luxury resort include Sapa Highland Resort, Topas Ecolodge, Jade Hill Resort & Spa, Silk Path Grand Resort & Spa, Spa Victoria Sapa, etc. Each hotel in Sapa has air-conditioning, hot water, and all the services as same as a hotel in the city with the splendid view to the mountain of Sapa would be a great choice for you to relax after your long day trip.
Hotel in Sapa
Besides hotels, another option for those who do not want to avoid the noise from the street and want to stay in the village with local people is the homestay in Sapa. Nowadays, many travellers when visiting Sapa stay in Sapa homestay. Homestay could be in Ta Phin Village, Ta Van Village or Lao Chai Village depends on the itinerary. With the homestay in Sapa, you will have a valuable opportunity to know more about the local’s daily life, listen their sharing about how they could earn their living in and learn more about the cultural diversity of the village local and other hills tribes living nearby while helping them to prepare and enjoy the dinner with. Staying in Sapa homestay would be an unforgettable memory because you will feel their warmest hospitality and friendliness from the host and atmosphere like your family. This definitely different from the hustle of city life or in Western countries. Enjoy your Sapa trip with the Sapa homestay.
Sapa Homestay
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