Laos: the complete guide to planning your trip

This Laos travel guide is the document our consultants open when a new Laos file lands on the desk. It is not a list of sights. It is the set of decisions that determine whether ten days in Laos feel restorative or like a long transfer with temples attached.

The honest headline first. Laos is the slowest country in Southeast Asia to travel, and that is the reason to go. If you want a full programme, a sight before breakfast and another after lunch, Vietnam or Thailand will serve you better and we will say so. If you want mornings that are genuinely quiet, a river that still functions as a road, and a country that has not yet been rebuilt around visitors, this is the one.

Laos at a glance

Laos is landlocked, borders five countries, and stretches about 650 miles (1,050 km) from the Chinese border in the north to the Cambodian border in the south. Roughly seven and a half million people live in it. It is the least densely populated country in mainland Southeast Asia and it feels like it.

When to travel

November to February, the season we recommend

Dry, clear and comfortable. Luang Prabang in December sits at highs around 82F (28C) and lows near 57F (14C), which means a jumper in the morning and short sleeves by ten. The Mekong is still high enough after the rains for river travel to be easy, the waterfalls still run, and the rice terraces in the north are gold rather than brown.

This is peak season, and in Luang Prabang that is a real constraint. The good hotels in the heritage zone are small, and December and January sell out four to six months ahead.

March to May, the season we usually argue against

Two problems, and they compound. The first is heat: April in Vientiane and the southern lowlands regularly exceeds 96F (36C), and the Plain of Jars and the Bolaven are the only places you will be comfortable outdoors in the afternoon.

The second is the one nobody warns you about. From roughly late February to April, agricultural burning across northern Laos, northern Thailand and Myanmar produces a persistent haze that can sit over Luang Prabang for weeks. In a bad year the mountains disappear entirely, air quality is genuinely poor and the view from Mount Phousi is a grey wall. It varies year to year and it is not predictable more than a fortnight out. If your dates are locked to March or April, we build the trip in the south, where it is less severe, and we tell you what you are risking rather than photographing the north on a clear day and hoping.

Lao New Year, Pi Mai, falls in mid-April. It is three days of water throwing and it is one of the best festivals in Asia to be present for. It is also three days when businesses close, transport is chaotic and nothing runs to schedule. We plan for it deliberately or we plan around it. We do not plan through it by accident.

May to October, the green season

The rain arrives in May and peaks in August and September. It is not usually all-day rain, it is a heavy afternoon downpour, and the country is at its most beautiful: waterfalls at full volume, rice planting, and very few other visitors. Rates fall accordingly.

The cost is mobility. Unpaved roads in the north and east become difficult or impassable, river levels can stop boats as easily as start them, and a landslide on Route 13 is a normal event rather than an emergency. Green season Laos works if you build in slack and stay on the paved corridors. It does not work if you have a tight route and a flight to catch.

What the railway changed, and what it did not

The Laos-China Railway opened in December 2021 and it is the single biggest change to travel in Laos in a generation. It runs from Vientiane north through Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and Oudomxay to the Chinese border at Boten.

The leg that matters for visitors is Vientiane to Luang Prabang. It used to be either a mountain road of nine to eleven hours or a domestic flight. It is now a train journey of around two hours through tunnels and viaducts. On a ten-day trip that is worth two days.

Four honest caveats, because this is where the excitement usually outruns the practicalities.

Seats are limited and they sell out. Booking windows are short by international standards and popular services fill within hours in high season. We book on the day the window opens. This is one of the specific things a ground team earns its keep on.

The stations are not in the towns. Luang Prabang’s station is roughly 7 miles (11 km) from the heritage peninsula and Vang Vieng’s sits outside town as well. Every itinerary needs a transfer at each end, and that is included in ours.

It has changed Vang Vieng. A place that took four hours to reach from Vientiane now takes about an hour, and the visitor numbers reflect that.

It has not changed the rest of the country. There is no rail east to the Plain of Jars, none south to Pakse and none across the north to Nong Khiaw. Everywhere off that single corridor is still a road, and the roads are still slow.

Getting around

Roads, and why the map lies

The number to internalise: an average of 25 to 30 miles an hour (40 to 50 km/h) on main roads outside the rail corridor, and less on mountain sections. Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw is only about 87 miles (140 km) and takes three and a half to four hours. Pakse to the Bolaven villages is short in distance and slow in practice.

We publish real drive times in every itinerary, and where a leg is over five hours we either break it with an overnight or we replace it with a flight. A Laos itinerary with three consecutive long drives is a badly built itinerary.

Domestic flights

Lao Airlines connects Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Pakse, with limited services elsewhere. Schedules change seasonally and cancellations happen. We use flights where they save a full day, mainly to reach the south, and we always leave a buffer before an international connection rather than relying on a same-day link.

Boats

Rivers were the original roads here and on some routes they still are. The Mekong slow boat from Huay Xai on the Thai border to Luang Prabang takes two days with an overnight in Pakbeng. The public boat is cheap, crowded and made of hard benches. Smaller private and semi-private boats cost more and are a completely different experience. Both are covered in our Laos and northern Thailand route.

One correction to older guidebooks: dams on the Nam Ou have interrupted the river route north of Nong Khiaw, so the classic multi-day boat trip to Muang Khua no longer works the way it once did. Short local boat legs still run and we use them.

Entry requirements

Most nationalities can obtain a Lao tourist visa on arrival at the main international airports and principal land borders, typically for 30 days, and Laos also operates an online application. Some nationalities are exempt for shorter periods under bilateral agreements.

Write that down as guidance, not as a rule. The detail that catches people is the entry point: a visa on arrival that is available at Vientiane or Luang Prabang airport is not necessarily available at a small land crossing, and the northern and southern land borders do not all behave the same way. We confirm the current requirement for your specific passport and your specific crossing before we quote, and we send the correct current links with your final documents rather than publishing them here, because they move.

Unexploded ordnance, said plainly

Between 1964 and 1973, Laos was bombed more heavily per head of population than any country in history. More than two million tons of ordnance were dropped. A significant proportion failed to detonate, and it is still in the ground.

This is not a reason to avoid Laos and it is not a reason for anxiety on a normal itinerary. The towns, the temples, the tourist sites and the roads are cleared and safe. But in Xieng Khouang, Savannakhet, Salavan, Sekong, Attapeu, Khammouane and Houaphanh, the rule for visitors is absolute and simple: stay on marked paths and on cleared ground, and do not walk into fields, forest edges or old craters because they look interesting.

At the Plain of Jars you will see concrete markers set by clearance teams. The white side is cleared, the red side is not. Walk on the white side. Your guide will tell you the same thing and we would rather you had read it here first.

Two places explain the whole story better than any article. The COPE Visitor Centre in Vientiane, which makes prosthetic limbs and tells the story honestly and without sentimentality, and the UXO Laos Information Centre in Luang Prabang. Both are free, both take about an hour, and we put them in almost every itinerary.

What a trip to Laos costs

Figures are land only, per person, based on two people sharing, and exclude international flights. They cover accommodation, food, ground transport, entries and the guiding we would normally include.

Laos is the cheapest country in our library at the careful end and it is not the cheapest at the top end, because there are only a handful of genuinely luxury properties and they price like scarcity.

Three things move the number more than the star rating:

1. Luang Prabang in December and January. The heritage zone hotels are small and demand is inelastic. The same room can be half the price in June.
2. Private boats. A private long-tail on the Mekong for a sunset or a day upriver is one of the best things you can buy in Laos and it is a real line item.
3. Internal flights versus driving. Reaching the south by air rather than road costs money and buys a day. On a ten-day trip that is usually the right trade.

Food is very cheap and very good. A bowl of khao soi in Luang Prabang costs a couple of dollars. You do not need to spend to eat well here.

The places worth your time

Luang Prabang. A UNESCO World Heritage town on a peninsula between the Mekong and the Nam Khan, and the reason most people come. Three nights minimum, four if you want a day that is genuinely free. Wat Xieng Thong, the Royal Palace Museum, the morning market, and the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, which is small and explains the country’s ethnic diversity better than anything else in Laos.

The alms round. At dawn, monks walk the streets collecting food. It is a living religious practice and not a performance, and it has been damaged by visitor behaviour. Watch from across the street, stay seated or kneeling if you are close, no flash, no cameras in faces, and do not buy sticky rice from a street vendor in order to join in unless you have been properly prepared. Our guides brief you the night before.

Kuang Si. Turquoise pools about 20 miles (32 km) from town, and worth the trip if you go at opening or after three. The bear rescue centre at the entrance houses Asiatic black bears taken from the bile trade and is worth twenty minutes.

Nong Khiaw and the north. Where Laos stops being a heritage town and becomes a mountain country. A river village under limestone cliffs, viewpoint climbs that are short and genuinely steep, and simple accommodation. Our favourite three days in the country.

Vientiane. A small, low-slung capital that people either enjoy or find dull, and honestly both reactions are fair. One night, two at most. Pha That Luang, Wat Si Saket, COPE, and a sunset on the Mekong promenade.

Vang Vieng. The karst landscape is superb and the town is not to everyone’s taste. The old backpacker reputation is largely gone. It works well as a stop with children, for balloons and caves and the river, and it is easy to skip if it is not for you.

The Plain of Jars. Thousands of megalithic stone jars around Phonsavan, listed by UNESCO in 2019, and inseparable from the bombing history that surrounds them. Reached by air or a long drive, so it needs two nights, and we recommend it to travellers on their second visit or those with fourteen days.

Champasak and Wat Phou. A pre-Angkorian Khmer temple on a hillside in the south, quiet in a way Angkor has not been for thirty years.

The Bolaven Plateau. Coffee country at around 3,300 feet (1,000 m), noticeably cooler, with waterfalls and Katu and Alak villages. Two nights.

Si Phan Don, the four thousand islands. Where the Mekong spreads out at the Cambodian border. Bicycles, an old French railway bridge, and the largest waterfall in Southeast Asia by volume at Khone Phapheng. The accommodation is simple and the point of the place is that nothing happens.

Eating in Laos

Sticky rice is the staple and it is eaten with the right hand, rolled into a ball. Laap, minced meat or fish with herbs, lime and toasted rice powder, is the national dish and it is better here than the Thai version. Tam mak hoong is green papaya salad, hotter than its Thai cousin and often with fermented fish. Or lam is the Luang Prabang stew, thickened with sakhaan pepperwood that leaves the mouth tingling.

Two things to order that are specific to Luang Prabang: khao soi, which is nothing like the Thai dish of the same name and is a rice-noodle soup with a fermented soybean and pork sauce, and kaipen, the crisp Mekong riverweed eaten with jaew bong, a chilli paste made with buffalo skin. Beerlao is genuinely good.

Vegetarian is workable but needs to be arranged, because fish sauce and fermented fish are in most things by default. Tell us early and our guides brief the kitchens.

Practical notes from our Hanoi office

• Cash. Laos runs on cash outside the main hotels. ATMs exist in Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Pakse and are unreliable elsewhere. Carry more than feels necessary and change money in the cities.
• Power. Cuts are normal on the river islands and in the far north. Bring a battery pack.
• Temple dress. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off, and this is enforced more consistently than in Thailand.
• Pace. Build in one empty day per week. Every Laos trip we have written that skipped this was the one we later wished we had argued harder about.
• Medical. Facilities are limited outside Vientiane and serious cases are usually moved to Thailand. Our office handles this if it happens.
• Elephants. No riding, on any of our trips. There are two genuine conservation projects we use and we name the one in your proposal.

How we build a Laos trip

Laos is run from our own office in Hanoi, which covers Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as a single operation. That is why a two-country or three-country trip through this part of the region is one plan rather than three suppliers handing you along.

Your itinerary is written by a named person: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, with Mai Est, our Head of Consulting. Group and business travel goes to Daniella Eitan. The first draft is free, carries no obligation and is written for you rather than pulled from a shelf.

When you travel we open a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Hanoi office, and it stays open until you are home.

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Keep reading

• The eight Laos itineraries we build most often
• Classic Laos in 10 days
• Adventurous Laos in 12 days
• Laos and northern Thailand in 14 days

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