Laos with children: 10 days, two hotel changes
Laos is an easier family country than its reputation suggests, on one condition: you stop trying to see it. There is very little that a child has to be dragged around here, no queues, no crowd crush, and a national temperament that is unusually patient with children. What there is instead is a lot o
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 2
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $1,550 per person
So this route uses the railway for both long legs, puts four nights in one place and three in the next, and builds the days around water. Two hotel changes in ten days. No internal flights. Nothing that starts before seven except one optional balloon.
Who it suits: families with children roughly 4 to 16. It works with younger children too and we build it differently, with a shorter Vientiane stay and more pool.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, with our Hanoi office on the ground.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Luang Prabang. Fifteen minutes from the airport. Nothing scheduled. We book a hotel with a pool and either a family room or two connecting rooms, which in Luang Prabang means one of a handful of properties and is worth insisting on early. Dinner at the night market, where children choose from about forty things and everything costs a dollar.
Day 2: Luang Prabang, gently. A slow start. Late morning walk with a guide who is used to children, through Wat Xieng Thong and one working monastery, where novice monks are often the same age as your children and generally happy to talk. Ninety minutes is plenty. Lunch, then the afternoon at the pool.
At five, a private boat on the Mekong for sunset, which is the day’s best hour and requires nothing of anybody.
Day 3: Kuang Si. The one everybody remembers. Out early to the waterfall about 20 miles (32 km) south, where a chain of turquoise pools runs down through the forest and you can swim in most of them. The water is colder than the air by a long way, which children find hilarious and adults find slow.
The bear rescue centre sits at the entrance and houses Asiatic black bears rescued from the bile trade. It is well done, the enrichment platforms mean the bears are usually visible and active, and the explanation is honest without being upsetting. Picnic lunch, back mid-afternoon, pool.
Day 4: The river and the caves. A private boat two hours upstream to the Pak Ou caves, where two chambers in a cliff hold several thousand Buddha images left there over four centuries. Torches required inside the upper cave, which is the part children like. The boat home takes an hour with the current and most people fall asleep on it.
Afternoon free. Optional: mulberry paper making at Ban Xang Khong across the river, which is a proper hands-on hour and produces something to take home.
Day 5: Luang Prabang, free. Nothing scheduled. Bicycles along the Nam Khan, a cooking session that starts at the morning market and is genuinely good with children over about eight, or the pool. Our document lists the options with ages against them.
Day 6: Train to Vang Vieng. Transfer to the station, about 7 miles (11 km) out of town, then an hour on the train through tunnels and over viaducts. Vang Vieng is where this trip stops being cultural and starts being outdoors. Afternoon by the Nam Song river under the limestone towers.
Day 7: Vang Vieng, on the water. Kayaking or tubing down the Nam Song, which is calm at normal levels and has a guide in the water with you. Then a blue lagoon with a rope swing and a jumping tree, which is the single most popular hour of the trip with anyone under fifteen. Cave in the late afternoon if there is appetite for it.
Day 8: Vang Vieng, and the balloon. Optional dawn hot air balloon over the karst, weather permitting, which takes about an hour and is the photograph you will keep. Some children are too young or too nervous and there is no obligation. The rest of the day is free: buggies through the villages, a second lagoon, or the pool.
Day 9: Train to Vientiane. An hour south. The capital in an afternoon, which is the right amount: Pha That Luang, the golden stupa, and Buddha Park downriver, a concrete sculpture garden with a giant pumpkin you climb through and out onto the roof of. Children like Buddha Park considerably more than adults expect.
Older teenagers should see COPE, the centre that makes prosthetic limbs for people injured by unexploded ordnance. It is free, it takes an hour, and it explains something about Laos that nothing else does. For younger children we skip it, or one parent goes while the other is at the market.
Day 10: Departure. Transfer to Vientiane airport. Flights run to Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap and Kuala Lumpur.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout in family rooms or connecting rooms, both rail legs in reserved seats with station transfers, private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on every transfer and site day, licensed guides briefed for children on three days, the private Mekong boat to Pak Ou and the sunset boat, Kuang Si and bear centre entries, kayaking or tubing with a guide in the water, life jackets sized for children, all entrance fees on guided days, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Hanoi office throughout.
The balloon is quoted separately, because whether you want it depends on ages and on nerves.
What we would change, and when
- Children under five? Drop the Vang Vieng cave and add a pool day. Keep the boat, the waterfall and the bears, which work at any age.
- Teenagers who want more? Add two days at Nong Khiaw between days 5 and 6 for the viewpoint climb and the 100 Waterfalls walk. It is four hours of road each way, which is why it is not standard here.
- Travelling in the hot season? Between March and May we would move every activity to the morning, add a night, and choose hotels for the pool rather than the location. We would also tell you honestly that the northern haze in those months is a real risk.
- Green season, June to September? It works, with slack built in. River levels change what is possible on the Nam Song from day to day and we plan two options for each water day.
Honest notes
Laos does not have theme parks, aquariums or the kind of manufactured attraction that fills a wet afternoon. If your children need programme, this is a harder country than Thailand or Japan. What it has is rivers, caves, waterfalls and space, and children who take to that take to it completely.
The heat is a real constraint, not a caveat. From about eleven to three in the dry season, outdoor activity with children stops working. This itinerary is not lazy, it is built around that, and families who override it end up short-tempered by day five.
Distances are the other constraint. Everything on this route is either a one-hour train or a short drive, and that is not an accident. The moment a Laos family itinerary includes a four-hour transfer, it has a bad day in it.
Two of the properties on this route are the only ones in their town that can genuinely accommodate a family of four in one booking. We start looking as soon as your dates are fixed.
Built by Osnat Angerman, our Southeast and Central Asia specialist, and checked by our Hanoi office before it goes out.
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