Classic Laos in 10 days: Luang Prabang, the Mekong and Vientiane
This is the route we build most often, and it only works because of one thing that changed in 2021. Before the railway opened, Vientiane to Luang Prabang was a nine-hour mountain road or a domestic flight, and a ten-day Laos trip spent two of those days moving. The train does the same leg in about t
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $1,550 per person
Ten days, three hotel changes, no internal flights, two rail legs and four days with nothing scheduled. It is deliberately unhurried. If that sounds thin, Laos is probably not your country and we would rather say so now.
Who it suits: first-time visitors to Laos, couples and independent travellers who want a country properly rather than a checklist, and anyone coming out of a busy Vietnam or Thailand trip who wants to slow down.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, with our Hanoi office on the ground.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Luang Prabang. Private transfer, about fifteen minutes from the airport. Nothing scheduled. A hotel in the heritage zone on the peninsula, or on the Nam Khan side if you want the quieter water. Dinner within walking distance, and an early night, because tomorrow starts before dawn if you want it to.
Day 2: Luang Prabang, the old town. The alms round at first light, which our guide will brief you on properly the evening before. You watch from across the street, seated or standing well back, no flash and no cameras in anyone’s face. It is a religious practice and not a display, and a great many visitors get it wrong. Then the morning market for breakfast, which is where the town actually shops.
After a break at the hotel, a guided walk through Wat Xieng Thong, the Royal Palace Museum and two or three of the working monasteries. Late afternoon at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, which is small, privately run and explains the country’s ethnic groups better than anything else in Laos. Sunset from a private boat on the Mekong rather than from the top of Mount Phousi, which by six o’clock holds several hundred people.
Day 3: Kuang Si. Out at opening to the waterfall, about 20 miles (32 km) south, where the pools are turquoise because of the limestone and the water is colder than anyone expects. Swim before the coaches arrive. The bear rescue centre at the entrance houses Asiatic black bears taken out of the bile trade and is worth twenty minutes. Lunch at a village on the way back, then the afternoon free.
Day 4: The Mekong, upstream. A private boat north to the Pak Ou caves, two limestone chambers above the river holding several thousand Buddha images left there over four centuries. Two hours upstream, one hour back with the current. We stop at Ban Xang Hai on the way, the village that distils rice whisky, which is more interesting than it sounds and takes ten minutes.
Back for lunch, then the weaving centre across the river at Ban Xang Khong in the afternoon, where you can watch natural dyeing and mulberry paper being made. Free evening.
Day 5: Luang Prabang, free. Deliberately empty. Our document sets out four options and you choose on the day: a cooking session that starts at the morning market, a bicycle loop out to the rice fields and the UXO Laos Information Centre, a half day at a weaving workshop, or nothing at all. Most people do less than they planned and are glad.
Day 6: Train to Vang Vieng. A transfer out to the station, roughly 7 miles (11 km) from town, then about an hour south through tunnels and across viaducts. Vang Vieng station sits outside the town, so another short transfer at the other end. Afternoon on the Nam Song river, which runs under limestone towers that are the reason anyone comes here.
Day 7: Vang Vieng. An optional hot air balloon at dawn, which is the single best hour in the town and depends entirely on the wind. Then a lagoon and a cave in the morning, the Tham Nam water cave if the level allows it, and kayaking or tubing back down the river in the afternoon. Vang Vieng’s old reputation as a party town is largely gone and the landscape was always the point.
Day 8: Train to Vientiane. About an hour. Afternoon in the capital: Pha That Luang, the gilded stupa that is the national symbol, and Wat Si Saket, the oldest surviving temple in the city, whose cloister walls hold several thousand small Buddha images.
Then COPE, which we put in almost every Laos itinerary. It is the centre that makes prosthetic limbs for people injured by unexploded ordnance, the exhibition is free, it takes an hour, and it is the most important hour in Vientiane. Sunset on the Mekong promenade afterwards, where the whole city walks.
Day 9: Vientiane, slowly. Buddha Park in the morning, a concrete sculpture garden about 15 miles (24 km) downriver that is genuinely odd and worth the drive. Talat Sao market and the French quarter streets in the afternoon, or nothing. Vientiane is a small capital and one full day is the right amount.
Day 10: Departure. Transfer to the airport. Onward flights run to Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap and Kuala Lumpur.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout, both rail legs in reserved seats with station transfers at each end, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on every transfer and site day, licensed local guides on four days, the private Mekong boat to Pak Ou and the sunset boat, all entrance fees on guided days, the Kuang Si and Buddha Park entries, a day-by-day document with real drive times and train numbers, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Hanoi office for the whole trip.
What we would change, and when
- Travelling in March or April? The burning haze in the north can sit over Luang Prabang for weeks and there is no way to plan around it locally. We would move the trip south, or move your dates, and we will say which before you commit.
- Want the mountains? Add three days for Nong Khiaw between days 5 and 6. It is the best addition to this route and it is a four-hour drive each way, which is why it is not in the base version.
- Not interested in Vang Vieng? Cut it and put two more nights in Luang Prabang, then take the train straight through to Vientiane. Some people love Vang Vieng and some find it too built up. We ask which you are before we send the draft.
- Only eight days? Drop Vang Vieng and one Vientiane night. Do not drop a Luang Prabang night, because that is the trip.
Honest notes
Rail seats are the constraint on this itinerary. Booking windows are short and popular services fill quickly in high season, and we book on the day the window opens. If we cannot get the seats we want, we fly the Vientiane leg and tell you rather than quietly rearranging your days.
Both stations are well outside their towns and every transfer is included, but it does mean the train legs are closer to two and a half hours door to door than the timetable suggests. That is still a fraction of the road.
There are only two or three real sights on this route in the sense that a guidebook uses the word. That is not an oversight. Laos rewards the hour you spend at a market or on a river more than the temple you rushed to reach, and an itinerary that fills every morning is one that will exhaust you in a country with slow roads and real heat.
Built by Osnat Angerman, our Southeast and Central Asia specialist, and checked by our Hanoi office before it goes out.
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