Hanoi travel guides & articles
All 7 in-depth pieces we’ve published on Hanoi — newest first.
Hanoi at 5am: The City That Wakes Up With Tai Chi, Pho, and the First Light on Hoan Kiem
Between five and eight in the morning, Hanoi belongs to tai chi practitioners at Hoan Kiem, porters finishing the night shift at the markets, and three-generation pho stalls already onto their second pot of broth -- here's how to be there for it in 2026.
Bia Hoi — Hanoi's dirt-cheap fresh-beer ritual, poured daily from kegs onto plastic stools at street corners across the Old Quarter. How a Soviet-era brewing tradition became the city's most democratic drinking culture, and where the best corners are now.
From rationed Soviet-era kegs to the plastic stools of Ta Hien, bia hoi is still the fastest way into Hanoi's evening — and in 2026 it sits alongside a craft-beer scene it quietly helped inspire.
Hanoi's Train Street and Beyond: The Narrow Alleys Where Life Runs on Rails
A route through the famous Phung Hung crossing and the quieter residential tracks beyond it, for travellers who want the trains without treating the street as a stage set.
The 36 Streets: Walking Hanoi's Thousand-Year-Old Guild Quarter
A route-led walk through Hanoi's Old Quarter, where each lane once sold one trade — and still tells you where to drink, eat and pause a thousand years on.
A City Built Around Water: Hanoi's Lakes and the Life at Their Edges
A route-led walk through Hanoi's lakes — from the old-town heart to the quiet residential water south and west — with honest notes on which suit couples, families and big groups.
Beyond the Pho Bowl: Hanoi's Real Street Kitchen, One Plastic Stool at a Time
A precise, no-fluff eater's map to Hanoi's street food — what to order, where to sit, and by what hour the good stuff is gone.
Sticky, Sweet and Streetside: Inside Hanoi's Obsessive Coffee Ritual
From the family stall that invented egg coffee to the pour-over purists roasting their own Robusta, here's exactly where to drink Hanoi's coffee — and by what hour to get there.