Vietnam

Awww - you don't really want to go with a batch of 18-35 year olds do you?
Why not take the Contiki Tour itinerary as a basis and do the same independently, taking about twice as long to do it because you'll be organising your own transport along the way? This would also give you ore time to see things at your leisure. And you'll either save a lot of money compared to the tour prices or be able to spend much longer there for the same amount.

Start with the tour, then google to find out more about the places (wikitravel is a good source), then come and look at our East Asia branch and, finally, get an LP or Rough Guide from your local library.

Also check out the climate for best time to make this trip, and sites like [www.skyscanner.net] (or .com if you're in America) for cheapest flights across a range of dates.
Then look at [www.hostelworld.com] [www.hostelbookers.com] and other sites for cheap places to stay. Most hostels have private rooms as well as dorms these days.

Most people in tourist spots speak sufficient English for you to get by, and in Vietnam French is also widely understood. So learn a few essential words like 'hello', 'goodbye', 'please', 'thank you' and 'water'. These, plus lots of smiles, and you're hot to trot.

Have fun. :>))

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Vietnam has really good toursit infrastructure. Every big town has a raft of tourism operators and the hotels themselves will sell you bus/train tickets and arrange local tours. A few years ago we spent a month going from north to south then carried on to Cambodia, Laos and Thailand for another 2 mos.

It was easy. In fact, we often felt like we were on a bit of a "tourist beltway" where the bus driver handed us off to the hotel who handed us off to a local tour who put us back on a bus ..all the way down.

We bought a 30 day bus ticket which at the time was about $65 US. That permitted us to hop on/off as we traveled down the country. Do some research on this though as there were a few very long stretches that had only night buses and these are brutal. Since you see nothing anyway and flights are cheap I would take a flight between these cities if I were doing it again.

Not to miss? Halong Bay - but then you don't like boats :) I don't remember it as being at all turbulent though and you go out on these junks sleeping overnight on them. It is cool.

Loved Hanoi. Just walking the streets, each one home to a different kind of vendor. Loved the night markets and the women selling fresh fried sugar donuts on poles, early in the morning. Food was great and cheap. Loved Dalat and the motorcycle touring. You can ride behind a guide on a big motorcyle up into the mountains. He took us to wonderful places we would never have found on our own.

Found the tunnels out of Saigon to be very interesting.

But go-2 has a great approach - same one we use when starting our research on a new country. Get some tour brochures, or look them up online. Go where they go then double the time and you will have a good time. I know people always say they don't want to go where the dreaded "tourists" go but that is silly. These tours go to the iconic sites and that is usually exactly where you DO want to go on your first visit to a country.

We've been to VN 4-5 times since 2005 (and had a more than memorable 13 months there 1966-67). Easy traveling with what some people view as annoyances, e.g., you have to bargain for almost everything and there are vendors everywhere all the time.

The older we've gotten, the nicer people have been to us. Very helpful much of the time.

You've been given some good info above. To what g-2 and Living said, I would add that at this point, few experienced travelers use the open bus tix as it's easy to get tix from place to place and of course the train (soft sleeper for sure) is a wonderful experience for PART of the trip. Flying is cheap within VN, but there are luggage weight restrictions. Also, the open buses stop only at places that pay them to deliver you - often to a somewhat outlying hotel.

Hue is probably our favorite place (Hanoi wonderful as well). Here is a travelogue from Hue: http://ckjournal.blogspot.com/2012/01/hue-its-raining.html

Not all that much to do in Hanoi - except to just be there. What more could one want? Instead of Halong, try Tam Coc - fantastic karst via 3 person boat along a small river (VN woman paddling, you riding - go ahead and buy a few drinks or something from the lady).

Planning is half the fun - I recommend Travelfish.com for all you'll need to plan. If you're into food, see http://stickyrice.typepad.com/ for food in Hanoi. And spend some time on SE Asia branch of TT.

Happy trails.

Here is link to all our SE Asia trips: https://sites.google.com/site/chaskemp/asiatrip

Good birding there too, if that is one of your interests.

I visited several national parks, and you could purchase the services of a guide at the gate. I used a travel agent to go to one of them, and the guide they provided was useless, unless you consider an id of "big yellow bird" as compared to "little yellow bird" useful! The transportation provided was time-effective, but we did end up hiring a local guide from the park office.

Husband and I spent 8 weeks traveling by ourselves through Vietnam in the late 80's. We used buses, the train a couple of times and then we also hired a motorbike for a while and then in various places such as Hoi An we hired bicycles. With the latter we spent about 7 days cycling to various villages, the coast etc etc.

We also like boats eg we've done ocean kayaking trips, a kayaking venture in the Amazon etc plus a bit of tall ship sailing. And: the Tam Coc as described by bun_cha is great fun - very relaxing.

Apart from the places listed above, we quiet enjoyed some of the smaller towns in the very southern areas - although I must admit that in general, I preferred the northern parts of Vietnam.

I agree with all this - it's easy to get round Vietnam on your own. That way you can do what you want to do - I suggest spending several hours with your guidebook and work out how to get to out-of-the-way places that the tour groups don't reach. Much more fun that following the crowd.