Last week, we called for advice from some of the world’s best explorers – our readers! Responses poured in on Facebook, providing tips for BBC Travel reader Donita Richards, who asked: “Is there anything that is a must do or must avoid for families in Vietnam? We are planning to take our children (3½ and 1½ years old) next February.”


Check out some of the advice we received from our travel community.

From Noelle Morgan: "Beautiful county, lovely people. They drive like nuts so look left and right and 20 times more before crossing the road. I got bitten to death, so maybe bring mosquito nets for the kids’ beds."

From Kristy McGregor: "I don't have children but I have led tour groups through Vietnam. Like almost everywhere around the world – everyone loves children. Highlights for me were always the food (hire a babysitter for a couple of nights and enjoy some adult time – the seafood is to die for), wandering the markets (expose your children to the wonderful sights and smells), and some beach time. One of my favorite places was Hoi An – so beautiful at night with lanterns, markets, shopping, restaurants, boat rides on Perfume River, safe at night, traffic not as busy as Saigon or Hanoi, beachside close by and just a lovely atmosphere. Whatever you choose to do I am sure you will enjoy!"

From Vy Nguyen: "During February, we celebrate The Lunar New Year. There are loads of things to do: visit the flower market, eat delicious foods and wander around Saigon. Be careful with the traffic. I hope you will enjoy my country."

From Robin Mason: "Before going, get vaccinations and do not venture into chicken-chopping markets. Sapa is fine, we drove from Haiphong to Sapa – it was a windy road so train is best from Hanoi. Halong Bay is wonderful, as is most of Vietnam."

From Rachel Lynn Collins: "Be very careful in traffic. Before I went to Ho Chi Minh City, I was given lessons on how to cross the road. Sounded silly at the time but it’s very different there! Traffic does not stop, you just walk at an even pace in a straight line and vehicles swerve around you."

From Anne Bendiksby: "Loved travelling in beautiful Vietnam with my 5-year- old! I can't recommend it enough. It is such a child-friendly nation! It's so easy travelling in Asia with children! Be sure to visit the stunning island of Phu Quoc. Get up at 4 am and wander down to the beach in Nha Trang – you'll mingle with thousands of locals, families with children, all enjoying the cool part of the day... it’s amazing! The amusement park in Nha Trang is fabulous! The Waterpark in Ho Chi Minh is a must! Your children will love it! Happy travelling."

From Lilli Maier: "Seriously, bring mosquito nets, thin long sleeves and trousers, and baseball caps (for the sun) and kids-friendly sunscreen. Food is good in Vietnam – rice with veggies is always okay. I travelled with my eight-month-old daughter for eight months through Africa, so I think nothing would go wrong in Vietnam with kids."

From Sean Sager: "Go to the Thang Long Water Puppet Show in Hanoi! Also, go to the Vinpearl Amusement Park in Nha Trang (get a ride in the longest over-water cable car). Expose them to some of the best food in the world. And be careful crossing the roads!"

From Travel Junkie Diary: "Take a good first aid kit, travel insurance and a baby backpack. Do: Thang Long Water Puppet Show, Hanoi Water Park. Stay away from the highlands, hugging the coast from Hanoi down to Saigon. Stock up on sanitizers."

From Alfred Tann: "When someone wants to carry things for you in train stations, be careful. Either you won't get them back or this person would charge you $5 to $10."

From Constant Traveller: "Do not miss Hoi An and Hué for anything. Lots of history, clothes and good food to indulge in."

From Ulli Maier: "Depends what you want: if you really want to get the feeling of a Vietnamese family with two kids, rent a motorbike and drive around the city. Based on firsthand experience, let somebody take pictures – your friends at home won’t believe it otherwise."

From Michelle Shoucair Karam: "Hygiene, hygiene, hygiene when traveling with kids to Southeast Asia. Visit temples but read what to do and what not to do as they are very strict and religious. Always stay safe and don't forget the anti-bug gels, especially for kids!"

From Cecile De Forest: "Don't miss the Highlands! Take the overnight train from Hanoi to Sapa. Gorgeous! When crossing the street in Hanoi, go! Don't stop! The motorcyclists figure out your pace and avoid you. If you stop, you are in trouble. I loved Hanoi but hated Saigon. Halong Bay would be fun for the kids if they like boats."

From Corbett Villarrial: "I lived in Hanoi for six months opening a children’s fitness center. I had an amazing experience. The last 10 days of the trip, I went on a tour of five cities from Hanoi to the centre of Vietnam. People are lovely. Traffic is dangerous. Vietnam is a great way to get good food delivered for great prices. If you go to Hoi An, you can buy custom tailored shoes and clothes for good prices. If you see something you really like but the price is expensive, it's ok to barter – just keep it light and fun. Don’t eat fresh leafy greens... they can lead to tummy problems. Take bug repellent and sun screen. Hanoi has some great French architecture. Halong Bay might be fun for the kids, plus you can swim and explore some caves. The beaches of Da Nang are safe and fun. If I were to plan a trip again, I would prefer to do more 'hands-on' tours, like the lantern making and rice pancake making in Hoi An."

Travellers visiting poor and developing countries can get overwhelmed by poverty – specifically, by children on the street who are begging for money. But there are ethical implications in handing over a few coins to a child in need. Experts and experienced travellers often refrain from such acts of kindness because ultimately, they may do more harm than good.


Ryan Whitney, an international development specialist living in San Francisco, recalled tough situations in the Philippines and India when groups of children, wearing rags, would swarm a car he was in. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said. But his general rule when travelling is to not give money to children on the street because often, particularly in India, the kids are being exploited by an adult – not necessarily their parent – who keeps the money. It’s “almost like slavery”, he said. “You don’t ever really know where this money goes.”

Kids may be working, unwillingly, for a gang leader or even a parent who may have a drug or alcohol addiction. Alternatively, some welloff,  enterprising kids can earn more on the street from wealthy-by-comparison tourists than they get in spending money from their parents. Either way, the cash flow keeps kids out of school and on the path toward a life of begging.

Some of these kids are living on the streets alone, or with their families; others are working on the streets, begging or selling trinkets or shoe shines to sympathetic tourists. But buying items or paying for work may not be much better than handing out free money – the dollars still might not go to the child, who is still living on the streets. Travellers wanting to help would do more good by donating to international or local organizations working with these children and their families.

ChildSafe International, a project that aims to protect children from abuse, cites evidence that street kids are vulnerable to exploitation, including by the sex tourism trade, which has been growing in countries like Cambodia. Travellers trying to help individuals unwittingly increase the risk. “By feeling pity, giving money and food, child labour on the streets – a growing business – is supported and the children are sustained on the streets,” the group, an initiative of the Cambodia-based Friends-International, writes on its website. A report by the Consortium for Street Children, a group of more than 50 non-governmental organizations that help kids on the street, included case studies of NGOs working to protect children from sexual abuse and prostitution in Cambodia and Bangladesh. There also have been cases of children being maimed in order to bring in more money from begging, a horrific practice dramatized in the film Slumdog Millionaire. CNN reported last year on the plight of one Bangladeshi child who had survived an attack by a gang trying to force him to beg.

Many travellers believe that giving food or school supplies is a safe alternative to money. But unless you are sharing a snack along with a child, he or she can turn around and sell, or trade, the goods. According to the Consortium for Street Children report, kids in the town of Salvador, Brazil, asked tourists for milk powder for their families after it became clear that the foreigners did not want to give cash. But the kids, who were drug addicts, were trading the milk powder for crack cocaine.

Amanda Rieder, a well-travelled high-school Spanish teacher in Philadelphia, said that initially when visiting a foreign land she would have the same reaction as anyone else:  “Oh, this poor kid; a dollar is nothing for me.” But after spending significant time in one place it became clear to her that “they don’t actually get to keep the money” and so she generally does not hand out money to kids when she travels.

All this well-founded advice is tough to follow when standing face-to-face with a cute kid who needs help. Both Rieder and Whitney admit that they haven’t always stuck to their own rules. “I’ve had kids who are really charming,” Whitney said, recalling a particularly persistent -- and smiling -- boy in the Philippines selling flowers. “In the end, I gave him a dollar. I couldn’t help it.”

To capture a sense of life in a new destination, many travellers have used zoom lenses and hidden-camera tricks to surreptitiously snap photos of locals without their permission -- and likely -- without their knowledge. But approaching photography like a covert operation is not the most ethical way to get a great shot.


Paul Berger, professor of art at the University of Washington School of Art, said a good rule of thumb is to “assume you’re being seen and act appropriately”.

 Appropriate behaviour can be as simple as making eye contact with someone, showing your camera and making sure the person knows he or she is being photographed. If people don’t want their picture taken, they’ll probably tell you by looking away.

“Err on the side of being overly sensitive to people’s feelings,” Berger said. For instance, tourists visiting a cemetery or religious site may want to take a photo of someone in a clearly emotional state. But Berger said a great evocative shot can cross a personal boundary. “Photographing the religious site or memorial itself is ok, but not photos that centre in on an individual,” he said.

But sometimes travellers forget basic etiquette when in a foreign culture – or it goes out the window when trying to take a perfect photo. “There are more problems, I think, with people objectifying people [when travelling abroad],” said Lisa Helfert, a photographer from Bethesda, Maryland.  Locals in poverty-stricken areas can sometimes feel like they’re on display for traveller’s photos, a criticism levelled at operators of so-called slum tours.

Muriel Hasbun, chair of photography at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC, said she tells her students to “treat everyone with respect and care”, explaining that both a portrait of someone and the experience of taking it are more meaningful if it’s a collaboration and a rapport is established. “Common-sense rules of social interaction and consensual types of exchanges are ideal and usually more rewarding to both parties,” Hasbun said. “One learns about a culture and a new place by meeting the people that one finds along the way.”

Tourists are also bound to be confronted by requests for money. There are many sites where “there is a tacit understanding that ‘picture opportunities’ are for sale,” Berger said. But if it’s not clear that this is a standard picture-for-a-price situation, then travellers need to think before snapping their cameras. “Again, the golden rule: would you be comfortable if someone asked you to pose for a photo?” Berger said.

Many times, children are the ones offering a photo of themselves for a small sum of money, having learned from picture-hungry tourists that they can easily sell a snapshot. But ideally, travellers should ask for a parent’s permission – just as they should ask permission of an adult who is about to be the focus of a photo.  And it can’t be a quick question and then a dash to the next willing subject. “When someone is projecting that they’re a guest in your area … if that’s kind of sincere, I think people generally respond,” Berger said. “But if you’re burdened with camera gear and breezing by, people pick that up of course.”

Lori Robertson writes the Ethical Traveller column for BBC Travel.

Visitors to developing countries often want to do something about the poverty they’re exposed to. But the mere act of travelling can make a difference.


The number of international travellers reached one billion for the first time in 2012 – and that means more money for the industry. According to theUnited Nations’ World Tourism Organization, tourism makes up 5% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product; it accounts for one in 12 jobs worldwide; and it’s either the number one or number two export earnings for 20 of the 48 least developed countries, including Tanzania and Samoa.

“Tourism has been described as the world’s largest transfer of resources from rich to poor, dwarfing international aid,” said Salli Felton, acting chief executive of the Travel Foundation, a UK-based charity that works with the travel industry on sustainability issues.

But getting tourism money to the poor can be easier in theory than reality. Many times, tourism dollars – such as those spent at foreign-owned resorts or tour operators – don’t stay in the traveller’s destinations. In addition, Felton explained that “developing countries often also import equipment, food and other goods from abroad to meet the expectations and standards of holidaymakers”. That means hotels and restaurants aren’t buying goods locally and supporting jobs and businesses in their home countries.

Still, experts see progress – and potential. There are many examples of small, local projects that have helped lower-income communities. For example, travellers can take part in Maasai village tours in Kenya, where nearly all of the tour fees once went to outside guides instead of the villagers. But the Travel Foundation helped develop a ticketing system that redirected fees to the community, who used the money to invest in education and sanitation.

Micro loans to local entrepreneurs have also gotten a lot of attention in recent years. Kristin Lamoureux, director of the International Institute of Tourism Studies at The George Washington University in Washington DC, said there are many examples of local people just needing the capital to get a business off the ground – giving the example of a woman in the Dominican Republic who received a small loan to start a juice stand, later expanding to six stands and 12 employees. And there are also community-owned enterprises, such as the Chalalan Ecolodge in Bolivia, which was set up with financial help from the US-based environmental organisation Conservation International. Chalalan has been fully owned by the local community since 2001, providing income to 70 families and employment alternatives to logging and hunting.

But large travel operators – such as major hotel chains – are increasingly playing a role as well. Small-scale tourism development is good, Lamoureux said, “but we also need to be focusing on the big players”. And the news there is fairly good: “10 years ago those hotels were encouraging guests to re-use their towels; now they’re talking about social welfare.”

For instance, Ritz Carlton has a Community Footprints social and environmental responsibility programme that, among other initiatives, has hotels and their staff partnering with local organisations on children issues, hunger and poverty through mentoring, volunteering and youth training programmes. Guests can also participate through half-day “voluntourism” opportunities, such as planting trees in Atlanta, Georgia, with a local initiative that aims to bring more trees to urban communities, or sorting donated food items for a hunger relief organisation in Philadelphia.

The big hotels and major attractions also have “a greater awareness that just creating jobs doesn’t necessarily mean you’re creating economic alternatives for the poorest of the poor”, Lamoureux said. There’s more attention to educating and mentoring youth so that they can work in a professional environment, and also grooming those employees to move into middle and upper management. “I really think that will be a major initiative of the tourism industry… in the next 10 to 20 years,” Lamoureux added.

Travellers also can take action themselves. Felton recommended asking travel agents about a hotel’s ownership or whether it’s affiliated with a sustainable certification program, such as Travelife, which awards hotels that meet social and environmental responsibility criteria. Lamoureux suggested asking what tourism providers’ social responsibility policies are and how many of their employees and managers are local residents. Travellers should also “get outside of the walls of the hotel and try to use their purchasing power”, Felton said. Eat at local restaurants, shop local and use local guides. “You’ll get more out of your holiday and ensure local people benefit from your stay.”

Lori Robertson writes the Ethical Traveller column for BBC Travel.