Vietnam with children?

[Hotfeetcoldfeet]

Hi everyone.

My partner has some inheritance that he’d like to spend on a nice holiday for the family, us and five kids (from 12 to 23). The youngest, 12, has type 1 diabetes which is well controlled but I’m conscious that I don’t want us to be completely unreachable in the wilderness in case something goes wrong and we need medication etc… this is just me being ultra cautious as we’ve been on plenty of holidays and every thing has always been fine.

We are considering Vietnam, as we’ve heard great things about it, and it’s so different to the type of places we’ve been to date (Europe), and we really want it to be a trip to remember. We are going for two weeks over Christmas and we want to experience a different culture, see the sights and gave a really exciting and interesting adventure.

So two questiins really:

-anyone had experience of travelling to Vietnam with a child with type 1 or similar. Does it feel safe and what are the medical facilities like?

-any other ideas for cool places that would fit the bill?

thanks so much for any input!

Just want to say that there is very little medical care available in Vietnam. Other than that you will have a wonderful time.

Vietnam, or at least Hanoi and Ho Chi minh city has pretty good medical care actually.

Fly into Hanoi in North and out of HCMC in South (Travel North to South via Danang/ Hoian in Central VN) is a good route.
You can do a bit research on Travelfish site for the places to visit in VN.

Check the weather for the area you are thinking of visiting as it varies from the North to the South during that time.
I broke my wrist in HCMC and had brilliant medical care.
Vietnam is a wonderful place for a holiday, train travel is cheap, check out man in seat 61website for travel info. Hotels are clean and far cheaper than European equivalents and plenty of food choices in tourist areas.
We visit for a couple of months in UK winter and fly with Emirates.

We went to Vietnam earlier this year. It was insanely hot (over 40, although granted this wasn't normal). The food situation wasn't great. Not a lot of choice and some very dubious health and hygiene. If you're fine with that with the diabetes then ok but just to factor it in. We were quite rural and in the north (many tourists go south) but even in Hanoi there wasn't much and not as much western food as we had thought there might be after a week of cold pork balls.