First published January 2026 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle | Read time 15 minutes | 4 comments
Tom Divers is the founder and creator of Vietnam Coracle. In 2005 he moved from his native London to Vietnam, where he has been living, working and travelling ever since. He pays rent in Ho Chi Minh City but is more often on the road, riding his motorbike a quarter of a million kilometres across Vietnam to research guides to the farthest-flung corners of the nation. When he’s not in the saddle, you’ll find him on a beach with a margarita, in a tent on a mountainside or at a streetside noodle house: in other words, at the ‘office’. Read more about Tom: Q&A, About Page, Vietnam Tourism website.
A Look Back at 2025: Happy New Year!🥳
A good year for travel in Vietnam and one of almost constant change for me personally, I spent the final few days of 2025 in the crisp, pine-scented air and high-definition light of the forests surrounding Đà Lạt. Following my customary tradition for most of the last 15 years, I camped out among the pine trees of the Lâm Đồng highlands, enjoying the peacefulness beneath the canopy of rough-bark boughs on the soft carpet of pine needles. This is an experience that bookends each 12-month cycle for me, providing a chance to let the events of the last year sink in, process them and think ahead to whatever may be next. 2025 saw a multitude of fundamental administrative changes in Vietnam, including a complete shake-up of provinces. The nation celebrated 50 years since reunification and months later suffered some of the worst flooding on record. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s travel industry soared as the nation recorded the highest number of international visitors ever – hitting roughly 21 million. My own life underwent major administrative changes, most of which have now been successfully navigated, but the dust is still settling on some of them. If you enjoy Vietnam Coracle, please support it with a donation or join my Patreon community – I run this website at a consistent loss. Thank you❤️
Contents:
✈️ The Year in Travel for Vietnam
💻 The Year for Vietnam Coracle
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Thank you.” Tom
The Year in Travel for Vietnam:
Record-Breaking Tourist Numbers:
While the final official tourist numbers are not yet in, at over 21 million international visitors in 2025, this is the highest year on record regardless. This was forecast to happen since the beginning of the year and represents the full recovery of Vietnam’s tourism industry post-pandemic. This is good news for travel-related businesses and Vietnam’s reputation internationally. However, it is very noticeable to someone like me who travels around Vietnam regularly, that the vast majority of visitors are concentrated solely in the dozen or so established tourist hotspots, such as Nha Trang, Hội An, Sa Pa, Hạ Long Bay, Phú Quốc, etc. Very few travellers venture beyond these destinations. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that off-the-beaten-path travel in Vietnam has actually declined in the post-pandemic era. Although this is only anecdotal – I don’t have data to back up my claim – I feel I am in a good position to judge based on my extensive travels both on and off the beaten path, before and after the pandemic. I think it is clear and obvious: in 2025 there’s more tourism in Vietnam, but less adventurous travel. In general, this website is aimed at those travellers who do want to go beyond the well-known, well-trodden places. Indeed, this is backed up by the popularity of one of my new posts this year, 20 Alternative Destinations to Tourist Hotspots in Vietnam, which, although only published in June 2025, is already one of the best -performing guides on Vietnam Coracle. To me, this suggests that there is a desire for off-the-beaten-path adventure in Vietnam, but at the moment there aren’t many resources to facilitate it.
❤️If you like this article, please support Vietnam Coracle with a donation or become a member of my Patreon community or purchase an Offline Guide & Map. This website relies on reader support to maintain its independence & quality. Thank you, Tom
The Year for Vietnam Coracle:
Expanding Offline Guides & Maps:
My biggest research trip in 2025 was the Trường Sơn Đông Road. This took several attempts due to bad weather, road conditions and time restraints. But eventually I was able to finish a complete update to the guide and map for this incredible, deserted road through the heart of the Central Highlands. In addition, I produced an Offline Guide & Map for the Trường Sơn Đông Road, allowing travellers to access the route and information at all times on their phone, regardless of whether or not they have an internet connection. The library of Vietnam Coracle Offline Guides & Maps has been steadily growing throughout 2025. There are now 15 packages available in the shop, and plenty more to come. I hope these guides provide added value to travellers as they use my guides to explore and enjoy Vietnam. Indeed, the feedback has been positive. It is also a great way for readers to support the work that I do on this website.
Other Writing & Other Writers:
In the summer, the new edition of the Bradt Guide to Vietnam was published, including a chapter on Phú Quốc and Côn Đảo which I authored. The rest of the guide was authored by Joshua Zukas, a friend and contributor to Vietnam Coracle. Having written over a dozen guides for the site, Joshua finished his contribution halfway through the year. As he left, Luke Digweed returned as a staff writer for Vietnam Coracle, after a hiatus during which he completed an MSc in social anthropology at LSE in London. Two more writers joined Vietnam Coracle in 2025: Hanoi-based writer and photographer Phương Lê and Saigon-based photographer, teacher and traveller Martin Misiak.
Restarting Video Content:
As I needed to stay within range of Ho Chi Minh City for much of the year due to various administrative reasons (see below), I largely focused on writing guides to southern Vietnam, including the Mekong Delta. I also invested in a new action camera (an Insta360 Ace Pro 2) to start shooting more short-form video content for Vietnam Coracle, beginning with a film of Trà Sư Forest, my first attempt at video editing in 9 years.
Experimenting with AI:
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been on most people’s mind in some form or another this year as it continues to change work and life. The travel industry is no exception. Having kept my distance from ChatGPT and the like, I thought it would be interesting to find out what various AI chatbots have to say about Vietnam Coracle. I gave three LLMs the same 9 questions and recorded their answers (and their images) in an article. I was pleased by the generally positive things the chatbots had to say about Vietnam Coracle, and some of the images it created were striking. However, when asking for travel information, such as itineraries or customized guides to specific regions of Vietnam, the results were rather disappointing and misleading. I would imagine this will improve quickly, but for now there’s still no AI-generated content on Vietnam Coracle whatsoever: all guides are researched first-hand, in-person, on the ground and written, photographed and edited by me or the contributing writers.
Website Milestone:
In the last quarter of 2025, Vietnam Coracle published its 400th guide, a significant milestone and one that I think underlines the longevity and consistency of the website over more than a decade. Traffic and engagement has been fairly good and steady this year, but the website still makes a net loss for me. Finding out how to change this without compromising the values and ethos of the website remains a problem that I am yet to solve.
❤️Like this article? Support Vietnam Coracle with a donation or join my Patreon to help keep this website free & 100% independent. Thank you, Tom
My Year Beyond the Website:
Change:
A year of transition and change for me, 2025 brought a lot of upheaval in my personal and professional life. There were many lessons to be learned, a lot of growing up to be done, adaptations and compromises to be made, and, thankfully, a lot of much needed help and support from friends and family along the way. While some of these changes are not yet fully behind me, I am nonetheless looking forward to a new year, beginning with my parents visiting Vietnam, arriving on New Year’s Day.
Goodbye Teacher:
In June, I resigned from my long-time teaching position after almost 20 years. It was a job I had enjoyed until the last few years, and it was also a role that became part of my identity: I was Teacher Tom or Thầy Tom to thousands of students – a generation – since 2005. For much of that time, it was a fulfilling and life-affirming job and I was desperately sad to leave my students behind. But the work had changed and I was finding it increasingly difficult to juggle teaching and this website simultaneously. It was finally the time to choose between the two. However, among other things teaching had provided me with my legal status in Vietnam. By resigning from that job I’d need to find another way to obtain temporary residence in the country. To do this, I started a company based around this website that would allow me to continue to live and work in Vietnam legally. Although, for various legal and administrative reasons, the company is only indirectly associated with the website, and this will likely be something that needs working on in the future. None of this has changed Vietnam Coracle in any way: opening a company, for now at least, is primarily a way for me to be working in Vietnam legally, rather than on a tourist visa. Suffice to say, the process of opening the company was a long and complicated one, partly due to my own ignorance and inexperience, and partly because 2025 just happened to be a year of many legal changes.
Racket Sports & Handstands:
I shed another part of my long-time identity this year by quitting tennis, a sport which I’ve pursued since I was about 8 years-old. Having over-played in the midday sun a year ago, I collapsed on court from hyponatremia and went to hospital in an ambulance. Although I came back and won a tournament for the first time since I was 17 years-old, my body was clearly trying to tell me something. I gave up early in the year and, after a few months, started badminton, pickleball and calisthenics instead. The latter has been a challenge for me and the main purpose is to strengthen my body – especially my back and hips – to counteract the damage that has been done by all the time I’ve spent sitting down either at a computer or on a motorbike. Badminton and pickleball (by far the fastest growing sport in Vietnam right now) are a lot of fun and obviously there are many transferable skills from tennis. An added benefit of all these activities is that I can take them on the road with me: calisthenics doesn’t require a gym or a lot of equipment, and, as long as I take my racket/paddle with me, I can find a pickleball or badminton game in any Vietnamese town.
Driving License for Life:
Due to various changes in the law, my Vietnamese driving license was no longer valid, so I had to do the test again. Although I signed up in March, my test didn’t happen until late September. I used all those months to study the 600 different questions in Vietnamese for the theory test and practice the famously tricky figure-of-eight circuit for the practical test. Ultimately, the test was chaotic and confusing – not an experience I ever want to repeat – but I did pass (100% theory, 95% practical) and now I have a lifetime Vietnamese driving license for all motorbike models.
New Bike:
So, this means I can finally look for a replacement to my weary motorbike, Stavros. Now touching 270,000km, Stavros is increasingly fragile. In fact, during my Christmas camping trip just a week ago, the clutch shattered while I was on a dirt road up a mountain in the forest. I had to walk down and find a pick-up truck to rescue Stavros, take him back to town and get mended. I’ve known for a long time which motorbike I want to replace Stavros: a Honda ADV 160 ABS 2026 edition. As soon as I got my license, I went shopping for the bike. Because the ADV isn’t sold by official Honda dealerships in Vietnam, buying one is not straightforward. To complicate matters further, no one really knows what the current process is for buying and registering a bike with a foreign name. I have ordered my ADV from a distributor and put a deposit down along with all the documentation. I’m told it will be available sometime in January 2026, but based on my experiences with various administrative procedures in 2025, I am not holding my breath. Eventually, however, I should have my new matte black Honda ADV, and Stavros will be retired.
Anniversary:
To cap everything off, 2025 marked my 20th anniversary in Vietnam. I wrote a short piece remembering my first moments in the nation as a 22-year-old stepping off the plane. Obviously, I couldn’t have imagined that this would be the beginning of, well, my adult life so far. All these things contributed to a rather messy, transitional and emotionally unsettling year for me – not a bad one, but an unexpectedly complicated one. I am now eager to start a new year with these new foundations in place and hopefully build upon them.
Happy New Year!🥳 And thank you for reading & supporting Vietnam Coracle.
❤️Like this article? Support Vietnam Coracle with a donation or join my Patreon to help keep this website free & 100% independent. Thank you, Tom
Support My Work
Free | Independent | No Sponsored Content
“Hello, if you enjoy my website, please support it.
Thank you.” Tom
*Disclosure: I never receive payment for anything I write: my content is always free and independent. I’ve written this article because I want to: I’ve had an interesting year and I want my readers to know about it. For more details, see my Disclosure & Disclaimer statements and my About Page
Thanks for all you do Tom. VN Coracle remains the best source for the ‘off the beaten track’ travelers in Vietnam.
I didn’t realize you can get life-time all bike licenses as a foreigner, did you use a service or do it all by yourself? Might need to look into that, getting a new license every time my TRC expires is getting tiresome.
Thanks, Brian.
Yes, I did the Vietnamese driving license by myself – in the same way that a local would. But there are services that can help you with it, such as DC Motorbikes – they are good.
Best,
Tom
Thank you so very much for your effort. I have enjoyed and benefited from many of your articles. I hope this next year, and the next 20 prove as beneficial as they have for you.
Thanks, Lani. And it’s great to hear you’ve found some of my guides helpful.
Best,
Tom