Reviews

Our family had such an incredible time in Mai Chau. Casey and Karen were amazing hosts. We experienced so much beauty and culture in just 2 days. Every detail was thought through and planned beautifully.

From the time we landed in Hanoi, our family’s experience with Veiled Valley was wonderful! Our scheduled drivers were consistently on time. The Bespoke and Trendy Hotel and Spa is awesome! The staff of both the hotel and spa went above and beyond to be helpful to our family - great choice for us by Karen! We thoroughly enjoyed our jeep tour of Hanoi as well! Mai Chau was beautiful! The accommodations were just what we wanted. The cultural experience with both the bike tour and the meal at a local home really helped us experience local life! From loom weaving and attempting local dance steps to trying indigenous cuisine, Casey and Karen’s knowledge of both the language and culture really helped us with grasping more of the experience as well! Our whole family (2 daughters - age 14 and 11) loved the opportunity to be in a Hmong home and learn the artistry of beeswax batik! The finished/dyed pieces are a favorite souvenir! We were driven to see a waterfall in the area and enjoy a cruise on Hoa Binh Lake - the resort and lunch there before the cruise were excellent! All our meals were selected with care as we have a daughter with a peanut allergy - we never had to worry! Karen went the extra mile for us to make sure my daughter’s meals were safe for her and all were delicious. We learned and laughed in our cooking class at Mai Chau Lodge and then feasted on the meal we helped prepare with our wonderfully patient chef! Our family also enjoyed our stay at Pu Luong Jungle Lodge - the accommodations were awesome! The pool time for the kids was such a treat! We enjoyed our tour of the local rice fields, water wheels and a bamboo raft trip on the river! Casey and Karen were awesome to help us as our flights were changed and gave their time to help us get flights cancelled and booked for our return home! Again, upon our return to Hanoi, the Bespoke and Trendy Hotel staff continued to help us with contacting airlines and making sure things were in order for our return home! Truly enjoyed this trip with Veiled Valley and would absolutely recommend their services for any trip you may wish to take to the Mai Chau area! Thank you, Casey and Karen!

My tour with Veiled Valley was an unforgettable one! It was culturally rich, and my family and I participated in a wide range of activities, from exploring local markets to golf cart tours, cooking classes, and traditional meals with locals. Our wonderful guides took care of everything from planning daily activities and meals to arranging lodging and transportation. Not only did they plan an incredible experience for us in Mai Chau, but they also arranged everything for our time in Hanoi at the front end of our trip. In Hanoi, we went on a jeep tour that included stopping to experience a pottery class and the Instagram-famous spot where a local train passes through each day. Touring with Veiled Valley was a unique and fun-filled experience!

“We had a great trip to Vietnam and the Mai Chau region thanks to Veiled Valley. Not only did we enjoy beautiful scenery that we would not have found on our own, but the chance to be in people’s homes for dinner, conversation, and music made our trip especially memorable. A top experience was making Batik in the home and with the help of a local Hmong family. What a special memory to be with our host and his family as they guided us through all the steps of batik, leaving us with our own masterpieces. Casey and Karen of Veiled Valley are clearly part of the community that they shared with us. Their guidance made for an unforgettable chance to see and experience Vietnam behind the scenes.”

“From trying fried grasshoppers in a local’s home to biking all over Mai Chau, we had an amazing time! It was really fun and beneficial to have Karen and Casey as our tour guides because we got a high-quality local experience without the crowdedness of typical tourist attractions. Their expertise in navigating the area, connections within the community, and communication skills in the local language in Mai Chau were useful more times than I can count! Also personally Karen and Casey were wonderful to hang out with and I’ll definitely remember this for years to come!”

“We visited Vietnam as a family and our stay in Mai Chau was easily the highlight of our trip. The purpose of the trip was to give my teenage daughters the opportunity to experience a completely different culture than our own. Our hosts at Veiled Valley, Karen and Kasey, helped us achieve just that beyond even my expectations. From the time we arrived, it was evident that they were fluent in not only Vietnamese but also the White Thai ethnic language and culture.

They were able to introduce us to their local friends who warmly welcomed us wherever we went. We felt like guests of honor when we were invited into a local White Thai stilt home for a generous celebratory feast that concluded with the tribal elders playing flute and singing as is customary in their traditional culture. Karen and Kasey were there to translate everything so that we could understand what they were singing and communicate back our thanks to them for their hospitality. This experience is a memory that I know as a family we will never forget and are so thankful for.

This is why we chose Veiled Valley as our tour guide because this is the type of cultural experience that we wanted. We also enjoyed staying in a rustic but very comfortable local homestay with beautiful views of the rice paddies and Mai Chau Valley. It had better wi-fi than most 3 and 4-star hotels we stayed in. For a couple of days, we stayed in Mai Chau we got to explore the local villages on bikes, hike to waterfalls, boat on a lake, and visit a market with colorful textiles that the Hmong ethnic people are known for making.”

“We ventured to Mai Chau for a weekend during our recent visit to Vietnam. The folks at Veiled Valley Tours planned the perfect experience from hotel recommendations to local experiences. We enjoyed a wonderful tour and interactions in the village, exotic meals, and adventurous excursions including local markets, caves, batik art, and visits to gorgeous waterfalls. It was all so breathtaking that words seemed inadequate. Our coordinators, Casey and Karen, provided such great care and service – I highly recommend contacting them to anyone visiting North Vietnam. from a language and culture perspective, they opened a world for us that would be otherwise unavailable.

There were so many highlights from our recent tour to Mai Chau planned by the great people at Veiled Valley. If I had to choose one, I love the once-in-a-lifetime experience to interact and learn from a local family how they make fabric from leaves. We saw firsthand the process of creating items with beautiful patterns and colors. We even got to design a pattern of our own and take home the finished product as a souvenir. It was an intimate experience of a local culture that I could never plan on my own.”

“From a home-cooked Vietnamese meal to a bustling market, Mai Chau is such an incredible place to visit. No matter where we were or what we did Karen and Casey knew so much about the best places to go and the people’s traditions. One activity that stood out to me was the meal we shared with a local family. We really got to see what a traditional family-style meal was like, along with some ethnic singing that could only be found right there. Overall, Karen and Casey knew Vietnam like the back of their hand and were so hospitable. I’d definitely recommend them to anyone!”

“I recently had the privilege of being part of a group tour to the town of Mai Chau, Vietnam, organized by Veiled Valley Tours. It was a truly unforgettable experience in so many good ways.

After the scenic bus ride into the town, we were served a hearty and wonderfully prepared lunch, then relaxed with a leisurely afternoon tour of an adjoining village area where we were able to get up close to the rice fields, meet some local artisans and do a bit of casual shopping.

The tour gave us a wonderfully immersive experience with local culture, including a meal prepared and enjoyed in a local family’s home, a trip to a market in a nearby community, and a visit to the home of a family who not only demonstrated the process of creating batik designs but gave us all a turn at designing our own (which we got to keep).

A visit to a breathtaking waterfall, a sumptuous lunch while enjoying the beautiful scenery, and a boat tour that included another waterfall and fish farm rounded out a wonderful day.

Our tour included opportunities to explore a nearby cave just steps from our lodging, and even a fun cooking class to show us how to prepare some of the tasty local foods.

Casey and Karen of Veiled Valley Tours have built important relationships with local community members who have joined with them to create a welcoming atmosphere and an experience that is fun, relaxing, adventurous, and educational at the same time. I would highly recommend this tour company to anyone looking to explore this part of Vietnam.”

“Veiled Valley created a tour of Mai Chau for our family that we will never forget. Casey and Karen of Veiled Valley have relationships with the local people of Mai Chau that are invaluable and so our tour was filled with local and traditional experiences that are unique to them. On the first day of our tour, we got a glimpse into daily life through a neighborhood walk, bike riding around villages and the market, seeing traditional stilt houses firsthand, and a generous feast and music with a family. They got us back to our homestay safely the first night even through heavy rain and lightning. The second day we explored the surrounding area with a trip to the market, waterfalls, a gorgeous lunch, and a boat ride on the beautiful Hoa Binh Lake. I would highly recommend booking a tour of Mai Chau to see the real Vietnam up close!”

Let me tell you, my wife and I had an incredible experience with Veiled Valley Tours in Mai Chau, Vietnam. They went above and beyond! The whole trip was like stepping into a hidden paradise. We saw lush rice terraces, and colorful ethnic villages, and sampled some amazing - and at times interesting - local foods.

But what really made it unforgettable were our guides. The guides weren't just spouting facts; they shared cool stories about the place and its history. They were well-organized and their hospitality was really off the charts.

Veiled Valley Tours gave me and my wife an unforgettable journey into the heart of Vietnam's countryside, and I'm already dreaming of going back.

“On our Veiled Valley tour, we saw and experienced the exquisite beauty and captivating charm of the Mai Chau region in Vietnam. We loved an authentic dining experience in a local home perched high on stilts. Our hosts played and sang traditional-style Vietnamese music composed just for us. We toured beautiful waterfalls and scenic lakes, shopped for local handcrafts and artisan goods in mountain villages, learned to cook Vietnamese dishes from a culinary chef, and stayed in the most romantic intimate resort with authentic Vietnamese architecture and artwork. Veiled Valley tours put together a great package of things to see and do for us and they aimed to please us with exceptional attention to detail and excellent customer service. I had visited Vietnam three times before, but this tour was the best.”

“I recently had the opportunity to attend tours in northern Vietnam with Veiled Valley. I’m an American who has traveled many times to other countries in Asia, so I have experienced a variety of cultures and locations in that region – but the touring with Veiled Valley was really an unmatched experience compared to any previous travels I have taken. The region of our tour was geographically impressive, with high, deeply forested mountains and low, flat valleys with rice paddies and farming villages. We saw a beautiful waterfall, lake/reservoir, and visited several villages. One of the most special aspects of the tour was to get to meet local people and visit their homes. I can’t imagine having had that opportunity if not for Veiled Valley’s staff, who live locally, know local languages, and respect local people and customs. Their expertise and ability to understand both our tour group (Americans and Canadians) and the local people was key to making the experience comfortable and educational, and supportive of the local economy and people. The tour made an already enjoyable trip in Vietnam that much more memorable and special.”