Laos moves at the speed of the river. Book accordingly.
Which Kuang Si trip stops long enough to swim. What the two-day slow boat really costs. Whether Vang Vieng is worth a night on the way north. Reviews of every tour you can book in Laos.
The river in, the waterfall day, the lagoon town, the evening kitchen.
Four bookings a first trip through Laos is built around. Prices, start times and how each day actually runs.
01The day out of Luang PrabangAfternoon Kuang Si Waterfalls & Sunset CruiseThe limestone pools at Kuang Si in the afternoon, when the minibuses have gone, then back downriver as the light drops.
02Arriving by waterChiang Rai: 2-Day Transfer to Luang Prabang by Slow BoatTwo days downstream from the Thai border with a night at Pakbeng. Slower than the flight, and the reason people talk about Laos the way they do.
03The Vang Vieng water dayKayaking & Cave Tubing with Zip Line/Blue LagoonKayaks on the Nam Song, an inner tube through a cave, and the blue lagoon at the end of it.
04The evening in the kitchenEvening Cooking Class & Local Baci CeremonyA market walk, a charcoal grill and a baci blessing before you eat. The class most people say they wish they had done on night one.
Six places in Laos that decide the itinerary.
Terraced turquoise pools an hour from town, two caves stacked with abandoned Buddhas, a valley of limestone towers, a sculpture park on the Mekong, a river village with no road in, and a plain scattered with Iron Age stone jars.
The Lao interior starts where the road gives up.
Four hours north of Luang Prabang the tarmac ends at a river village with a viewpoint above it. Beyond that it is Hmong and Khmu hill country, two or three days on foot between villages, and a protected forest in Luang Namtha where the guiding is run by the villages themselves.
Luang Prabang: temples before the heat, water after it.
All of Luang Prabang →
The old town is thirty-odd gilded monasteries wedged between two rivers, and you can walk it in a morning. The rest of the day belongs to the water and to somebody else’s kitchen. These three carry more travellers than anything else in Laos.
Kuang Si, and when to leave for it
The falls come down a hillside in limestone steps, and the pools between them are the colour of glass. Go before eleven or after three. The middle of the day is when four minibuses arrive at once and the top pool stops being a swim.
The cave shrines at Pak Ou
Two caves in a cliff at the mouth of the Nam Ou, packed with several thousand Buddha figures left there over four centuries. The lower one is daylight and crowds. Take a torch for the upper one, which is neither.
Where the class actually starts
Most classes start at the morning market or the evening one, where the herbs get explained before they get bought. Then a charcoal grill, a mortar, and more sticky rice than anyone can finish.
What travellers in Laos book before anything else.
The whole Laos catalogue →These carry more travellers than anything else in the country. What each one gets you, and what it costs.
1
Cruise to Pak Ou Caves & Kuang Si Waterfalls
Cruise the Mekong to Pak Ou Caves, taste Lao whiskey, swim at Kuang Si Falls, visit a Hmong village, and enjoy lunch for $48.
From · $48
Read our review →
2
Kayaking & Cave Tubing with Zip Line/Blue Lagoon
from $30
3
Half Day Mekong Cruise to Pak Ou Caves (Morning / Afternoon)
from $40
4
Luang Prabang: UNESCO World Heritage City Highlights Tour
from $35
5
Namxay Viewpoint, Blue Lagoon 1 & Phoukham Cave
from $29
6
Afternoon Kuang Si Waterfalls & Sunset Cruise
from $35
7
Evening Cooking Class & Local Baci Ceremony
from $51
8
Chiang Rai: 2-Day Transfer to Luang Prabang by Slow Boat
from $75
Vang Vieng stopped being a party and went back to the river.
The bars on the water are long gone. What is left is the best three-hour stretch of river in the country, caves you can float through on an inner tube, and a valley of limestone towers that turns gold at six in the morning under a balloon.
All of Vang Vieng →
Vientiane is the quietest capital on the Mekong, and it knows it.
A gilded stupa on the national seal, a victory arch built with runway concrete, and a riverside park full of enormous concrete gods. Half a day covers the sights. The other half is the night market and the noodle stalls behind it.
- 1Vientiane Cultural Tour with Private Guidefrom $125
- 2Cultural Tour with Buddha Park and Patuxayfrom $58
- 3Half-Day City Tour with Patuxai and Buddha Parkfrom $52
Cave run, kayak day, or two days on the slow boat. Pick your hull.
Almost everything worth doing in northern Laos happens off a boat. Three kinds of day on the water, what it costs to board each one, and which town it starts from.
What a day out in Laos actually costs.
Laos is cheap by any measure. A good half of the best days here cost less than a hotel breakfast at home, and the ladder below starts at the bottom.
Waterfall trips, city walks, cave runs, workshops and most of the kayaking.
The full-day standards: cruise-plus-falls combinations, cooking classes with the market walk, the two-day slow boat.
Balloon flights, private drivers for a whole day, and the multi-day treks into the north.
Three things you cannot do anywhere else.
Waterfalls and street food are everywhere in this part of Asia. A cliff full of abandoned Buddhas, two days on a wooden boat with no way off, and a plain of Iron Age stone jars nobody can explain are not.
The Pak Ou Caves
When a Buddha image gets too old or too damaged for a temple, it cannot simply be thrown away. For four hundred years the answer in northern Laos was to carry it upriver to two caves in a limestone cliff and leave it there. The lower cave now holds several thousand of them on ledges above the Mekong. The upper cave is unlit, and you climb to it.
- 1Cruise to Pak Ou Caves & Kuang Si Waterfalls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,769 reviews
- 2Half Day Mekong Cruise to Pak Ou Caves (Morning / Afternoon)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 290 reviews
- 3Kayak Tour to Pak Ou Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 115 reviews
The Slow Boat Down
The boat leaves Huay Xai on the Thai border in the morning and reaches Luang Prabang the following afternoon, with a night at Pakbeng in between. It only runs downstream, the seats are old minivan benches bolted to a wooden hull, and there is nowhere to get off. Everyone who does it describes the second morning the same way.
- 1Chiang Rai: 2-Day Transfer to Luang Prabang by Slow Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 · 149 reviews
- 2From Chiang Mai : 3 Day 2 Night Slow Boat to Luang Prabang★★★★★★★★★★ 3.4 · 26 reviews
- 32D Transfer to Huay Xai by Slow Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 18 reviews
The Plain of Jars
Thousands of carved stone jars, some of them three metres tall, sit in clusters across the Xieng Khouang plateau. They are around two thousand years old, they were almost certainly funerary, and beyond that nobody agrees. The sites are cleared of ordnance along marked paths, and you keep to them.
- 1Plain of jars tour with local guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 8 reviews
- 2Plain of jars share group tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4 reviews
- 3Plain of jars private tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3 reviews
Four things in Laos you cannot sort out on the day.
Laos runs on short notice almost everywhere. These four do not: one departure a day, dawn weather, or a plateau you have to fly to.
- 01Chiang Rai: 2-Day Transfer to Luang Prabang by Slow BoatOne boat a day, downstream only, and it fills in high season. Miss it and the alternative is a fourteen-hour bus on the same route.
- 02Vang Vieng: Hot Air Balloon Ride with City Hotel PickupFlights go up at dawn and only in still air. Baskets are small, the season is limited, and a cancelled morning is rarely re-flown the same trip.
- 03Plain of jars tour with local guidePhonsavan is a flight or a full day on a mountain road. The jar sites run on day-trip transport that leaves once, early.
- 04Nong Khiaw: 2-Day Trekking,Hmong village,Home Stay&KayakingOvernight treks in the north need a group to run and a permit for the villages. Sort it before you arrive in Luang Namtha, not after.
March smoke and August rain: the two seasons Laos plans around.
Two things reshape a Lao itinerary. From late February the hills burn for planting and the valleys fill with haze, which flattens every viewpoint and grounds the balloons. From June the rain arrives, the rivers come up brown and the trails turn. Both have the same answer: go indoors, go to a kitchen, go underground.
Sticky rice, a charcoal grill, and a mortar you are expected to use.
Lao food does not travel and barely gets exported, which makes eating it here the point. Book the market walk before the heat, the class that turns into lunch, and the night stalls somebody local can order at.
By place, north to south
Huay Xai, Luang Prabang, Nong Khiaw, Vang Vieng, Vientiane: the way down the country.
Just reviewed, up and down the Mekong.
Everything added lately →
Luangprabang: Dinner with Lao Traditional Dance Performance
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Vientiane Private Lao Cooking Class with Market Tour
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Vientiane: Half-Day City Tour – Morning or Afternoon
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Vientiane Private Walking Tour With A Guide (Private Tour)
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Sunset Cruise in Luang Prabang with Live Performance
Read our review →
Vientiane: Art, Culture, & Inspiration Guided Day Tour
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