Parts of the Far North are particularly isolated and difficult to visit. However, this isolation adds to the region's beauty, as many areas are still extremely unspoiled, and distant from the popular tourist trail to reach Ba Be lakes in Bac Can province is a challenge, but one well worth pursuing. The road between That Khe and Lang Son, whose beauty of plunging ravines riddled with caves, hides a grim and bloody past, is also worth the effort to see. To the North of Cao Bang is Pac Bo, near the cave in which Ho chi Minh lived upon first returning to Vietnam from China. The Far North of Vietnam is home to numerous tribes of ethnic minority groups. They live in some of the most isolated places, subsisting through traditional means. Some of the tribes you may encounter are the Tay, Nung, Zao, H'mong, and the San Chi. Farther afield in Ha Giang province there is a variety of hill tribes numbering from several thousand members to only a few hundred people.

This guide follows a path beginning in Thai Nguyen, to the North of Hanoi, and heading North to Bac Can and the Ba Be lakes before moving Northwest to Cao Bang. From there we head South through Dong Khe and That Khe to Lang Son, the other main gateway between China and Vietnam for foreign visitors.