Bac Sum Pass at first light, the Ma Pi Leng cliff road, dinner at a Du Gia homestay. Pick the Ha Giang loop motorcycle tour that fits your days and book with free cancellation.
Updated August 2026
Quick answer
A Ha Giang loop motorcycle tour runs about 350 km through the mountains north of Ha Giang city, takes three days for most riders, and costs $123.55 to $231.25 per person on the tours listed here. Almost everyone rides pillion behind a local easy rider, because self-driving legally needs a home motorcycle licence plus a 1968-convention International Driving Permit.
Key takeaways
most reviewed The trip most riders book
Chestnut Travel's easy rider trip, the most reviewed on this page at 787 ratings. Pick the 2-day or 3-day version at checkout; the Nho Que boat is included.
Live calendar for the Chestnut Travel easy rider trip. Groups fill from September onward, and the sleeper bus seats go first.
Sorted by what actually separates them: how many days you ride, whether you sit behind a guide or take the handlebars, and where you get picked up.
from $164.33Most Reviewed — 787 Reviews Chestnut Travel's easy rider trip, the most reviewed on this page at 787 ratings. Pick the 2-day or 3-day version at checkout; the Nho Que boat is included.
from $138.59Best Rated — 5.0★, 328 Reviews Three riding days on the full circuit with a capped group size, leaving Hanoi by sleeper bus. Rated 5.0 by 328 travellers, the highest score on this page.
from $123.55Cheapest — Starts in Ha Giang The compressed circuit for travellers short on days: the Dong Van plateau and Ma Pi Leng in two riding days. The cheapest way onto the loop at $123.55.
from $231.25Four Days, Unhurried The longest itinerary here, adding the side loops, the villages and the Du Gia waterfall swim. Starts and ends in Ha Giang city rather than Hanoi.
from $208.49Easy Rider from Hanoi Round-trip from Hanoi with a local rider handling the bike for the full three days. Hotel pickup in the Old Quarter is included.
from $186.90Campfire Night with Locals Three days over roughly 410 km with a campfire evening and traditional games at the homestay. Rated 5.0 across 119 reviews.
from $226.664 Days Plus an Extra Night Four days on the circuit with an extra night in Ha Giang built in, so you start rested rather than straight off the bus. 371 reviews at 4.9.
from $206Three Nights Included Three riding days plus three nights, so both sleeper bus journeys sit outside the riding schedule. Local rider handles the bike throughout.
from $217.65From Sapa — Max 8 Riders Built around the Sapa transfer, so you skip the backtrack to Hanoi. Group capped at eight, with a flexible drop-off at the end. 407 reviews at 4.9.
from $185.32Extra Night in Ha Giang The standard three-day circuit with an extra Ha Giang night included and hotel pickup in Hanoi. Useful if your bus arrives at 04:00 and you want to sleep.
from $201.95Self-Drive — Licence Required The one listing here sold as self-drive. You need a home motorcycle licence and a 1968-convention International Driving Permit to ride it legally.
Prices are per person as listed on GetYourGuide in August 2026 and move with the date you pick.
| Tour | Days | Price | Book | Riding | Starts in | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy rider, 2 or 3 days | 2 or 3 | $164.33 | Check | Easy rider | Hanoi | 4.9 (787) |
| 3-day small group | 3 | $138.59 | Check | Either | Hanoi | 5.0 (328) |
| Short loop, 2 days | 2 | $123.55 | Check | Either | Ha Giang | 4.9 (83) |
| 4-day unhurried loop | 4 | $231.25 | Check | Either | Ha Giang | 4.9 (130) |
| 3 days with easy rider | 3 | $208.49 | Check | Easy rider | Hanoi | 4.9 (84) |
| 3-day with homestay campfire | 3 | $186.90 | Check | Either | Ha Giang | 5.0 (119) |
| 4-day with hotel pickup | 4 | $226.66 | Check | Either | Hanoi | 4.9 (371) |
| 3 days, 3 nights | 3 | $206.00 | Check | Easy rider | Hanoi | 4.9 (152) |
| From Sapa, max 8 riders | 3 | $217.65 | Check | Easy rider | Sapa | 4.9 (407) |
| 3-day plus extra night | 3 | $185.32 | Check | Either | Hanoi | 4.8 (130) |
| Self-drive, 3 days | 3 | $201.95 | Check | Self-drive | Hanoi | 4.9 (125) |
Everything below was checked in August 2026 at a rate of about 26,000 VND to $1.
The circuit leaves Ha Giang city, climbs Bac Sum Pass into Quan Ba, then runs north through Yen Minh onto the Dong Van karst plateau before turning south at Meo Vac and dropping back down. That is roughly 350 km, or 217 miles, on roads that rarely hold a straight line for more than a few hundred metres.
Riders average 100 to 150 km a day, which sounds slow until you count the switchbacks. Three days is the standard sale, and it does cover the whole circuit. The four days versions add Du Gia, the side loops and time to actually sit at the viewpoints instead of photographing them from the saddle.
Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van and Meo Vac sit inside a border area, so foreign passport holders need a border area entry permit to ride through them. The paperwork is not new. Enforcement is: operators across the loop began telling customers that checks tightened from 1 June 2026, and several GetYourGuide listings now print the charge in their exclusions as a $10 fee paid on arrival.
One honest caveat. No published notice from Vietnamese immigration or the provincial police confirms that date, so treat it as operator practice rather than a law you can look up. In practical terms it makes no difference to you: send your passport details when you book, your guide files the permit, and you pay around 200,000 to 250,000 VND, roughly $8 to $10, at the start.
An easy rider is a local guide who rides the bike while you sit behind with a camera. Most people on the loop travel this way, and every operator on this page sells it. It is not a downgrade. You get the views, someone who knows where the gravel starts, and no negotiation with a police checkpoint.
Riding yourself is legal only with a motorcycle licence from home covering that engine size plus an International Driving Permit issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention. Police want both documents together, and checkpoints at Bac Sum and Yen Minh do impound bikes. Learning to ride a semi-automatic the morning you start is how people get hurt, and the roads north of Yen Minh are the wrong classroom.
The listed price usually buys the bike, the fuel, every meal, the homestay and hostel nights, and the sleeper bus from Hanoi and back. That is why a three-day tour at $186.90 is better value than it first looks: from the moment the bus leaves the Old Quarter you are not paying for anything else on a normal day.
What sits outside it is small and constant. Coffee stops appear every hour on the loop and none of them are included. Drinks, tips, souvenirs and the boat all come out of your pocket, which is why guides tell you to carry about 1,000,000 VND, roughly $38, in small notes. Card machines effectively do not exist once you leave Ha Giang city.
| Item | Usually included | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| Motorbike, fuel, guide | Yes | Nothing |
| Meals and homestay nights | Yes | Nothing |
| Hanoi sleeper bus, both ways | Yes on Hanoi departures | Nothing |
| Border permit | No | 200,000 to 250,000 VND, about $10 |
| Nho Que river boat | On some tours only | 120,000 to 150,000 VND, about $5 |
| Coffee, drinks, snacks | No | 50,000 to 100,000 VND a day |
| Tips for guide and rider | No | Whatever you think is fair |
The sleeper bus from Hanoi leaves around 21:00 and takes 6–7 hours, which puts you in Ha Giang city near 04:00. You sleep the rest of the night in the operator's hostel, eat breakfast, get a short lesson on the bike, and ride out around 09:00. Day buses exist and cost the same, and they are the better choice if you know you cannot sleep sitting up.
Coming from Sapa changes the maths. There is a trip built around that transfer, which saves you backtracking to Hanoi for a night you would otherwise waste. What that changes about the trip is worth a read if Sapa is already on your route.
September to November is the window worth planning around: the summer rain has stopped, the buckwheat flowers on the plateau in late October, and the air clears enough to actually see across the Nho Que gorge. March and April are the second-best stretch.
June and July are the wettest months of the year here, over 380 mm each, and a wet limestone road is a different vehicle under you. Fog is the one thing no season prevents. It can sit on Ma Pi Leng for a full morning in any month, and no operator will refund the view.
In the order most three-day itineraries hit them, riding anticlockwise out of Ha Giang city.
Itineraries vary by operator. Lung Cu and Du Gia are the two stops most often dropped when a tour is compressed into two days.
The circuit sits between 22.8 and 23.4 degrees north, against the Chinese border. Ha Giang city, at the bottom, is where every tour starts and ends.
Administrative note: Ha Giang stopped being a province on 12 June 2025, when it was merged into Tuyen Quang province. The route, the town and the tours are unchanged, and everyone still calls it Ha Giang.
Ha Giang city averages, from 20 years of reanalysis data. Rainfall is what decides the ride; the temperature barely moves between May and September.
Nights on the plateau run 8 to 10 degrees colder than these day figures, and Dong Van can drop near freezing in January.
People search for Ha Giang loop deaths, and the search is fair. The road is narrow, often has no barrier, and shares its width with trucks working the widening projects. Falls happen most days somewhere on the circuit. Almost all of them involve a rider who had never handled a semi-automatic before that morning, on gravel, going downhill.
Nobody publishes a casualty figure for the loop, and any site that quotes one is guessing. What can be said plainly: riding pillion with a local guide removes most of the risk that riders create for themselves, and a helmet that meets ECE or DOT standards is worth asking about before you book, because the standard-issue plastic shells are not that.
Check your travel insurance before you leave. Most standard policies exclude motorcycle riding entirely, and the ones that cover it usually require the licence and permit you would need to be riding legally in the first place. As a pillion passenger you are generally covered, but read the wording rather than assuming.
Your main bag stays behind in Hanoi or at the Ha Giang hostel. What comes on the bike is a small daypack, strapped down and wrapped in plastic, and you will not reach it while riding.
Dinner at a homestay is served family style at a low table, and it comes with corn liquor the hosts call happy water. Shots are poured for the table, and refusing after two or three is fine. Nobody takes offence, and riding hungover on Ma Pi Leng is worse than being the person who said no.
Accommodation is basic in the way that word actually means: shared rooms with mattresses along the wall, cold showers some nights, and a karaoke machine that runs until someone unplugs it. Tours that promise private rooms charge for them, and on the four-day trips that upgrade is usually worth the difference.
Two days is the compressed version. You see the plateau and Ma Pi Leng, and you skip Du Gia and most of the villages. It works if Vietnam has already eaten your calendar, and at $123.55 it is the cheapest way onto the road.
Three days is what almost everyone books. Four days changes the character of the trip rather than just adding distance: the side loops, the waterfall, longer stops, and enough slack that a fogged-in morning does not cost you a landmark.
Very nice tourguides and felt very safe with the drivers. The time in between the stops were just right. The tour was one of our highlights in Vietnam. Me and my partner's safe drivers stayed together the whole time so we could keep an eye on each other.
Great trip. Unreal value for money. Tony was safe and fun. Breathtaking views. I did the 2 day tour. Felt like that was plenty of time to do everything. I would recommend the sleeper bus.
Super great activity to be done by people of all ages. The motor bike riders and guides were excellent and always put safety first and saw to any of our needs. We became a complete family, young and old.
A tour sold as three days usually means two nights riding plus a night on the bus. Read the accommodation line before comparing prices.
Eight riders stop where they want. Twenty do not, and the last three arrive at every viewpoint as the first three leave.
The Nho Que cruise is included on some listings and sold at the pier on others. It is a small sum that tells you how the operator prices everything else.
Hanoi departures include the sleeper bus. Ha Giang departures assume you got yourself there, which is cheaper if you are already north.
If you want to ride, you need the licence and the IDP in hand before you book, not a plan to sort it out later.
Three nights in a shared homestay room after 150 km a day is the complaint that shows up most in reviews.
The same route, three ways of covering it. Cost differences below are on top of a standard three-day tour price.
| Easy rider | Self-drive | Jeep or car | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it suits | Anyone, no experience needed | Riders with real off-road-ish experience | Bad backs, bad knees, bad weather |
| Paperwork | None beyond the permit | Home licence plus 1968 IDP | None |
| Views | Best, your hands are free | You watch the road, not the gorge | Good, through glass or an open top |
| Risk | Carried by a local rider | All yours, and insurers know it | Lowest |
| Price effect | Included in listed prices | About the same, sometimes less | Adds roughly $30 to $60 a day |
Convertible jeeps run the same circuit and most operators will swap you into one if rain sets in, though not always at the last minute.
From $123.55 for the two-day trip to $231.25 for the four-day version, per person, including bike, guide, meals and accommodation. Add roughly $10 for the border permit and about 1,000,000 VND, near $38, in spending money.
Foreign passport holders need a border area entry permit for the districts the loop passes through. It costs 200,000 to 250,000 VND, about $10, and your operator files it from your passport details. Operators report tighter checks since 1 June 2026, though no official notice confirms that date.
Only with a motorcycle licence from home for that engine size plus an International Driving Permit issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention. Police check both together and checkpoints impound bikes. One tour here is sold specifically as self-drive, and the licence and IDP rules are set out in full.
A local guide who rides the bike while you sit behind. It is how most people do the loop, including on the most-reviewed trip on this page, and it needs no licence, no permit paperwork of your own and no experience.
The roads are narrow, unbarriered and shared with construction trucks, and falls are common among first-time riders. Nobody publishes a reliable death toll, so treat any number you see as invented. Riding pillion removes most of the risk, and travel insurance that explicitly covers motorbikes is worth the premium.
About 350 km, or 217 miles, through Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van and Meo Vac. Three days is standard, two days is the compressed version and four days adds the villages and the waterfall.
September to November, when the rain has stopped and the buckwheat flowers. March and April are the next best. June and July each average more than 380 mm of rain, and fog can close the Ma Pi Leng views in any month.
By sleeper bus, leaving Hanoi around 21:00 and taking 6–7 hours. It is included on every Hanoi departure here, both directions, and the six Hanoi trips are compared separately. Coming from Sapa instead, this trip is built around that transfer.
120,000 to 150,000 VND, roughly $5, for about 30 minutes through Tu San canyon. Some tours include it and some sell it at the pier, so check the inclusions before you assume.
A small daypack only, since your main bag stays in Hanoi or at the hostel. Pack warm layers for the plateau nights, waterproof shoes, a buff against the dust, sunglasses, any medication, and cash in small notes. Rain gear and helmets come from the operator.
Not officially. Ha Giang was dissolved as a province on 12 June 2025 and merged into Tuyen Quang province. Nothing about the route or the tours changed, and every operator, map and road sign still says Ha Giang.
Ha Giang Loop Motorcycle Tour