I had dreamed of travelling around Vietnam for many years. Sailing Halong Bay, riding sleeper trains into the deep north, sipping coffee in Hanoi and crawling through war tunnels. The only small hurdle to this vision of lazy independent wandering was that I was no longer a solo backpacker. My travelling entourage now included my wife and two kids aged 13 and 11. Still, when the travel siren called I knew I had to act, so the plan quickly morphed. I would don my old backpack, pack up my family and hit the road, spending less time in dorm-bed hostels than I had once envisaged.
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