The School Holiday Trap (And How We Ended Up Booking Vietnam)

We came back from a big overseas trip earlier this year genuinely convinced we’d slow down for a while.

Financially, that would have been the sensible thing to do.
But then the post-holiday blues kicked in.
Not dramatic sadness. Just that particular flatness that sets in when you go from:

• anticipation
• planning
• movement
• actual family memories being made

…straight back into school lunches, back-to-back work meetings, after-school activities, laundry, and the quiet dread of the next school holidays already appearing on the horizon.

When you’ve got two kids and not much family support around you, school holidays don’t just happen. They require planning. Usually expensive planning. You’re either organising holiday programs, burning through annual leave, juggling two work calendars, or just trying to get everyone somewhere before the walls start closing in.

Honestly, that’s probably part of why this blog exists.

Because once we started looking at school holiday costs in Australia again, we had the same reaction we seem to have every single year.

Accommodation. Food. Petrol. Activities. Parking. School holiday surcharges on everything.

It adds up at a pace that genuinely catches you off guard, even when you’re expecting it.

And while Australia has plenty of beautiful places — we’re not dismissing that — we’ve also ticked off most of the predictable nearby options over the years. Bali. Fiji. Cruises. Short interstate trips. The resort holiday that felt like everyone else’s resort holiday.

We wanted something that still felt new. Not luxury travel. Not backpacking. Not a chaotic 14-city itinerary that leaves everyone more exhausted than when they left.

Just somewhere genuinely different.

That’s how Northern Vietnam slowly entered the conversation.

Why Vietnam? Honestly, It Started With a Flight Price Search
It wasn’t even the obvious choice at first.

We were doing what most working parents do in the lead-up to school holidays: comparing flight prices, running leave calculations, and trying to work out whether an affordable international trip was actually possible without completely emptying the annual leave balance we’d already taken a significant chunk from earlier in the year.

That last part mattered more than people might expect.

After nearly a month off earlier in 2026, we knew we weren’t in a position to just casually disappear again. We had to think carefully about leave balances, work relationships, and whether we could actually switch off properly on a shorter trip — or whether the guilt would follow us there.

The instinct, when you start looking at flights, is always: “Well, if it costs roughly the same to fly there anyway, shouldn’t we just stay longer and make the most of it?”

We’ve fallen for that logic before.

But when you sit with it honestly, the extra days aren’t actually free. More nights means more accommodation, more food, more transport, more annual leave — and if you’re already pushing goodwill at work, more background anxiety that quietly undercuts the whole point of getting away in the first place.

There’s a version of holiday planning where trying to maximise the trip actually reduces your enjoyment of it. We’ve lived that version. We didn’t want to repeat it.

Choosing Northern Vietnam Only (And Why That Felt Like the Right Call)
So instead of trying to do all of Vietnam in one go — which is its own kind of trap — we simplified.

Northern Vietnam only.

Hanoi. Ninh Binh. Cat Ba Island. Lan Ha Bay.

Enough variety to feel like an adventure. Enough structure to not feel like a logistics operation.

And the more we researched it, the more Northern Vietnam started to feel like exactly the kind of trip we’d been quietly craving: limestone mountains rising out of rice fields, ferry crossings, an overnight cruise, chaotic city streets, plastic stools, genuinely good street food, and somewhere that still feels meaningfully different from home.

For school holiday travel from Australia, it ticked the things that actually matter to us: interesting enough for adults, accessible enough for kids, and genuinely more affordable than most people assume when they’re considering an international family holiday.

The Planning Rabbit Hole (That Became Part of the Fun)
Once we’d settled on the destination, the planning itself became a project we both got quietly absorbed in.

Skyscanner rabbit holes. One-way flight combinations. Annual leave calculations mapped against school holiday dates. Weather research — Vietnam’s regional climate is surprisingly complicated. Working out whether it was smarter logistically to fly home from Hanoi or Hai Phong.

Eventually we landed on:

AirAsia: Sydney → Kuala Lumpur → Hanoi (inbound)
VietJet: Hai Phong → Ho Chi Minh City → Sydney (outbound)
Which makes the routing slightly unconventional, but works well for the itinerary we’re building — and kept the flight costs at a level we could actually justify.

The trip is now officially booked. And honestly, just having something on the calendar again — something to research, plan for, and look forward to — already feels like a small win.

Next up: How we mapped out the Northern Vietnam itinerary for two adults and two kids — what we kept, what we cut, and what the school holiday dates actually dictated.

Frequently Asked Questions
Is Vietnam a good family holiday destination from Australia?
Yes — and it’s more accessible than many Australian families expect. Northern Vietnam in particular suits families well: the pace is manageable, kids’ menus exist in most tourist areas, and the visual variety (mountains, rice fields, harbour cruises) holds attention across age groups. The main adjustment is the heat and the road noise in cities like Hanoi.

How long does it take to fly from Sydney to Hanoi?
Via a connecting hub like Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, total travel time is typically 12–15 hours depending on your layover. Budget carriers like AirAsia and Scoot service this route. It’s not a short haul, but it’s manageable with kids if you plan around overnight legs or daytime connections.

Can you do a Northern Vietnam trip with limited annual leave?
A 10–12 day trip covering Hanoi, Ninh Binh, and Lan Ha Bay is very achievable. If your school holidays fall in a good window, you can often minimise the leave days required by flying on the weekend brackets.

Is Vietnam affordable for Australian families?
Generally, yes. Accommodation, food, and local transport are significantly cheaper than comparable experiences in Australia or other regional destinations. International flights are the main variable cost, but with budget carrier options, a family trip to Vietnam can come in well under what a comparable week at a domestic resort costs.

What’s the best time of year for a Northern Vietnam school holiday trip from Australia?
The July school holidays align reasonably well with Northern Vietnam’s summer season — it’s humid and occasionally rainy, but not the wettest period for the north. The September–October window can also work well. January summer holidays are trickier, as it’s cool and misty in the north, which suits some travellers and not others.