A Hanoi scooter tour means sitting on the back of a motorbike or an old Vespa while a local driver takes you round the city for three or four hours, usually stopping to eat a lot along the way. You don’t drive. You just hold on, look around, and get off when the food comes.

It’s one of the things I tell nearly every first-time visitor to do. I ride myself now, but for my first months here I only ever went on the back, and that’s where I think visitors should stay. Most people are nervous for the first ten minutes and then can’t stop grinning, and it shows you a side of the city you won’t see on foot.

Quick Answer: A Hanoi scooter tour is a guided ride on the back of a motorbike or Vespa with a professional driver, usually 3 to 4.5 hours and $40 to $100 depending on the company and the booking site. It’s safe enough for most people because you’re a passenger and don’t drive, and nearly everyone stops being scared within the first few minutes. Most tours are food tours by default, so book a sightseeing tour if you want fewer food stops.
Safety: you ride pillion behind a trained driver, helmets provided. Driving yourself in Hanoi is a different and much riskier thing.
Tour types:
- Food tours: 4 to 6 food stops, eating is the main event.
- Sightseeing tours: Long Bien Bridge, Train Street, the mausoleum, West Lake, fewer food stops.
- Evening tours: around 6pm to 10pm, food, bia hơi, Train Street, live music.
- Early morning and countryside tours: flag-raising at the mausoleum, villages, rice fields.
- Female-led tours: women drivers and guides, popular with solo women travellers.
Companies: Vespa Adventures (vintage Vespas, about $65 to $119), Hanoi Backstreet Tours (Minsks, Vespas and jeeps, about $37 to $85), Motorbike City Tours (led by women, about $43 to $48).
Prices: the same tour can cost $25 more on one booking site than another. Check two before booking.
Weekend evenings: all motor vehicles, electric included, are banned from the lake and Old Quarter walking area from 7pm to midnight, Friday to Sunday. Ask how the route works.
Bring: long trousers, an appetite, your own raincoat, a phone more than a big camera.
Cyclo as the alternative: Slower and shorter, but allowed in the weekend car-free zone. A fair price is around 100,000 to 200,000 VND an hour.

You’ll notice I’ve linked to a few hotels and activities I used or recommend, you can even highlight any text to check prices and book instantly. If you make a booking through them, I receive a small commission, which really helps support the work I do here, at no additional cost to you.

Is a Hanoi Scooter Tour Safe?

The traffic looks insane from the pavement, and I understand anyone who watches it for five minutes and decides there’s no way they’re getting on a bike. But the people who say it’s dangerous are almost always talking about driving yourself, and that’s a completely different thing.

On a tour you’re a passenger. The driver does this every day, knows the city, and is paid to get you round in one piece. You don’t have to watch the road, you watch everything else. Driving yourself in Hanoi, especially without much experience, is where the real risk is, and I wouldn’t suggest it to a visitor. If renting a bike is on your mind, that’s a separate decision, with much bigger risks, and a tour isn’t practice for it.

The usual pattern is the same for almost everyone I’ve sent on one. The first few minutes, especially the first big junction, are scary. Then you notice that nobody’s actually going very fast, that everything flows round everything else, and that your driver is completely calm. By the second or third street most people have relaxed, and by the end they’re taking selfies with one hand.

On the bike, you hold the rail behind the seat or the driver’s waist, whichever feels better, and nobody minds either. The main thing is to sit still and lean with the bike on the corners. If it’s too fast for you, say so. The drivers are used to it and will slow down without making a thing of it.

Everyone gets a helmet, which is the law here and everybody follows it. The bigger companies have a guide who rides along to sort out the traffic and keep the group together, and if a bike breaks down, a replacement turns up quickly. If you’re tall or heavy, it helps to mention it when you book, because the smaller bikes aren’t comfortable for everyone.

Hanoi Scooter Tour — Scary from the pavement, relaxing as a passenger

Food Tour or Sightseeing Tour?

This is the choice that matters most, and it’s easy to get wrong. Most Hanoi scooter tours you’ll find are food tours by default. That means four to six stops to eat, bún chả, phở cuốn, bánh gối, egg coffee, bia hơi, with the riding in between. If that’s what you want, they’re brilliant, and you should arrive very hungry, because you won’t finish everything.

A typical evening goes something like a bowl of something hot at a street corner, a ride across town, grilled things on a tiny stool, another ride, something sweet, and then a beer or an egg coffee to finish, with the guide explaining what everything is and how to eat it.

If you want to see the city more than eat it, you need a tour that’s sold as sightseeing, or ask the company to change the plan before you book. A sightseeing ride goes further out: over Long Bien Bridge, along the road between West Lake and Truc Bach, past the mausoleum and the Temple of Literature, sometimes down to the sandbanks by the Red River. There’s usually a coffee stop and one meal, and a lot more time on the bike. Those places are covered in the historical places in Hanoi if you want to read up first.

If you’re in Hanoi for a few days, a food tour on the first evening works really well, because the next few days you’ll already know what to order. The dishes they usually stop for are the same ones in the best street food in Hanoi.

Why the scooter tour actually makes sense 5 scaled Vietadvisor — Eating across Hanoi vs. seeing the city

Check the scooter food tour with 7 tastings

Which Hanoi Motorbike Tour Company?

There are a lot of small operators, but three come up again and again, and I’d be happy sending a friend with any of them. For a first Hanoi scooter tour, the company matters less than picking the right type of tour and the right time of day, so it’s fine to choose on price, bike style or which tour time fits.

Vespa Adventures

Vintage Vespas, drivers who are very careful, and a polished, slightly upmarket feel. Their evening tour is the one people talk about, with food, rice wine and live music at the end. They’re the most expensive of the three, roughly $65 for a short morning ride to around $100 for the evening tour, more for a full day.

Hanoi Backstreet Tours

Old Soviet Minsk motorbikes as well as Vespas and army jeeps, run from Hàng Tre in the Old Quarter. The guides are known for being funny and chatty. It’s a bit cheaper, from about $37 for a two-and-a-half-hour ride to around $55 for the four-hour tour, and they do a summer early-morning Minsk ride and countryside trips too.

Hanoi Backstreet Tours 5 scaled Vietadvisor

Motorbike City Tours (Led by Women)

A smaller company where all the drivers and guides are women, which a lot of solo women travellers and families like. Their three-hour tours are around $43 to $48, they’re flexible about private times, and some of their bikes have a backrest on the passenger seat, which helps on a long ride.

Female-led tours have become a proper thing in Hanoi, with several companies offering them, so it’s not hard to find one if it matters to you.

There are also tours run by university students, which are cheaper and very friendly, with drivers practising their English and happy to talk about anything. They’re less polished than the big companies, and the bikes are ordinary scooters, but a lot of visitors end up liking them more for exactly that reason. Most companies will also do a private tour at a time that suits you, which suits a family or a couple.

Day, Evening or Early Morning?

Most tours run in the morning, the afternoon or the evening.

Evening tours are the most fun, I think. The traffic is at its liveliest, the street food is all out, and the city looks great lit up. They usually go from about 6pm to 10pm, with a stop at Train Street and maybe bia hơi or a bar with music at the end. The rest of what Hanoi does after dark is in Hanoi nightlife.

One thing to know: the roads round Hoan Kiem Lake and the Old Quarter walking area are closed to every kind of motor vehicle from 7pm to midnight on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, electric bikes included. An evening tour on a weekday isn’t affected. On a weekend evening, I’d ask the company how their route works after 7pm, because they’ll have to go round that part of the old town.

Early morning tours start before dawn and catch the flag-raising at the mausoleum, Long Bien Bridge in the first light, and breakfast at a local market. They’re short, two hours or so, and the city at that hour is a nice surprise.

Countryside tours head out past the edge of the city to villages, rice fields and places like Co Loa or Bat Trang, on small roads with a lot less traffic, and they’re a good choice for anyone still nervous about the centre.

The weather makes more difference than people expect. A midday tour in June or July is hard work, with the sun on you every time you stop at a light, so in summer I’d pick the morning or the evening. In winter the evenings are cool on the back of a bike, and a jacket helps. Tours run in rain, which can be fun in a light shower and miserable in a downpour.

The B 52 Lake in Ba Dinh scaled Vietadvisor — Morning, evening, or countryside

The Food Stops. 2webp scaled Vietadvisor — Morning, evening, or countryside

What a Hanoi Vespa Tour Costs

There isn’t really one price. Most four-hour tours land somewhere between $55 and $75, shorter ones around $37 to $65, and a full day around $85 to $95.

The odd part is that the same tour can cost quite different amounts on different sites. The same evening Vespa tour can be over $25 cheaper on one booking site than on the company’s own website, and for another company the prices are almost the same everywhere. So I’d look at the price on the company’s own site and on one of the big booking sites before choosing, and also check the group size, since a cheaper version sometimes means a bigger group.

Booking through the hotel is fine, though sometimes you don’t find out which company you’re going with until they turn up. Most tours can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before.

The price usually covers pickup from an Old Quarter hotel, the helmet, a raincoat, and on food tours all the food and some drinks. Tips aren’t included, and a tip for the driver and the guide at the end is normal and appreciated, more so if they’ve looked after you well.

What a Hanoi Vespa Tour Costs 2 Vietadvisor — Usually $55-75, depending on where you book

What a Hanoi Vespa Tour Costs Vietadvisor — Usually $55-75, depending on where you book

Check the Food, Culture, Sightseeing by Jeep Tour

Before You Go

Long trousers are the thing to wear, or at least something that covers your calves. The exhaust pipe on a scooter gets very hot, and touching it with a bare leg while getting on or off is a classic first-week burn here, so common it has a nickname, the Hanoi Kiss. Getting on and off from the left side, away from the exhaust, avoids it.

Going hungry helps. People who eat a big lunch before a food tour always regret it.

The companies hand out ponchos when it rains, but a proper waterproof of your own is better, the ponchos don’t keep much out. A phone is plenty for photos, a big camera just gets in the way on the back of a bike, and the guides are good at taking pictures of you anyway.

And ask your guide a lot of questions. The best part of these tours is usually the chat, about their family, their neighbourhood, where they actually eat.

Age isn’t much of a barrier. Older parents do these tours and love them, as long as getting on and off a bike a dozen times isn’t a problem, and children ride too, with smaller helmets.

For anyone with a bad back, the stop-start and the bumps add up over four hours, and a shorter two-hour ride is the gentler choice.

When I’d Skip the Scooter Tour

If you’re truly frightened of the traffic, and not just nervous, four hours on a bike can be four hours of not enjoying it. A walking food tour covers the Old Quarter just as well, and in Hanoi most food tours are on foot anyway. For something in between, some companies run electric scooter tours in bigger groups, which are quieter and slower.

I’d also skip it on a day of heavy rain, or in the middle of a very hot summer day, and move it if the weather allows. A good tour on the right day is much better than a soggy one on the wrong day.

Scooter Tour or Cyclo?

Cyclos, the bicycle rickshaws, get a bad name, and some of it is deserved. A driver agreeing 50,000 VND and asking for ten times that at the end is a real and common story. But they’re not useless.

There are official cyclo routes now, with published prices, and a fair rate is roughly 100,000 to 200,000 VND an hour. Since the cyclo has no engine, it’s also one of the few ways to ride round the lake and the Old Quarter on a weekend evening, when the motorbikes can’t go there.

The difference is distance. A cyclo is slow, gentle and stays in the old centre. A scooter tour covers far more ground in an afternoon and goes places a cyclo never could. For a first trip, I’d do the Hanoi scooter tour, and if you also want a slow ride round the old streets, a cyclo booked through your hotel or a one-hour sightseeing cyclo tour with the price agreed upfront avoids the haggling at the end.

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