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A popular weekend escape from HCMC, Vung Tau rocks at weekends when beach-starved locals and expats descend in numbers, but it is relatively quiet during the week. The city enjoys a spectacular location on a peninsula, with ocean on three sides; the light and sea air make it a refreshing break from sultry Saigon.

A large, prosperous coastal city, Quy Nhon (pronounced ‘hwee ngon’) boasts a terrific beach-blessed shoreline and grand boulevards. Its seaside appeal and tidy, litter-free streets make it the kind of place that affluent Vietnamese couples choose to retire to, spending their final days ocean-gazing and promenade-walking.

Cat Tien comprises an amazingly biodiverse area of lowland tropical rainforest. The 72,000-hectare park is one of the outstanding natural treasures in Vietnam, a true jungle, and the hiking, mountain biking and birdwatching here are the best in the south of the country. At weekends and public holidays it gets busy with domestic tourists – it's worth calling ahead to book the most popular excursions.

Just 3km north of Hoi An, An Bang is one of Vietnam’s most happening and enjoyable beaches. At present there's a wonderful stretch of fine sand and an enormous horizon (with less of the serious erosion evident at Cua Dai), and with only the distant Cham Islands interrupting the seaside symmetry. Staying at the beach and visiting Hoi An on day trips is a good strategy for a relaxing visit to the area.

A French-era hill station, this national park reaches a peak of 1450m at Bach Ma mountain, only 18km from the coast. The cool climate attracted the French, who built over a hundred villas here. Not surprisingly the Viet Minh tried hard to spoil the holiday – the area saw some heavy fighting in the early 1950s and again during the American War.

Isolated from the mainland, the Con Dao islands are one of Vietnam's star attractions. Long the preserve of political prisoners and undesirables, they now turn heads thanks to their striking natural beauty. Con Son, the largest of this chain of 15 islands and islets, is ringed with lovely beaches, coral reefs and scenic bays, and remains partially covered in tropical forests. In addition to hiking, diving and exploring deserted coastal roads there are excellent wildlife-watching opportunities, such as the black giant squirrel and endemic bow-fingered gecko.

Towering limestone pillars and tiny islets topped by forest rise from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1994, Halong Bay's scatter of islands, dotted with wind- and wave-eroded grottoes, is a vision of ethereal beauty and, unsurprisingly, northern Vietnam's number one-tourism hub.

Ha Tien may be part of the Mekong Delta, but lying on the Gulf of Thailand it feels a world away from the rice fields and rivers that typify the region. There are dramatic limestone formations peppering the area, which are home to a network of caves, some of which have been turned into temples. Plantations of pepper trees cling to the hillsides. On a clear day, Phu Quoc Island is easily visible to the west.

Tay Ninh town, the capital of Tay Ninh province, serves as the headquarters of one of Vietnam’s most intriguing indigenous religions, Cao Daism. The Cao Dai Great Temple at the sect’s Holy See is one of Asia's most unusual and astonishing structures. Built between 1933 and 1955, the temple is a rococo extravaganza blending the dissonant architectural motifs of a French church, a Chinese temple and an Islamic mosque.

South of Hanoi, Ninh Binh province is blessed with natural beauty, cultural sights and the Cuc Phuong National Park. Highlights include boat trips amid karst landscapes at Tam Coc and the Unesco World Heritage-listed Trang An Grottoes.