Vietnam
Dong Van Karst Plateau
Jagged limestone teeth ripping through the sky above indigenous villages clinging to the rock.
The road hangs on the cliff like a scar. Below, the Nho Que River is a thread of jade hundreds of metres down; above, limestone pinnacles tear through the sky. Every bend of the Ha Giang loop reveals another impossible composition — karst teeth, terraced valleys, and villages built into rock faces where the only flat ground is the kitchen floor.
The Dong Van Karst Plateau is a UNESCO Global Geopark spanning four districts of Ha Giang Province, its limestone recording over four hundred million years of geology. Seventeen ethnic groups — Hmong, Tay, Dao and Lo Lo among them — farm and trade across its heights. The Ma Pi Leng Pass was hand-carved into the cliff face by youth volunteers in the 1960s, its switchbacks hanging over two-hundred-metre exposure, and most travellers ride the loop over several days, village to village. Dong Van's market tradition draws communities from across the plateau to trade livestock, indigo textiles and corn wine, and the Lung Cu flagpole marks Vietnam's northernmost ground, metres from China.
Solo
The Ha Giang loop is one of Asia's great road journeys — days of cliff-edge passes, ethnic homestays and landscapes that make you stop the engine and stare.
Friends
Riding the loop in convoy, sharing corn wine at highland homestays and talking each other through the switchbacks — the trip you retell for years.
- The loop's switchbacks hang over two-hundred-metre drops with the Nho Que glinting below.
- Market days gather Hmong, Tay and Lo Lo communities in a riot of indigo, silver and beeswax batik.
- Homestays at Lung Cu sit beneath Vietnam's northernmost flagpole, metres from the Chinese border.
- The karst is UNESCO-certified — the rock in the road cuttings is four hundred million years old.
Buckwheat cakes, made from the tiny crop that colours Hà Giang's high plateaux.
Ấu tẩu porridge: a slow-cooked, gently bitter Hà Giang bowl finished with egg, meat and herbs.
Arenal & La Fortuna
Costa Rica
Hot springs steaming through jungle beneath a volcano's perfect cone at dusk.
Drakensberg
South Africa
Basalt walls rise above sandstone caves painted across thousands of years.
Parque Nacional Volcán Isluga
Chile
Volcanic horizons and high wetlands surround living Aymara settlements in the altiplano.
Sani Pass
South Africa
A switchback road climbs from green foothills to a high border above the clouds.
Hang Son Doong
Vietnam
A cave so colossal it generates its own weather system and jungle.
Con Dao Islands
Vietnam
A former island penal colony whose quiet beaches now belong to nesting sea turtles.
Chau Doc
Vietnam
Floating wooden houses where families raise thousands of catfish directly beneath their living room floorboards.
Ta Xua
Vietnam
A knife-edge mountain ridge where hikers walk above a solid ocean of morning clouds.