tropicalholiday | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

May

Visiting Vietnam’s underrated regions: travel tips, budget airlines and hot hotels: Canberra Times

This trip to Vietnam, I’ve turned my back on the big cities – Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang; even tourist-loving Hoi An, and definitely Ha Long Bay.

Instead, I’ve begun my exploration of Vietnam’s waterways in the imperial city of Hue, in central Vietnam, continuing south to the fishing village of Ke Ga, and further south again to Can Tho, in the Mekong Delta.

For a floating breakfast with a difference, I’m on a boat cafe in the Mekong Delta, continuing my exploration of Vietnam’s breakfast soups. This morning, it’s a bowl of bún nước lèo, a deep broth with prawns, calamari, noodles, shredded banana blossom – to name a few things – on a pink boat at Can Tho’s early morning markets.

In Hue, I take a step back to 1930s Vietnam, where whitewashed columns and geometric tiles meet claw-foot baths and four-poster beds at the Azerai La Residence. There’s a flair and love of embellishment here that sings to me – the round windows and curved balustrades, the high ceilings and dark timber floors. We’re on the Perfume River, home of the last imperial family of Vietnam, which the sun sets over as dragon-headed longboats sail by. Yep, it’s hot. This is low season in central Vietnam but, selfishly, I’m ok with that.

And for the most beautiful tropical modernist hotel, try the Azerai Ke Ga Bay, on Vietnam’s southern coastline. It’s only 180km east of HCMC, but once off the freeway, the pitted local roads are a danger to loose molars.

To read more, see my feature for the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age newspapers’ Traveller section, visit https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/i-skipped-the-big-cities-for-vietnam-s-charming-less-visited-waterways-20250423-p5ltq9.html

If you’re after more Vietnam travel tips, I’m also sharing my great hotel tip, which offers cultural tourism without the hefty price tag, and another budget tip of new flights from Melbourne into Hanoi with Vietnamese low-cost carrier VietJet, azerai.com, vietjetair.com – you can hear more on this episode of my travel podcast, The World Awaits – just click on this link or the player below.

Oct

Budget isles: cheap stays on Australia’s islands

This was going to be my year of the islands. My list included a food festival on Tasmania’s Flinders Island, a visit to another Bass Strait island, King Island, where my grandparents farmed the land after WWII, and Queensland’s sparkly jewels were also on the list.

My latest story, published this week in the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, is in response to a recent story that Australia’s millenials don’t enjoy travelling around their own country because it’s expensive and boring (if you want to delve more deeply into it, have a look here).

Yeah, we’re never going to be another Bali, because we have minimum wages, we try to discourage exploitation of animals etc etc. But you can still camp on Whitehaven Beach, internationally lauded as one of the world’s most beautiful beaches (that’s a debate for another time), for under $40 a night.

From Kangaroo Island in South Australia to Magnetic Island off Townsville on the Queensland coast, here are a few suggestions to get you going. One thing to remember: islands are islands and therefore take a bit more work to get to. But while you’re kayaking through turquoise waters, or flying over a pod of dolphins to get to said island, isn’t the journey as important as the destination?

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Visiting Vietnam’s underrated regions: travel tips, budget airlines and hot hotels: Canberra Times

Budget isles: cheap stays on Australia’s islands