About this guide

Who makes this guide

ha-long-bay.org is an independent guide to Vịnh Hạ Long (Ha Long Bay) in Quảng Ninh, Vietnam. It is written for visitors who want plain answers before they go: how to get there, which boat and route to choose, when the weather is kind, and what each cave, island and village is like.

The guide has no connection with the bay’s World Heritage management board, UNESCO, the government of Quảng Ninh or any cruise, hotel or tour business. Nobody has paid for a mention.

How facts are checked

Facts come from primary sources wherever they exist: decisions and notices of the Ha Long Bay - Yen Tu World Heritage Management Board and the government of Quảng Ninh, World Heritage records, Vietnam’s national climate tables and satellite sea-temperature records, and reporting in Vietnamese national newspapers.

When sources disagree, the guide uses the most recent official figure and says so where it matters. Fees, timetables, prices and opening details change, so each page shows the month its facts were checked, and its sources are listed at the foot of the page.

The guide does not claim that its writers visited, and it publishes no reviews, ratings or traveller stories. The photographs are real photographs of the bay by named photographers, each credited on the photo credits page.

No ads, no bookings, no links

The guide sells nothing. It carries no advertising, takes no commission and has no booking buttons. It links to no other website either: sources are written out as plain references, so you can look them up yourself. The Google map and the YouTube films load only when you choose to open them; once a film is playing, YouTube may show its own adverts, which the guide does not choose and earns nothing from.

Visits are counted by Cloudflare without cookies or a tracking script, so there is no cookie banner.

Corrections

When a fee, a route or an opening changes, the page that covers it is corrected and its checked month moves forward.

If you spot something that has changed or is wrong, write to contact@ha-long-bay.org and say which page it is on. A photo of the notice or the name of the source makes it quicker to check.