The north, without the shopping stops
Most north island tours are a chain of commission stops with a beach at the end. This one has four real places in it, eight seats in the vehicle, and nowhere that pays us to bring you.
At a glance
- Duration
- One day, 08:00 – 17:30
- Group
- Max 8 in the vehicle
- Starts
- Hotel pick-up from 08:00
- Ends
- Back at your hotel by 17:30
- Difficulty
- Easy, some uneven ground
- From
- USD 58 per person
Who this day is for
This is the day for people who have already worked out that Phu Quoc is an island with an interior, and who want to see the part of it that is still agricultural. It also happens to be the trip that works when the sea does not, which is why we sell it every month of the year.
The north of the island is a different landscape from the resort strip. Red laterite roads, pepper trellises three metres high, cashew and rubber, and a national park boundary that begins abruptly where the farms stop. The road out to Ganh Dau has been improved to the point where the drive is no longer the ordeal it was ten years ago, and the villages along it — Cua Can, Ganh Dau, Rach Vem — have not yet been rebuilt.
We will be direct about the commission problem, because it defines this trip on this island. A standard north island tour stops at a pearl farm, a sim wine house, a fish sauce outlet and a honey shop. Each one pays the operator between 30,000 and 80,000 dong a head and sells at roughly double the price of the same product in Duong Dong market. We take none of it. That is why this trip costs USD 58 rather than USD 25, and why the fish sauce house we visit is one where you can walk between the vats.
The day, hour by hour
| Time | What happens | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 08:00 – 08:45 | Hotel pick-up, north to south order | Your hotel |
| 09:15 | Pepper farm — trellises, harvest, drying floor, a tasting | Khu Tuong |
| 10:30 | Fish sauce house — the vats, the anchovies, the 12-month cycle | Duong Dong outskirts |
| 11:45 | Ganh Dau headland, the westernmost point of the island | Ganh Dau |
| 12:30 | Lunch at a village restaurant on the beach | Ganh Dau |
| 14:15 | Rach Vem — stilt houses, starfish shallows, a coffee | Rach Vem |
| 15:45 | Cua Can river mouth, optional 45-minute paddle | Cua Can |
| 16:45 – 17:30 | Back at your hotel | Your hotel |
If the tide is wrong for the starfish — and it is wrong about a third of the time — we say so at 08:00, not at 14:15, and we lengthen Ganh Dau instead. Starfish sit in 30 to 60 cm of water and are only visible on a low, calm tide.
Day by day
Across the north of the island by road
The vehicle is a 16-seat van with eight seats sold, air conditioned, with the back row left empty. Total driving is about 95 km and just under three hours, broken into four legs, none longer than 50 minutes.
The pepper farm at Khu Tuong is a working smallholding of about two hectares. You walk the rows, see the drying floor, and taste green, black, red and white pepper off the same vine — the difference is entirely in when it is picked and how it is dried, which takes about four minutes to explain and permanently changes how you cook. Nothing is on sale at the farm gate at tourist prices; if you want pepper we will stop at the market on the way back where it is a third of the price.
Ganh Dau is the westernmost point of Phu Quoc and on a clear day you can see the Cambodian coast about 25 km off. Lunch is at a village place on the sand — grilled squid, morning glory, rice, and a soup that changes with what came in that morning. Rach Vem in the afternoon is a fishing hamlet built out over the water on stilts, and the starfish that give it its nickname sit in the shallows off the northern shore.
Prices
| Group size | Shared seat, per person | Private car, whole vehicle |
|---|---|---|
| 1 traveller | USD 78 | USD 145 |
| 2 travellers | USD 68 | USD 165 |
| 3 – 4 | USD 62 | USD 195 |
| 5 – 8 | USD 58 | USD 245 |
What the price includes
- Air-conditioned 16-seat van with a maximum of 8 passengers
- An island guide, not a driver acting as one
- Pepper farm and fish sauce house visits, both without a sales stop
- Lunch at Ganh Dau — seafood, vegetables, rice, soup
- Coffee at Rach Vem, drinking water throughout
- All hotel transfers on the island, including the far north
What it does not include
- The Cua Can paddle, USD 14 per person if you want it
- Anything you choose to buy at the market stop
- Alcohol at lunch
- Travel insurance
- Tips
Gallery
Who this tour is not for
- People who want to shop. There is deliberately no pearl farm, no sim wine house and no honey outlet on this route, and adding them is not something we will do.
- Anyone who cannot manage 2 to 3 km on their feet across a day, some of it on sand and uneven boardwalk.
- Travellers who want a beach day. There is swimming at Ganh Dau if you want it, but this is a road trip with four stops, not a day on the sand.
- Anyone hoping to guarantee starfish at Rach Vem. It depends on tide and swell, we check the tide table the night before, and we tell you the odds before you leave.
- Groups of nine or more, who need two vehicles and therefore lose the point of the trip.
Questions travellers ask most
Does this trip run in the rainy season?
Yes, and the north is arguably better then — the interior is green, the streams are full and the light is better for photographs. Rain in the southwest monsoon usually comes in two or three heavy hours rather than all day.
The one thing that changes is the Cua Can paddle, which we stop selling when the river is running fast, roughly August to early October.
Can we swap Rach Vem for somewhere else?
On a private vehicle, yes — Bai Thom in the northeast, or the Vinpearl complex if that is what you actually want, though we will tell you honestly that we are not the right company to take you around a theme park.
On a shared vehicle the route is fixed, because eight people have to agree.
Is the Ganh Dau lunch included, and can you handle dietary needs?
Included. Vegetarian is straightforward and we do it every week. Vegan is possible with 48 hours' notice — fish sauce is in almost everything by default here, and the kitchen needs warning to cook without it. Severe shellfish allergy is workable but tell us at booking, because the kitchen is small and cross-contamination is real.
How much walking is there really?
Two to three kilometres total, in four separate stretches, none longer than about 900 metres. The pepper farm is flat but uneven, the Rach Vem boardwalk has gaps in it, and Ganh Dau involves soft sand. It is manageable with a stick; it is not manageable in a wheelchair, and we would rather say so now.
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Tell us what you want out of the island
Dates, party size and the places you care about are enough to start. You get a draft route and an indicative price, not a brochure.