It has long been on our bucket list to do a tour of the DMZ and other American war historical sites in Central Vietnam. After some Google searching, I found this company.
Culture Pham helped arrange a tour of the DMZ with the lovely Miss Thach. She is the guide that took Anthony Bourdain on the same experience. I communicated that we would be traveling with two children, and both the tour company and Miss Thach were great at making sure the kids were comfortable.
The DMZ tour started with a stop at Our Lady of La Vang, which we had not heard of. This site is a major point of interest for Catholics, as it was the site of a Virgin Mary sighting. We then picked up our guide, Miss Thach, and traveled to the former Khe San Combat Base. After lunch and we went to the DMZ and crossed the bridge over the river that once divided North and South Vietnam. We finished the day with a tour of the Vinh Moc tunnels. Miss Thach is well-known to the families that still live there, and it was sweet to see her interact with them. We appreciated her insight throughout the tour, and she is very knowledgable and able to give a locals perspective on the war.
The next day, we arranged for a tour of Hue that would then transfer us to our next hotel in Hoi An. Our guide for this day was Miss Van (aka Fi) who was really energetic and sweet to our children. We did a really well-paced tour of several tombs, the Perfume River, a pagoda, and the Citadel. This was an excellent way to see the highlights of Hue in a few hours. Van arranged an excellent lunch for us. After we dropped off Van, the driver took us to our next hotel in Hoi An as scheduled.
I had such a great experience setting up these private tours with Culture Pham that I reached out to them while I was staying in Hoi An. During the Hoi An leg of our trip, Culture Pham arranged a driver to take us to the My Son ruins, dinner and Da Nang, and a drop off at the Da Nang airport.
I really appreciated Culture Pham's communication and clear outline of expectations in the form of a document with tour stops and prices. This is a really communicative and professional company. I found the guides to be excellent, the prices good, and the flexibility in setting up custom tours to be remarkable. I've already told all my friends to use Culture Pham!