Every question, in one place

Seven nights is the point where a trip stops feeling like a transfer between airports. Four nights works if you stay in one region. Fourteen lets you take the country end to end without spending every second day in a vehicle.

Under four nights, we would rather you spent them all in Luang Prabang and its valley than tried to add a second region.

Cheaper than Thailand and Vietnam for food and guesthouses, and more expensive than both for transport, because distances are long, roads are slow and there are fewer operators competing on each route.

Budget USD 85 to 115 per person per day for a simple trip run properly, and USD 130 to 190 for the standard most people book.

Late February to late April is agricultural burning season. Visibility in the northern valleys drops for weeks at a time and the mountain views most people come for simply are not there.

July to September is the wet season. That one we are much less worried about - the rain is heavy but usually short, the country is green, and prices fall.

We plan and run the Laos part, and we will help you time the border crossings, but we do not sell the other countries. Operators who sell four countries at once know one of them well.

The most common combinations we build the Laos half of are Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang by slow boat, and Four Thousand Islands to Cambodia by road.

All eight run as private departures on your own dates, which is how most of them sell. We also open a small number of set departures in the high season, capped at eight travellers.

A private departure for four people usually costs about the same per head as a set departure, because four is already enough to fill the vehicle.

Yes, and most people do. Adding or removing a night, swapping a drive for a river leg, or starting from a different town are all normal requests.

The one change we push back on is compressing a route. A ten-day itinerary run in seven is not a shorter version of it, it is a different and worse trip.

We will decline and say so quickly, rather than splitting you into two vehicles and calling it a small group. Above eight, the whole logic of how we run trips stops working.

We are happy to recommend operators who handle groups of 12 to 30 properly, and we have no financial interest in doing so.

Not international ones. We book domestic Lao flights on your behalf at cost when an itinerary needs one, and we add them as a separate line so you can see the fare.

For international flights, booking direct with the airline gives you protection we cannot offer as an intermediary.

Usually one of three things: our vehicle is genuinely private and theirs is shared, our guide is on every day and theirs is on half of them, or their itinerary contains shopping stops that pay them and cost you time.

Send us the other quote. We will tell you which of the three it is, and if it turns out they are simply better value for what you want, we will say that too.

The price tables already do it. Each row of the table is a group size, and the per person figure falls as the row goes down, because the fixed costs split further.

Above eight travellers we do not quote at all, so there is no bulk rate beyond that point.

The balance, yes, in cash on arrival at the exchange rate published by BCEL on the day. The deposit has to come by bank transfer or card in USD.

The kip has moved a long way in recent years, so we quote and hold prices in USD to stop the currency becoming part of the negotiation.

Yes, and it is the hotel's number rather than ours - typically USD 25 to 60 per night depending on standard and town. We pass it through at cost.

Solo travellers also carry the vehicle and guide alone, which is the larger effect. A solo trip runs about 60 per cent above the per-person price for a group of four.

For November to February, three to five months ahead. It is not that Laos sells out but that the twenty or so good small hotels do, and they are what makes the difference between a fine trip and a good one.

For the rest of the year, four to six weeks is comfortable, and we have put together perfectly good trips in eight days.

Yes. A guide and vehicle for a day or two, a slow boat booking, or airport transfers on their own are all things we sell.

Below about three days of services the admin costs more than we make, so we charge a small handling fee and tell you what it is up front.

You confirm by email that you accept the itinerary and the booking terms. There is no separate contract to print and sign.

The itinerary document you accept is the contract, which is why it names hotels and guide days rather than describing them in general terms.

The sliding scale is in the booking terms and starts at more than 30 days before your first service, when you get everything back except supplier costs already committed, itemised so you can see them.

If you cancel because of something we did or failed to do, you get all of it back, including the committed costs. We absorb those.

The public slow boats have a good record. They are slow, they run in daylight only, and they stop when the water is wrong. Life jackets are on board, though not usually worn.

The separate speedboat service on the same route is a different matter and we do not sell it under any circumstances.

It has improved a lot. It is a single steep street of guesthouses that exists because the boat stops there, and the electricity supply can be uneven, but the rooms we use have hot water, mosquito screens and a river view.

The morning market from 06:00 is genuinely good, and most people are glad they got up for it.

Yes, and it costs the same. Upriver takes slightly longer - around eight hours on day one and seven on day two - because you are working against the current.

Leaving Laos this way is a good way to end a trip if you are heading for Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai afterwards.

Faster downstream and browner. The river is high from July to September, which means more debris and occasional cancellations after heavy rain upstream.

It still runs most days. We would not choose August for this journey, but we would not refuse to run it either.

Yes, on the marked paths. Cleared ground is indicated by white concrete markers, and the rule is that you stay on the side of the marker the path is on. The cleared areas at all three sites are large and clearly defined.

Away from the marked areas the province still has unexploded ordnance in it, which is exactly why the markers exist. Do not walk off the paths and do not pick anything metal out of the ground.

If you are interested in archaeology, in twentieth-century history, or in seeing a World Heritage site with a handful of other people on it, yes.

If you want a spectacular photograph and a short visit, no, and we would rather tell you that now. The plateau rewards slow attention more than it rewards a camera.

There are flights between Vientiane and Xieng Khouang, and using one in each direction turns this into a two-night trip with no long drives.

Schedules change with little notice and the aircraft are small, so we build a road fallback into every flight-based itinerary rather than assume the flight will go.

Phonsavan sits at about 1,100 m and the winter nights drop to 5 to 10 degrees, occasionally lower. December and January mornings are genuinely cold by Southeast Asian standards.

Bring a fleece and expect the hotel heating to be a single electric heater. The daytime is usually a pleasant 20 to 24 degrees.

Three nights is our recommended minimum and four is comfortable. Two nights means the town and nothing else, and the valley around it is at least half of what makes the place worth the flight.

Beyond five nights people usually want to add Nong Khiaw or the Nam Ou, which is a different trip and a good one.

Only if you are prepared to do it properly: stand well back on the opposite side of the street, no flash, no kneeling in the line, and do not buy sticky rice from the vendors who sell it to tourists to offer.

It is a religious observance rather than a display, and it has been damaged by mass photography. Our guides will brief you and will not take you if you would rather do it any other way.

Yes, in the lower pools, which have changing huts. The water is cold - it comes off limestone - and the mineral content is what makes it that colour.

Going early is the difference between a swim and a queue for a photograph on the fallen tree.

December and January are genuinely busy, and the night market and the peninsula restaurants fill up. The temples and the morning market do not.

The whole itinerary is timed to be somewhere else when the coaches arrive, which is the only real answer to the question.

Yes. When the Hin Boun river is high the boats stop, sometimes for several days, and in the driest weeks of April the water can be too low to float a loaded boat through the shallow sections.

November to March is reliable. We monitor the river before the trip and would move your dates rather than drive you there for nothing.

Yes. The motorbike version is a rite of passage and a good one, but the landscape is the same from a vehicle and you arrive able to walk.

What you lose is the freedom to stop anywhere, which is why our driver stops wherever you ask rather than at a fixed list.

Completely. The head torch reaches perhaps twenty metres, the roof is often out of range above you, and for most of the passage the only sounds are the engine and water.

There are lit sections near both ends with walkways. The middle is not lit and will not be.

Easily. Thakhek to Pakse is about four hours on Route 13, which makes a ten-day trip combining this loop with the Bolaven Plateau and the Four Thousand Islands.

That combination is the one we would recommend for a second visit to Laos, once the north has already been seen.

By air from Vientiane, around an hour and a half, or from Bangkok via Ubon Ratchathani and the Chong Mek land border, which is about two hours from the Thai airport.

By road from Thakhek it is four hours and from Vientiane about eleven, which we would only recommend as part of the fifteen-day route.

At 1,200 metres it drops to 12 to 16 degrees at night in December and January, and the plateau is often in cloud in the morning.

Bring a fleece. The daytime is comfortable, usually 22 to 26 degrees, which is a relief after Pakse.

Don Khon for the bridge, the falls and the walking, with better accommodation than its neighbour. Don Khong is bigger, has more locals than visitors and a slower feel again.

Don Det is the backpacker island. It is fine, and it is not what most of our travellers are looking for.

Yes, and it is a good way to end. The border at Nong Nok Khiene is 15 km from Nakasang, and Stung Treng is two hours beyond it.

We handle the Lao side and arrange the onward driver. The Cambodian visa is your own to obtain, and we will tell you what it costs and what to have ready.

Two days of five to six hours with 400 to 700 metres of ascent, on trails that are steep and uneven rather than technical. No ropes, no exposure, no altitude.

If you walk regularly at home for three hours in hills, you will be fine. If you do not, tell us and we will build a version with one village night and shorter days.

A mattress on a wooden floor with a mosquito net and a blanket, in a room in the family house or in a purpose-built room beside it. Washing is a bucket or a shared shower block. The toilet is usually a squat toilet.

Meals are what the household eats, which in practice means sticky rice, a soup, greens, and something from the river or the forest. Tell us in advance about dietary restrictions and we will make them work.

It can be, and that is why the rota matters. The villages set the terms, the payment goes to the village fund and the host household, and the guide is from the district rather than from Luang Prabang.

What we ask of you: ask before photographing anyone, do not hand out sweets or money to children, and follow your guide on where you may and may not walk.

Leeches from June to October on the forest sections, in numbers. They are harmless and unpleasant, and long socks plus repellent handles most of it.

Mosquitoes are worse in the valley than on the ridges. Malaria risk in this part of Laos is low but not zero - ask a travel clinic at home rather than us.

Yes, at the same price. Upriver takes about an hour longer on each of the two boat days, and you finish at Huay Xai for the crossing to Chiang Khong and on to Chiang Rai.

Most people prefer it in the direction shown because arriving in Luang Prabang by river on day two is the best moment of the trip and it works better early.

The train is faster and more comfortable, and the stations are a long way from both town centres, so the time saved is smaller than it looks. Tickets have to be bought a few days ahead and sell out in high season.

We book either. If the train is full we use the expressway, which is genuinely quick since it opened.

Not in the way it was a decade ago. The river bars were closed after a series of deaths and the town has repositioned around climbing, caving, kayaking and balloons.

There is still a nightlife strip and you can avoid it entirely. The landscape was always the reason to come and it has not changed.

Drop the slow boat and fly into Luang Prabang, which turns this into eight days, or drop Vang Vieng and Vientiane and take the northern trek instead.

What we would not do is run all six stops in seven days. That is four transfer days out of seven and the trip stops being worth taking.

For this list of places, yes, at this pace. It is not enough to add the Thakhek loop, Phongsaly in the far north, or the Vietnamese border provinces in the east.

If you have eighteen days, the Thakhek and Konglor extension is the one we would add, and it replaces the flight with a drive.

Vientiane to Pakse by road is about 680 km and eleven hours, on a road with heavy truck traffic. Flying costs USD 110 to 160 and saves two days of the trip.

If you would rather drive it, we split it at Thakhek and you get a night in central Laos, which is not a bad consolation.

Yes, and it works well if you are arriving from Cambodia. The pricing is the same, and the slow boat becomes the last two days rather than the first two.

The one thing we would keep is arriving in Luang Prabang from the water, so in reverse we usually reorder slightly rather than mirror the itinerary exactly.

Yes. We use regional guides - a northern guide to Vientiane, a southern guide from Pakse - because a guide who grew up in Xieng Khouang knows things about the Plain of Jars that no amount of study replaces.

On the comfortable option we can put one guide with you the whole way if you would rather have continuity. It costs more and, in our view, you get less.

Luang Prabang, without much hesitation. Three nights there gives you a town, a valley, a waterfall and a river, and the airport has direct flights from Bangkok, Hanoi, Chiang Mai and Singapore.

The runner-up is Nong Khiaw, if walking matters more to you than architecture.

On a second visit, absolutely. On a first visit of under twelve days, we would say no, and we would rather tell you that than sell you the flight.

The south is quieter and slower, which is exactly why it needs time it usually does not get on a first trip.

Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in December and January, and both are manageable if you are in the right places at the right hours. Nowhere else in Laos is what most travellers would call crowded.

The Plain of Jars gets a few dozen visitors a day at Site 1 and almost none at Sites 2 and 3.

Yes, everywhere except the Vientiane to Pakse leg, which is 680 km and eleven hours of road. Everything else is a comfortable day or less.

The Vientiane to Luang Prabang railway made the centre and the north much easier, though the stations are a long way outside both towns.

For the town and the two main excursions, yes. Four gives you an unscheduled afternoon, which most people end up valuing more than another sight.

Adding a fifth night is usually better spent as two nights at Nong Khiaw, three and a half hours north.

Very, from about 18:00 in high season, and it is more textile stalls than food. The food alley behind it is better and cheaper.

If you want handicrafts rather than souvenirs, the arts centre shop and the weaving villages across the river are where to look.

Not to walk around. You do need one to understand what you are looking at - the difference between a sim and a hor kong, why Xieng Thoung's roof reaches the ground, what happened to the monarchy in 1975.

We use guides who are from the town, several of whom were novices in the monasteries they show you.

Yes, in the lower pools, which have changing huts. The water is cold and the colour comes from dissolved limestone.

Go before 09:00 or after 15:30. Between those hours it is a queue for a photograph on a fallen tree.

Yes. The road is rough and most traffic still comes by river, and the village itself has not changed much - one street, no cars to speak of, and walks to Ban Na and the caves within an hour.

Go by boat rather than road. The hour on the water is half of what you are paying for.

Four to six hours a day on steep, uneven village trails, with 400 to 700 metres of ascent on the harder days. No technical ground and no altitude.

The limiting factor for most people is heat and humidity rather than fitness, which is why October to February is the season.

A mattress on a wooden floor with a net and a blanket, a shared shower block or a bucket, and meals with the family. Simple and clean rather than rustic-charming.

They run on a rota set by the villages so the income moves between households. That arrangement is the reason we use them.

Not as a through journey any more. The dams broke the route into sections and the long upriver trip that used to run to Hat Sa no longer exists in that form.

Phongsaly is reachable by road via Oudomxay, and it is a long two days from here.

There is a nightlife strip and you can walk past it. The river bars that made the reputation were closed in 2012 and have not come back in that form.

Most visitors now are couples, families and Asian tour groups rather than the backpacker crowd of fifteen years ago.

They are commercial flights operated locally with a good record, but the regulatory framework is lighter than you would find in Europe or the United States, and you should assume your travel insurance may not cover them.

Check your policy before you book one. We can arrange a flight but we will not tell you it carries no risk.

Yes, in a much tamer form: a tube, a stretch of river, and a couple of bars rather than a dozen. It is a pleasant two hours in the dry season.

In the wet season the river runs fast and we would not do it.

Train if you can get a ticket - an hour rather than an hour and a half, and more comfortable. Add 30 to 40 minutes at each end for the stations.

Road if you want to stop, or if you are carrying luggage that makes the station transfers annoying.

For most trips, yes. COPE, one or two temples and a good dinner fits comfortably into an afternoon and an evening.

Two nights make sense if you arrive late, if you want Buddha Park, or if you are catching an early flight and would rather not rush.

Khao piak sen for breakfast, larb and grilled river fish for dinner, and a baguette from a street cart at some point because the bread here is genuinely good.

The riverfront night market is fun rather than excellent. The food is better on the side streets a block back.

Buddha Park, 25 km downstream, is the standard half day and is worth it - a field of concrete Hindu and Buddhist sculptures made by a mystic in the 1950s.

Vang Vieng is now close enough by train to be technically possible as a day trip, and it is a bad idea. Stay the night.

Yes, in the central area and along the river. Vientiane has a low rate of violent crime and the usual advice about bags and phones applies as it would anywhere.

Pavements are uneven and unlit in places. A torch on your phone is more useful than any security precaution.

Most likely mortuary practice. Human remains, burial goods and secondary burials have been found around and under them, which supports the idea that bodies were placed in the jars during decomposition and the bones interred afterwards.

Local tradition says they were made to brew rice wine for a giant's victory feast, and your guide will tell you that version too, because it is part of the place.

At the cleared sites, on the marked paths, yes. Clearance organisations have worked the visited sites for decades and the boundaries are well marked.

Off the paths and away from the sites, the province still has unexploded ordnance in it and people are still injured every year. Follow your guide exactly.

Yes. One full day covers the three open sites and the MAG centre, and a half day covers Muang Khoun on the way out.

A third night only makes sense if you are continuing east into Vietnam and want to break the journey.

No, but from Vientiane the drive is nine hours and the flight is forty minutes, so most people do one leg by air.

From Luang Prabang the road is seven hours and genuinely good, and we would drive it rather than fly.

The arabica from above 1,200 metres is, and it is getting better as more producers move to washed and natural processing.

The robusta that makes up most of the volume is ordinary, which is true of robusta almost everywhere. Buy from a farm rather than a roadside stall.

12 to 16 degrees at night at Paksong in December and January, occasionally lower, with mornings in cloud. Days are 22 to 26 and pleasant.

Guesthouses give you a blanket. Bring a fleece and do not expect heating.

Yes, and it is a long day: about four hours of driving for Tad Fane, Tad Yuang and one farm.

One night at Paksong turns that into a much better trip for very little money, and the plateau morning is the part people remember.

It is a good ride if you are an experienced rider on loaded bikes and comfortable with Lao road conditions. If not, it is the most common way visitors get hurt in southern Laos.

We support riders with a luggage vehicle rather than rent bikes, and we say honestly that we would rather you took the vehicle.

Don Khon for most people: quiet, walkable, connected to Don Det by the old railway bridge, and with the falls and the railway on it.

Don Khong if you want somewhere with more ordinary Lao life and fewer visitors. Don Det if budget and company matter more than quiet.

No. The resident group on the Lao side is gone, and the last known individual died in 2022. Any surviving animals in this stretch are on the Cambodian side.

Trips are still sold. We do not book them and we will explain why if you ask.

Yes, at Nong Nok Khiene, 15 km from Nakasang. It is straightforward with the right paperwork and tiresome without it.

We handle the Lao side and arrange a driver for the far side. The Cambodian visa is yours to obtain.

A day and a half of things: cycling Don Khon, Khone Phapheng, Li Phi, and boats between the islands.

The third day, if you take one, is for a hammock, and people who plan for that enjoy the place much more than people who do not.

In the worst weeks of March, yes. Air quality in northern towns can reach levels that would be reported as a health event in Europe, and mountain views simply are not there.

It varies year to year and week to week. Some Marches are much better than others, and nobody can tell you in advance which kind you will get.

Rarely. The pattern is a heavy downpour for an hour or two, usually in the afternoon, and a clear evening. Whole days of rain happen but are not the norm.

August is the exception, when multi-day systems come through and roads occasionally close.

On the Xieng Khouang plateau at 1,100 m and on the Bolaven at 1,200 m, 5 to 12 degrees at night in December and January. In the northern valleys, 8 to 15.

Vientiane and the south stay above 18 at night. Heating is rare everywhere, so pack a fleece if you are going high.

June to September, when hotel rates fall 30 to 50 per cent in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. Guides, vehicles and boats barely change.

That means the saving is real but smaller than a hotel-rate comparison suggests, because transport is the larger part of a trip cost here.

Yes, if all four are in one place. Luang Prabang with its valley is a genuinely good four-night trip and people leave satisfied.

Four nights spread across three towns is not worth it, and we would rather say that than sell it.

Technically, using a flight in the middle, and we would advise against it. Ten nights split between two halves of a long country means four transfer days.

Twelve to fourteen makes it reasonable. Fifteen makes it good.

Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, 3.5 hours for 140 km. Luang Prabang to Phonsavan, 7 hours for 260 km. Vientiane to Pakse, 11 hours for 680 km.

Those are with stops and are realistic rather than optimistic. Average speeds in the northern mountains are around 40 km per hour.

For the Vientiane to Luang Prabang corridor, yes - it turns eight hours of road into under two hours of train, and it makes Vang Vieng easy to reach.

It does not help with the Nam Ou, the Plain of Jars or anywhere in the south, which is most of the country.

Four to six is typical. We cap at eight and departures with fewer than three travellers are usually merged with another date or converted to a private trip at the group price.

We tell you the current number when you ask, and we will tell you if it is likely to grow.

Yes, and it is a good way to control cost. Take the group route for the long legs and add private days at either end.

The Luang Prabang and Nong Khiaw extensions are the two most people add.

No. We use the same hotels for both, at the same standard you choose. The difference is the vehicle and the guide, not the rooms.

Group departures do have fixed hotel choices, where a private trip can substitute.

Eight people, five to fifteen days, in a country where the days are long. It happens occasionally and the guide is trained to manage it.

If it is genuinely not working we will split the itinerary and give you separate transport, and we will absorb the cost the first time.

No. Every route connects, most often through Bangkok, Singapore, Hanoi or Seoul.

Bangkok to Luang Prabang is around two hours and has several daily flights, which makes it the easiest connection to build around.

If you like trains, yes. It is an overnight sleeper to Nong Khai and a short hop across the bridge, and it costs a fraction of the flight.

If you are short of days, fly. The journey takes the best part of a day either way.

The Cambodian crossing at Nong Nok Khiene, for informal charges on both sides. It is a few dollars rather than a serious problem, and asking for a receipt usually settles it.

Where we handle the crossing, you pay only the official visa fee.

Airlines occasionally ask for proof of onward travel when boarding to Laos, though Lao immigration rarely does.

If you are leaving overland, a printed itinerary from us showing your exit date and border has always been accepted.

The main routes are paved and in reasonable condition. The risk is not the surface, it is the mix - livestock, overtaking, unlit vehicles after dark and mountain bends.

Our drivers do not drive after dark on mountain sections, which is the single most effective safety rule available.

We would not. They travel overnight on mountain roads, the beds are shared doubles, and the saving over a flight or a private vehicle is small once you lose a night of sleep.

If budget forces it, take a day bus instead.

Through an agent, at the station a few days ahead, or via the official app if you can make the payment work with a foreign card, which is often the sticking point.

We book them for our travellers as part of the trip. In high season they sell out three to five days ahead.

Between the main towns, yes. Minivans and the railway connect Vientiane, Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang comfortably.

Off that corridor it gets much harder, and the places worth going - the Nam Ou villages, the Plain of Jars sites, the Konglor valley - are where a vehicle and a guide change the trip most.

At the international airports and the main land crossings, yes, for most nationalities. At small remote borders, often not.

Confirm your own nationality's position on the official immigration site before you travel, because the eligible list changes.

Broadly USD 30 to 50 depending on nationality, paid in cash at the border, plus a small charge if you do not have photographs.

The e-Visa adds a processing fee on top of the same visa cost.

A fine per day of overstay, collected in cash when you leave. It is applied consistently and there is no discretion at the counter.

Extensions are simple to arrange in Vientiane if you know in advance that you will need one.

Yes. Our booking terms require it, and for the trekking itineraries it has to cover walking at altitude and remote evacuation.

We do not sell insurance and are not authorised to. Buy it at home, where the policies are better.

Yes, and it is often the best use of a budget. One excellent room in Luang Prabang and simple rooms elsewhere is a better trip than a uniform middle standard.

Tell us where you want the money and we will move it there.

A handful, almost all in Luang Prabang, and one or two elsewhere. They are genuinely good.

Outside those, the ceiling is a very nice small hotel. A trip planned on the assumption of five-star rooms in every town will not work.

We book at contracted rates, which is standard in the industry, and our margin is in the trip price rather than in which hotel you choose.

That is why we will happily book a cheaper hotel you have found yourself and adjust the price down.

Standard in the lowlands and in most simple rooms. In the mountains it is often absent because it is not needed.

On the Bolaven and at Phonsavan, ask about heating rather than cooling.

Only a visit to a conservation and rescue project where the animals are not ridden and visitors observe rather than handle.

No riding, no bathing, no camps. This is not negotiable and it does not change with the size of the booking.

On established paths and with a local guide, yes, and that is how millions of Lao people live their lives.

The risk comes from walking off paths, digging, or picking up metal objects. Follow your guide exactly and the risk is negligible.

Not sweets, pens or money for children. If you want to contribute, ask your guide before the trip and we will tell you what the village fund actually needs, which is usually school materials bought locally.

Buying something a household makes, at the price they ask, is better than a gift.

Ask the guide, on the trip, how they are paid. Ask the homestay host how the rota works. Both will tell you.

And count the shopping stops in your itinerary before you book. That number is the most reliable indicator in this industry.

Yes, licensed and registered in Lao PDR, with our guides and drivers employed or contracted here rather than subcontracted to a third party.

Our registration and licence numbers are in the footer and on the booking terms page.

For a day trip from Luang Prabang, you can and it will be fine. For a multi-region trip in high season, the hotels and the good guides are taken, and you will be choosing from what is left.

The other difference is what happens when something goes wrong at 22:00 in a town you do not know.

Yes. Ask, and we will connect you with two or three from your own country who took the trip you are considering. We stay out of the conversation.

It is a better test than any review page, and it is the reason we do not have one.

The fix happens first - our guides are authorised to spend money to solve a problem without calling the office - and the accounting happens afterwards.

If the trip was materially worse than what you bought, we refund the difference, calculated from supplier costs rather than the headline price.

One working day for a first quote, usually less. We are on GMT+7, so European and American enquiries are generally answered overnight.

If you have not heard from us within two working days, the message did not arrive - please resend or call.

Yes, and for a complicated trip a fifteen-minute call saves four emails. Tick the call-back box on the form and tell us your time zone.

We will still put everything in writing afterwards, because a quote you cannot read is not a quote.

Usually, though more slowly. Anything from a traveller currently in Laos is answered at any hour on any day.

Guides carry the emergency number and it is monitored around the clock during your trip.

Yes, during office hours. Almost nobody needs to, and nothing about a booking requires it.

If you happen to be in town before your trip starts, we are glad to meet and go through the itinerary in person.

Seven nights is the point where a trip stops feeling like a transfer between airports. Four nights works if you stay in one region. Fourteen lets you take the country end to end without spending every second day in a vehicle.

Under four nights, we would rather you spent them all in Luang Prabang and its valley than tried to add a second region.

Cheaper than Thailand and Vietnam for food and guesthouses, and more expensive than both for transport, because distances are long, roads are slow and there are fewer operators competing on each route.

Budget USD 85 to 115 per person per day for a simple trip run properly, and USD 130 to 190 for the standard most people book.

Late February to late April is agricultural burning season. Visibility in the northern valleys drops for weeks at a time and the mountain views most people come for simply are not there.

July to September is the wet season. That one we are much less worried about - the rain is heavy but usually short, the country is green, and prices fall.

We plan and run the Laos part, and we will help you time the border crossings, but we do not sell the other countries. Operators who sell four countries at once know one of them well.

The most common combinations we build the Laos half of are Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang by slow boat, and Four Thousand Islands to Cambodia by road.

All eight run as private departures on your own dates, which is how most of them sell. We also open a small number of set departures in the high season, capped at eight travellers.

A private departure for four people usually costs about the same per head as a set departure, because four is already enough to fill the vehicle.

Yes, and most people do. Adding or removing a night, swapping a drive for a river leg, or starting from a different town are all normal requests.

The one change we push back on is compressing a route. A ten-day itinerary run in seven is not a shorter version of it, it is a different and worse trip.

We will decline and say so quickly, rather than splitting you into two vehicles and calling it a small group. Above eight, the whole logic of how we run trips stops working.

We are happy to recommend operators who handle groups of 12 to 30 properly, and we have no financial interest in doing so.

Not international ones. We book domestic Lao flights on your behalf at cost when an itinerary needs one, and we add them as a separate line so you can see the fare.

For international flights, booking direct with the airline gives you protection we cannot offer as an intermediary.