VIETNAM: THE LONG EXHALE

Vietnam: The Long Exhale

The Art of Retreat in Vietnam: thirteen unhurried days for a small group of women.
A stunning collaboration with Travelling Divas. 

Somewhere over the second or third day, it happens.
You are sitting quietly, doing nothing in particular, and you notice your shoulders have dropped.
Your breath has slowed. The list that has been running in your head for months has gone silent.

That is the moment this journey is built around. It begins the way every long exhale does, with a deep breath in.

Chapter one: Hanoi

You arrive in Hanoi and the city meets you with lantern-lit lanes and the hum of life that never quite stops.
At the Meritel Hotel, you put your bags down and, for the first time in a long while, nobody needs anything from you.

The women you will share the next thirteen days with are here too, a small group, still strangers.  In the morning, you gather on a rooftop above the city while Hanoi wakes below.

Then the city gives you its stories. You step into a private viewing of contemporary Vietnamese art, where the country’s leading women painters speak in colour and brushstroke. You visit the atelier of a slow-fashion designer who works alongside H’mong and Nùng An artisans, and you watch how patience becomes cloth. You spend an afternoon looking over boutique artisanal ceramics.

And one evening, you sit down to dinner cooked by Vietnam’s first female Michelin-starred chef.

Chapter two: Halong and Lan Ha Bay

Then the land falls away. You board Bhaya Soul, your boutique cruise, and the water opens up around you, emerald and still, with karst towers rising out of the bay like the backs of sleeping giants.

At dawn you are on the ship’s deck for sunrise meditation, wrapped in quiet, the whole bay turning gold.
After that, the day is yours to shape.
You might kayak through hidden lagoons, or lie back and watch the limestone drift by, or do absolutely nothing at all.

Chapter three: Phong Nha

From the water, you travel into the green. Phong Nha is limestone jungle, and AUKO Eco Lodge, a bamboo eco-lodge suspended above the Son River, is where the journey turns earthy and deeply still.

Here the rituals are old and gentle. You soak your feet in a wild-herb foot bath. You lie back for a sound ritual while the jungle hums around you. You can slip into a silent meditation cave, or take a cliff-top plunge, or move through a hydrotherapy circuit.

And beside the water, you learn a traditional Dưỡng Sinh breathing class, an ancient way of doing exactly what this whole journey is about: breathing out, slowly and completely.

Chapter four: Hoi An

Your last stop is the softest.
A private pool villa at Namia River Retreat waits on a quiet islet outside Hoi An, where the river moves slowly and the days stretch out.

You wander the UNESCO-listed ancient town. And as the light fades, you board a lantern-lit dining cruise along the old spice-trade river, glowing lanterns on the water, long conversations at the table with the women who arrived as strangers.

Nothing is compulsory

Throughout the journey, everything is there when you want it, and nothing is required of you.
The kayaks, the caves, the plunges, the circuits and the ancient town are all yours to choose.
So are the long afternoons doing absolutely nothing.

Because the point of this journey is not to see more. It is to arrive home restored.

Why a women’s journey?

Something special happens when women travel together without the usual roles to play.
You can simply be present, supported and surrounded by people who understand the need to pause.

You do not need any wellness experience or to be a seasoned traveller for this journey.
Whether your idea of restoration is movement, meditation, water, sound or simply stillness, you only need to be ready to slow down.

We would love for you to join us on this stunning Vietnam journey.
We depart in June 2027 for 13 extraordinary nights. *Please take a look at the details below for how..

Vietnam: The Long Exhale . Women-only wellness journey.

Vietnam: The Long Exhale . Women-only wellness journey.

Vietnam: The Long Exhale . Women-only wellness journey.