Our favorite Laos tours and excursions

If destinations and accommodation are the bread and butter of a great vacation, a hands-on cultural experience is the secret sauce that brings it all to life.

We know that not everyone likes the idea of organized fun. You don’t need your hand held – we get it. But we also know that we’d bet our bottom kip that even the most die-hard independent travelers will fall for our incredible guides, whose in-depth knowledge and personal stories make every experience special.

The reason we can be so confident is because we’re independent travelers ourselves, and we know there’s nothing worse than coughing up for a cultural class or guided tour only to find that it feels inauthentic and touristy. That’s why we only recommend experiences we’ve personally road-tested and absolutely loved – no cookie-cutter day trips, no lackluster guides, and no doing something just because everyone else is.

In Laos, that means trekking up 100 waterfalls to picnic off banana leaves against the backdrop of the Nam Ou River Valley. It means cycling around the islands of the Mekong, stopping to watch craftsmen weaving bamboo and eating dinner with a local family. It means swapping Luang Prabang’s World Heritage architecture for its rural fringes, exploring the minority villages and tumbledown temples that line the banks of the Mekong.

We can take you beyond the standard tourist sites, but it takes the knowledge of a local to bring those places to life – and these experiences are the way to do it.

Ancient streets of Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang has seen numerous cultures come and go in its 1,500 years, but what makes it so special is the way it has fuzed those traditions together to create something completely new.

With a guide to point out the most interesting details, you’ll start to see them everywhere: plaited bamboo houses opposite elegant French-style balconies; Italian marble steps topped by three-headed elephants; traditional Lao motifs mingled with Beaux-Arts flourishes. This tour is all about understanding the complex web of historic influences that make Luang Prabang so dazzlingly unique.

Trekking in Nam Et Phou Louey National Protected Area

Nam Nern night safari

By night, the jungle comes alive with the hoots, squawks, screeches and chirps of a whole new cast of characters.

Head out under cover of darkness to experience this hidden world, traveling by boat as your guide’s spotlight searches the undergrowth for sambar deer, spotted linsang, pythons and civets. Spend the night at an ecolodge, listening to stories around the campfire, then return by daylight accompanied by brilliant blue kingfishers and red jungle fowl – a whole new wildlife experience. This is jungle exploration with a difference.

Man trekking through the forest of Nam Et-Phou Louey

Nam Et-Phou Louey trek

If you want a real adventure (and we’re talking the old-fashioned kind, complete with creepy crawlies, strenuous exercise, and lots of sweat) this one’s for you.

Get away from civilization and deep into the world of the jungle, spending nights in Khmu minority villages and remote camps, keeping your eyes peeled for sightings of white-cheeked gibbons, sambar deer, and Indian bison. This is a tough trek with incredible rewards, including summiting the third-highest peak in Laos and spotting endangered animals in their natural habitat. Life doesn’t get more wild and wonderful than this.

Meet the ethnic groups of Muang La

In the hills around remote Muang La, undisturbed by the modern world, the Khmu live in teakwood stilt houses, the Hmong raise pigs and buffalo, and the Ikhos produce dyes made with plant extracts foraged from the forest.

Traveling by 4x4 between their villages, you’ll have the chance to interact with people who rarely meet tourists and learn about the many cultural differences between these ethnic minorities. Then, to round it all off, hike up to a waterfall with spectacular views across the mountains. This is a rare opportunity to dove into the authentic life of the countryside in a breathtakingly beautiful part of Laos.

Cruising on the Upper Mekong

Where the Lower Mekong is broad, slow, and pulsing with life, the Upper Mekong is faster, narrower, and altogether more remote.

Until 2015, there weren’t any overnight river cruises at all, and even now you can sometimes sail for hours without seeing another boat. Cruising up here is an amazing way to see some of the most inaccessible parts of the country, scrambling up muddy banks or climbing steep bamboo staircases to tiny hamlets of tin-roofed houses. In between, there’s little to do but gaze at the steep-sided limestone mountains cloaked in green foliage – and that’s more than good enough for us.

MandaLao Elephant Sanctuary

We’ve seen a lot of wildlife sanctuaries in our time, and this one might be the very best.

Looking after retired working elephants in conditions as close to their natural habitat as possible, the dedicated people at MandaLao have made it their mission to improve the lot of Laos’s dwindling elephant population through ecotourism. This is a chance to interact with one of the world’s most magnificent creatures in a way that makes a positive difference to their future – and we can’t recommend it enough.