Outbound tours continued to gain favor among Vietnamese travelers planning vacations for the upcoming Lunar New Year or Tet holiday next month with local travel firms reporting a 15 to 20 percent increase in bookings for overseas trips.

The apricot and peach trees in early bloom signal the advent of Vietnam’s biggest holiday of the year, or Tet. Around the country, families are preparing glutinous rice and other ingredients to make banh chung and banh tet for this Lunar New Year.

In commemoration of 2009, we're thrilled to reveal our top nine destinations to watch in the coming year. The creation of this list involved a procession of difficult decisions, but we looked beyond perennial favorites to find destinations that are truly coming into their own in 2010 -- places where you'll find special events or great deals, or simply places that haven't (yet!) been discovered by the masses.

Tinh Bien, a border gate bounded by Cambodia in the Mekong Delta, is a large trading center attracting thousands of traders, shoppers and visitors.

At a time when the Vietnamese diaspora heads home to celebrate Tet, the Lunar New Year, the trend of going abroad for the holiday has strengthened over the last few years.

Wide sunflowers and other flowers swaying in the breeze and the sweet sound of running water in the distance are waiting for you at the site of Yaly Hydropower Plant and Dam in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai this season.

Sitting on the bus for dozens of hours to cross thousands of kilometers to go from the South to the North is exhausting. Therefore, travel agents are offering sleeping bus programs for a more economical and relaxing journey.

All Christmas items are available at the hotel’s Lobby Lounge Christmas Counter.

To coincide with the first Mekong-Japan Tourism and Culture Festival, taking place in Can Tho City (December 2-5), Sacatours travel agency introduces two tours revealing significant cultural features of the Mekong Delta.

The age-old traditions of the Red Dao people, a hill tribe known for its medicinal culture and expert herbalists, infuse an all natural spa in the mountains.