WOW. I lucked out in finding a travel specialist for a once in a lifetime trip for my Dad and sister’s family. I’ve always planned out my trips but this time, I decided to search for someone to help since we had a large group and an aggressive agenda hitting multiple cities in Vietnam. To be honest, I originally was just looking for a driver to get the family around to all the cities. I reached out to Asia Pioneer via their website and Stella responded immediately asking what I had in mind. She worked patiently with me to craft out the itinerary, gave me options to consider, advised me on a lot of details I wouldn’t have known. Once we finalized the agenda, she provided a detailed proposal and cost which was reasonable. From there, she did all the work from booking transportation, hotels, flights, EVERYTHING! The guides for each leg of my trip were knowledgeable, flexible, accommodating, super genuine and nice. We did activities and things that I wouldn’t have normally done or even thought of but definitely made the trip for the family, especially the kids. I can’t say this enough, if you get Stella, SHE IS AMAZINGLY THOUGHTFUL! She took care of every detail including knowing it was my sister’s 50th birthday during the trip and she surprised her with a cake during lunch. I would definitely be using Asia Pioneer Travel again and work with Stella when I travel back in SE Asia.

I can’t say enough good things about the tour that Asia Pioneer put together for us. My dad was in the war and has wanted to go back, so we took my whole family (8 of us and 4 were 14-20). The trip was flawless. There was nothing that went wrong and the itinerary was perfect and the price is unbeatable.

We had a wonderful experience with Asia Pioneer Travel (APT). I was traveling to Vietnam for a conference and my wife and I wanted to do some sightseeing afterwards. We were not sure how to navigate the country on our own. We found high ratings for APT on TripAdvisor so wrote to them. We received a response from Chloe almost immediately. We had indicated some places we thought we wanted to see (based on some information from my conference’s website), including going to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. Very quickly, Chloe provided us with a potential tour plan, including many details to let us know what would happen. Most of it suited our needs, but we asked for something else and Chloe modified the plans immediately!

The actual tour matched the planned tour very closely and was great! After talking to some friends, we asked for a somewhat minor adjustment to one day, and Chloe made that happen as well (at a small additional cost).

Our tour guides were very friendly, informative and helpful. In some cases their accent was difficult for us to understand, but that was very minor. We learned a great deal and saw some amazing places, including Ha Long Bay, Da Long and Hoi Ann, Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. In addition, the food was amazing! We were able to eat at some of the best places in the cities we visited and the menus were all planned for us.

Having (air-conditioned) transportation was indispensable and made moving through the country carefree. The tour included an overnight cruise in Ha Long Bay and flights to move across the country and into Cambodia. The drivers were careful and friendly and always provided us cold water (which was needed, because Vietnam and Cambodia are very hot and humid in late June!). One even provided us with cold, wet clots to help cool down quickly when returning to the car.

We highly recommend Asia Pioneer Travel to anyone looking to create a customized and personalized trip to Southeast Asia!

We used Asia Pioneer (known as Indochina Pioneer at that time, just before COVID changed travel February 2020) for a trip to Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam with outstanding results. I was curious as to how this company would adjust post-COVID.
This was our first time to visit Thailand, and they did not disappoint. Ms Elly, our travel coordinator, was extremely helpful and responsive with the overall structuring and planning, step-by-step, of our trip. Traveling with an elderly mother and recent high-school grad, she offered suggestions that would be of interest to all of us. Our guides (Pauline in Bangkok; Indy in Chiang Mai) were extremely informative and helpful, especially when it came to mobility/accessibility with my mother.

Bangkok area: we had a full day Temple Tour our first day, and then a trip to Damnoen Floating Market/Ayutthaya the next day. Pauline was wonderful answering our various questions regarding the history/culture/architecture of the area. We then visited Khao Yai National Park with a different guide (Peter). We hiked (yes, elderly mother was able to navigate the trails/stairs) to the waterfalls, seeing various wildlife, including monkeys, deer, lizards. This is an amazing area of Thailand – thank you Ms. Elly for suggesting this day trip!!

Chiang Mai area: food tour at night, and then full day Temple Tour the next day. Indy was amazing also, asking about our personal preferences so we could enjoy Northern Thai cuisine to its utmost. We then visited some villages of the Hill Tribes with a different guide (Paul). He was very conscious about my mother’s walking ability, as this included a hike (4km, almost no shade) between villages. We also visited Chiang Dao temple cave and ended with a visit to a butterfly/orchid farm.
Koh Samui: boat tour to Ang Thong National Marine Park with Blue Stars tours including kayaking/swimming/hiking (more like stair-climbing) – amazing – do NOT miss this!

Bangkok area: another food tour (you MUST have food tours in Thailand!), and then a trip to Amphawa floating market, ending with a firefly tour. It’s not really the season for fireflies in June, but we did see some, and it was magical.

As you know, it’s hot/humid in Thailand during June and is the beginning of rainy season. We went in June for the availability of the different fruits that are in season during that time. We were fortunate during our trip – we experienced rain only once (during Khao Yai National Park), and only for less than an hour. Our guides/drivers were excellent in monitoring our comfort and health, and provided water and (cold!!) wipes all throughout our visit (thank you for blasting the A/C when we needed it at times!) – I can’t say enough praise for both Pauline and Indy.

Asia Pioneer arranged for all transfers, to/from the airport, providing details as to where to meet, and our guides were extremely helpful with checking in at the airport.

Thank you again Ms. Elly for coordinating this amazing vacation!!

What an amazing experience!! We worked with Lizzie with Asia Pioneer Travel for over a year to plan our vacation and it couldn’t have turned out more perfect! Lizzie listened to all over our hopes and interests, and delivered an itinerary that ended up being a dream vacation! We spent 2 weeks exploring Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand with our family of 5 and the guides we had in each city were wonderful, knowledgeable, and felt like our friends just showing us around their country. We will absolutely go through them again when we find time to explore more of Asia!

We had an excellent trip organized by Lam at Asia. Pioneer Travel. Hotels, guides and activities were outstanding. We really enjoyed the month long trip to Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand.

I was looking for a reputed travel agency when I was planning a trip with my family to Vietnam. ChatGPT suggested Asia Pioneer and a few other agencies. I wrote to all of them. Asia Pioneer was the first one to respond and we decided to go with primarily thanks to our able and responsive travel designer, Stella Nguyen.

Stella reached out on email to me with a tentative itinerary and seeking feedback on any other specific requirements we had. Right from there, we were really supported by Stella all through the trip planning process. Her responsiveness to our queries and accommodative nature helped us plan a fantastic trip. She took special care to ensure that appropriate rooms are booked. We got 2 bedroom serviced apartments instead of hotels, thanks to Stella’s foresight on what might be comfortable for us as a family of 4. The apartments were excellent. Stella was always available on call and on whatsapp to check on our comfort and to ensure that everything goes as per plan. Even when there we some minor issues, she immediately got on the problem and sorted it out so that we are never inconvenienced. We are vegetarians and she made sure that we got vegetarian food options everywhere we went throughout the 10 days.

The guides organized by her were really good, knowledgeable and very friendly. Special mention to all our three guides – Mr. Thinh (Tony), Mr. Bang and Mr. Do (Larry). The vehicles that were organized were above our expectations and made all our road trips super comfortable. We enjoyed every bit of our trip to Vietnam, thanks to Stella, our guides and the vehicle drivers.

We are already planning our next trip and are definitely going back to Asia Pioneer for the same.