Hanoi via Tripadvisor: The travel experiment

I’m a big data kind of guy. There’s nothing I love more than my beautiful travel partner, Rachel. However, playing around with data in excel spreadsheets is not far behind. It’s probably a lot closer than it should be.

If you love big data then you probably love TripAdvisor. Gone are the days where we would all turn to one ‘expert’ or ‘local’ to tell us what the best restaurant, hotel or things to do in a foreign land. Now, we have everyone’s opinions on everything, melted together in shinny green app and blended with algorithms to create live and organise list separating the best from the worst.

But is it right?

When we started to plan our trip to Vietnam we saw an opportunity put TripAdvisor to the test. In London, sampling the top hotels, restaurants, excursions and things to do would require a small to medium loan, but due to the Vietnamese economy and the surge of new hotels, tour operators and restaurants… we were able to sample the best Vietnam had to offer.

Our research led us to spectacular places and amazing experiences… but we also found a few duds and tourist traps. Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting about our (mostly) wonderful experiences in the magical country of Vietnam including:

• Cruising around Bai Tu Long Bay with IndoChina Junk
• Staying at the Little Hanoi Dx Hotel
• Eating incredible food at Duong Restaurant
• Eating less incredible food at Marvels restaurant
• Visiting the ‘Ha Long Bay of the land’ at Tam Coc

We’ll then wrap up our Vietnamese experience with a look back at the country. Keep checking back to learn follow our adventures.

Last modified: 4th December 2017