You don’t need to spend long in Mui Ne before spotting the colourful jeeps buzzing around the town centre, windows down, full of groups of tourists enjoying the cool breeze. A Mui Ne Jeep Tour is one experience most visitors choose when visiting this coastal town, and it’s especially recommended for families looking for an easy way to explore the surrounding countryside.
Click here to read more about visiting Mui Ne.
Booking the tour and choosing a time
Click here to book the tour
Tours can be booked online, or you can book directly with one of the many travel agencies lining the main road in Mui Ne. The basic price is VND600,000 per jeep (if booked at one of the tour desks in Mui Ne) and they can seat up to five people.
You’ll have the choice of a sunrise or sunset tour but do keep in mind that the sunrise tour will require a painfully early alarm call, perhaps around 4:30am depending on the time of year. As a family, we quickly realised that waking up that early would cause problems later in the day so we opted for a sunset tour, leaving Mui Ne around 1pm.
Fairy Stream
The first stop is only a few minutes outside of Mui Ne at the Fairy Stream. Any sense that you’re doing something unique is dispelled immediately. You’ll park up alongside a dozen other jeeps and join a line of tourists walking along the riverbed, with small stalls either side selling sugary drinks and souvenirs.
It’s best to do the walk barefoot. There are shelves to place your shoes. At first, it feels slightly strange to be walking through a gentle stream with sand underfoot but after a while, it becomes quite a relaxing stroll.
There are food stalls enroute. Feel free to purchase a drink to enjoy en route. After about 500m, you’ll reach the end and turn back, retracing your steps to the jeep.
Beach views and photo opportunities
The next stop is one of the longest stretch of beaches in the region, which is also home to a small fishing village. The main road sits high above the beach and provides a great vantage point to pause and take in the view.
If you’d like to take a closer look, it’s possible to take the steps down to the beach, otherwise it’s very much the done thing to stand on top of the jeep, strike a crazy pose and have your picture taken. Everyone else is doing the same thing and it makes for quite an amusing panoramic view with scores of tourists posing for photos.
White Sands quad biking and sandboarding
The section of the Jeep Tour we were most looking forward to was White Sands dunes as we imagined the jeep would bounce off the main road and take us deep into the desert away from the crowds. We’d done similar in places like Doha and it was something we’d spoken about countless times since. It didn’t quite work out that way.
In truth, you don’t really need a jeep for the tour. Whilst not quite a gimmick, the jeeps don’t leave the tarmac at all during the tour and this was the case at White Sands. Another car park full of jeeps awaits you at the dunes, and you’re deposited next to a group of quad-bike touts.
It transpires that the jeeps can’t go on the sand so, if you want to venture into the dunes, you’re stuck with paying a separate fee of VND900,000(!) for a couple of quad-bikes to bounce around the sand dunes for ten minutes.
If we’d had the energy, we might have haggled harder but it felt like we were over a barrel without much negotiating power. VND900,000 felt extortionate for what we experienced; at most five minutes of actual driving time, then twenty minutes vying for space with other tourists on the ridge.
Safety is also an issue as no helmets are provided and the young guys driving the quad bikes give minimal (no) safety briefings. Take a moment when you arrive to decide if it’s worthwhile for your family. The views from the top are beautiful though and you can hire sandboards / sheets of metal (VND30,000), to slide down the dunes, although anyone heavier than a small child won’t get very far.
Afterwards, you’ll be dropped back at the start point where a few stalls sell beer, soft drinks and small snacks.
Red Sand Dunes and views
The final stop on our tour was at the Red Sand Dunes. These dunes are smaller than White Sands and it’s a relatively short and simple walk to reach the summit and take in the view. You can hire quad-bikes here and ride them yourselves, or hire sandboards from the very persistent locals who wait for new arrivals.
If you can find a quiet spot away from the tours and quad bikes, the view over the sea, sand dunes and outskirts of Mui Ne are perhaps the highlight of the entire tour. Depending what time you started the tour, and how long you stayed at the previous stops, you may have to wait several hours for sunset as the timings don’t always work perfectly. We stayed for an hour or so and when we felt ready, headed back down to the jeep and made the journey back to Mui Ne.
Tips for your Mui Ne Jeep Tour
- Manage expectations, the off-road element is limited and you don’t spend very long actually driving in the jeep.
- Not much English spoken so do some prior research.
- Guides can be hired if you prefer but we didn’t feel it was necessary, nor like we missed out on much.
- No need to bring snacks, plenty of choice on the tour at same prices as in town
- Bring cash for quad bikes and drinks/snacks.
- Sunscreen, hats and sunglasses are needed, especially when you’re on the sand dunes.
- You can stay until the end for the sunset, but will need to wait several hours. This might not be ideal if you have young kids but, as the tour is private, you can set your own schedule.
- Flip-flops are fine, not much walking and it’s easier barefoot on the dunes and at Fairy Stream.
- Tips aren’t expected at the end unless you’d prefer to give something extra to your driver.
Final thoughts on the Mui Ne Jeep Tour
As a family visiting Mui Ne for a week, we were pleased to have an option to leave the town and see the surrounding area. Mui Ne is famous for its sand dunes and it’s rare to find them in this part of the world. The jeep tour is probably the easiest way to visit them and is cheaper (and less hassle) than trying to arrange the same via Grab.
It’s important to remember that the jeeps don’t go off-road and any time on the quad bikes comes at an extra cost. With the high price, lack of safety and proximity to other tourists, the quad bikes aren’t without their problems, but the views from the top are stunning. You’ll need to make a judgement call yourselves if the pros outweigh the cons.
All in all, the Mui Ne Jeep Tour is a recommended family activity at a reasonable price. Our kids loved bouncing along in the funky-coloured jeeps and afterwards, we felt grateful that we’d seen a different side of Mui Ne’s personality, away from the beaches and busy main road.
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