Sapa Garden Bed & Breakfast Review

If you're planning a trip to Vietnam, you'll no doubt be told (by everyone!) that you should visit Sapa and see the mountains! After spending more than a week in Sapa, and a few more days in the region, I couldn't agree more. Sapa is spectacular! I'll do a post specifically on our time in Northern Vietnam, but wanted to share our experience staying at the Sapa Garden Bed & Breakfast last week. Sapa has so many hotels to choose from, all across the spectrum of fanciness, so picking a place can be a bit overwhelming!

Sapa Garden is located two kilometers before you actually get into the city center, which gives it a slower, quieter, more relaxing feel than being in a city-center hotel. Descending from the main road onto the Sapa Garen property is like stepping into a totally new world: it's clean, calm, and the gardens are absolutely spectacular. There are so many bright flowers, huge bamboo, a peaceful pond with doves cooing gently nearby, a gazebo, various sitting areas, a swinging bench — I could go on! We had a great time relaxing under the shade of the trees in the afternoon, and doing yoga each morning in the grass between the flowers!

The house itself is beautiful — it's huge, and recently renovated to have some family suites in addition to normal guest rooms. We had a large room with magnificent windows overlooking the garden. The room was equipped with a lovely armoir, desk and chair, queen-sized bed, TV, fan, and a really beautiful bathroom. It's my experience here in Vietnam that sometimes the bathroom falls behind the quality of the room — not at Sapa Garden! In addition to having really high quality amenities, we were excited to find that the internet was really fast and reliable (which is not always the case!).

Arranging our stay at Sapa Garden was really easy as Nam, the owner, speaks English very well. We had no problem communicating via email before our stay, and had a great time chatting with him upon our arrival. He was able to arrange for trekking and transportation, as well as give restaurant suggestions and a ride into town! Nam lives in town at another hotel he runs, but his parents live at and operate Sapa Garden B&B. While they don't speak much English, they were incredibly sweet and made our stay very comfortable. They taught us some more Vietnamese and cooked wonderful meals. Nam's mother made us breakfast everyday, and we arranged for her to make us dinner one night — it was beyond delicious! We've eaten many spring rolls here in Vietnam, and hers stand out as the best we've had!

Sapa Garden is ideal if you want a home-base away from town where you can relax and have some downtime. You do need to take a taxi if you want to go into town, which costs about $2.50. We had such a great time at the B&B we opted to spend our mornings relaxing in the gardens, then just take one trip to town in the afternoons to hike or do whatever we had planned before returning in the evening. With their family suites and kitchen, this would be a great place for a big family retreat. It offers a comfortable (and beautiful!) place to stay, for those who may not want to venture out into the mountains everyday, and could also serve as a base for those who are ready to go out and adventure. More than anything, it's just nice to have a comfortable place to relax and not worry about anything for a few days!

You can find Sapa Garden online or on Facebook! We highly recommend staying there, and really enjoyed our time!

{Full disclosure: We were hosted for free at Sapa Garden, but all opinions are my own. Thank you to Nam, and his parents, for generously hosting us!}