Phu Quoc National Park: Which Tours Go In, and Which Just Drive Past
7 min read
Most day tours that name Phu Quoc National Park only cross it on the sealed road between Duong Dong and Rach Vem, and nobody gets out. Few offers actually go in, and two of them are compared here. The Tien Son Dinh 6-Hour Jungle Trekking Adventure walks in: €60.28, six hours, rated 4.9/5 from 194 reviews. The Phu Quoc Jeep Tour: National Park & Rach Vem Village leaves the sealed road in an open jeep instead: €88.97, eight hours, private, lunch not included. The trek asks more of your legs; the jeep asks more of your wallet and little of your fitness, though it does not take people with back problems.
See prices and dates for the Tien Son Dinh jungle trek
Phu Quoc National Park takes in 31,422 hectares of the northern half of the island, set aside by a government decision of 8 June 2001. It is the reason the north of Phu Quoc looks nothing like the south: forest to the road’s edge instead of resorts.
It is also the most frequently named and least frequently visited thing on the island. A great many day tours list “Phu Quoc National Park” among their stops, and for most of them that means the minibus drives through it on the sealed road between Duong Dong and Rach Vem. Nobody gets out. The listing is accurate and the experience is a windscreen.
This is about telling those apart.
The tours that only pass through
If a full-day island tour names the national park alongside four or five other stops – a pepper farm, a fish sauce distillery, a beach, lunch – the park is the drive between them. That is not a swindle, and those days can be good days. The Kayaking with Starfish Beach and Bee Farm Tour is exactly this shape.
But if you booked it expecting forest, you booked the wrong thing. The tell is in the itinerary: a stop with a duration attached is a stop, and a place named without one is scenery.
The jeep day: open-sided, private, and lunch is not included
Phu Quoc Jeep Tour: National Park & Rach Vem Village is €88.97, 4.9 stars from 36 reviews, eight hours, and run as a private group rather than a shared bus. The vehicle is an open-air jeep, and the route leaves the sealed road: forest trails, a panoramic viewpoint over the coastline, an old tree in the forest, then Rach Vem fishing village with its wooden walkways, and a floating restaurant at the end.
Being private is the substance of the price. You share the jeep with nobody outside your party; if you want time at Starfish Beach, ask the operator, because the itinerary names Rach Vem fishing village and its floating restaurant rather than the beach.
The line to read twice, and you will see it on the booking page: lunch. The booking page puts it plainly – lunch and seafood at Rach Vem are self-selected and self-paid. At a floating seafood restaurant at the end of a private tour, that is not a rounding error, and it lands in exactly the setting where seafood is weighed and priced at the table. One drink, a Coca-Cola or bottled water, is included. The driver-guide and photo assistance are too.
Restrictions: children under three, pregnant women and people with back problems are not carried. That is the operator’s own policy on an open jeep going down forest tracks, and it is worth confirming with them if it affects your party. The booking page also notes that weather can change the route, which in the wet months is not a formality – see when to come for what those months do.
It belongs in a different bracket from much of the jeep and ATV category, because most of that category is short quad rides rather than full days.
Check availability for the Rach Vem jeep day
The trek that actually goes in
This offer walks into the park properly: Tien Son Dinh 6-Hour Jungle Trekking Adventure, €60.28, rated 4.9/5 from 194 reviews.
The numbers are specific, which is a good sign in itself. Six kilometres and more of trail, ascending to 280 metres, with two hours guided in the park, a half-hour at the summit and a further stretch at Tien Son Cave with optional swimming in the stream pools. It finishes with a banh xeo lunch at a local restaurant.
What is included is unusually thorough: guide, trekking poles, headlamp, backpack, raincoat, hammock, first aid kit, drinks and seasonal fruit, plus the lunch. Pickup is included within Duong Dong town centre. Outside it the page lists a surcharge per group of 300,000 VND for Cua Duong, Duong To, Ong Lang and Long Beach and 600,000 VND for Ganh Dau, Cua Can, Vung Bau and An Thoi; there is no transfer in Ham Ninh or Bai Sao, where the meeting point is the Banh Xeo Dai Duc restaurant at the Ham Ninh roundabout. If you are the only person booked on a date, the page adds a 200,000 VND surcharge and the transfer is by motorbike; your pickup time is sent the evening before, between 6 and 9 pm.
What it asks of you is real. The booking page lists it as not suitable for children under 6, pregnant women, people with mobility impairments, people with heart problems, or people with a low level of fitness. Bring hiking shoes, insect repellent and swimwear. GPS tracking is prohibited on the trek, including smartwatches and phones recording to apps such as Strava, AllTrails or Wikiloc. Six kilometres uphill in this humidity is harder than six kilometres at home, and the honest reading of that list is that this is a walk for people who walk. If you are not sure whether your knees or your heart are up to it, talk it over with your doctor before you book.
One scheduling point if you are also diving: ask your dive operator how long they want you to wait after a dive before strenuous exercise, and keep the trek off your dive days.
The cheap way to see the northern river
There is a third option, short and inexpensive at €7.26. The Bamboo Basket Boat Tour on Cua Can River is 4.6 stars from 25 reviews. A round woven basket boat, paddled, on the river that runs out of the park’s western side.
It is short and it is not a day out. As forty minutes attached to something else in the north, it puts you on the water the park drains into rather than on a road through it.
Four northern days compared
| Tour | Duration | From | Rating | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tien Son Dinh 6-Hour Jungle Trekking Adventure | 6 hours | €60.28 | 4.9 stars, 194 reviews | Walkers and hikers who want the forest itself, lunch and gear included |
| Phu Quoc Jeep Tour: National Park & Rach Vem Village | 8 hours | €88.97 | 4.9 stars, 36 reviews | Couples and small groups who want forest tracks and a village without the climb |
| Kayaking with Starfish Beach and Bee Farm Tour | 8 hours | €42.76 | 4.5 stars, 321 reviews | Families and first-time visitors who want an overview of the north |
| Bamboo Basket Boat Tour on Cua Can River | 40 minutes | €7.26 | 4.6 stars, 25 reviews | Anyone with forty spare minutes and children who want to be in a boat |
The kayaking day is in the table because it is what most people actually book in the north – not because it goes into the park. It does not; it crosses it.
Putting a northern day together
The national park and jungle trekking category holds 20 offers from €22.27. That small number is the most useful fact on this page: Phu Quoc’s business is overwhelmingly on the water, and the forest is a side interest with a handful of operators serving it.
Which means the north rewards deciding what you are actually after:
- Forest, and prepared to sweat for it – the Tien Son Dinh trek.
- Forest tracks, views and a village, without the climb, and willing to pay for a private vehicle – the jeep day, with lunch money on top.
- The north as part of a first-time overview – a full-day island tour, understanding that the park is the drive.
And whichever you choose, aim the Rach Vem part of it at the early morning. The culture and pepper farms category, 33 offers from €11.62, covers the farms most northern itineraries hang their afternoons on, and those keep perfectly well until later in the day. The starfish do not.
Our recommendation
For most people who came for the park: the Tien Son Dinh 6-Hour Jungle Trekking Adventure at €60.28. It walks into the forest instead of past it, lunch and all the gear are included, and it is rated 4.9/5 from 194 reviews.
If the climb is out of the question: the jeep day at €88.97. It gets you onto the forest tracks sitting down, and the jeep is yours alone rather than a shared bus. Budget for lunch separately – the floating restaurant at the end is not in the price.
With small children, or on a small budget: neither. The trek is not suitable for children under 6 and the jeep does not carry children under three. The Kayaking with Starfish Beach and Bee Farm Tour at €42.76 is the calm-water northern day for families – not for babies under one, free pickup only in the Duong Dong area, and the bee farm is closed on Wednesdays – and the Bamboo Basket Boat Tour on Cua Can River at €7.26 is forty cheerful minutes on the river the park drains into.
Who should book none of these: anyone who expects a national park in the European sense, with trails, signs and a visitor centre. Few offers serve this forest, and two of them are the trek and the jeep day above. If your week is short and the sea is what brought you here, spend it on the water and let the north wait for the next trip.
