“A year ago, I only planned to go on a trip. But it turned out that I embarked on a journey that changed my life,” Pham Minh Hang, a girl born in 1995 from Hanoi, began her story about her 8-month journey through the wilderness, living a life without a home or a permanent job.
Pham Minh Hang, 9x from Hanoi with a memorable nomadic journey
Once a freelance photographer living in the capital, Minh Hang left office life, shook off fixed schedules and set off across Vietnam by motorbike in May 2024. In those early days, the journey did not take the form of "nomadic life", but simply a long trip to "reset" her spirit after a period of being stuck with creative work.
“My industry is related to art, and art cannot survive without inspiration. I feel that if I don’t step out of the familiar loops, I won’t be able to find my own light,” Minh Hang shared.
No fixed schedule, no deadline. Just live, feel and go – the way she started this journey.
Leave and depart
A month before the trip, Minh Hang told her mother that she would be leaving. Her mother's reaction was worry and opposition. "I think that's a normal mentality of parents. I chose to explain gently, so that my mother could accept it slowly. And now, after returning home safely, I have proven to my mother that: I can do it."
Thinking that she would only wander for a short time and then return to her old life, the trip gradually took Hang further than she had planned. There were nights before the departure date when she hesitated: “Should I just not go anymore?”, but courage won out. Hang left Hanoi with an open heart, ready to accept both uncertainty and miracles.
Hang left Hanoi with an open heart, ready to accept both uncertainty and miracles.
Vinh Hy - where a new life begins
And Vinh Hy – a small fishing village nestled on the coast of Ninh Thuan – was the first stop that turned the trip into life. But the place where Hang lives is not a coastal area crowded with tourists, but a small Raglai hamlet in the middle of the forest, where there is the sound of waterfalls day and night, children playing and laughing while eating home-grown guava, and a kind neighbor who helps light the fire every day.
“At first, we only planned to stay for 5 days, then it became 15 days. Then the landlord asked me to stay here and work for him, he really needed someone,” Hang said.
Not just a stopover, Vinh Hy is gradually becoming a home
From there, the real nomadic life began. Every day, she woke up to the sound of birdsong, practiced yoga on the rooftop, drove to the beach to sunbathe, and immersed herself in nature with all its gentleness and completeness. But the dream was not only about sparkling colors. “I still have to work, still have to manage expenses, and there are still unexpected sadnesses that come. But I learned one thing: if I don’t solve the problems from within, even if I escape to paradise, the problems that I always try to avoid will still be there.”
In Vinh Hy, Hang discovered that she loved being a tour guide, a job she had never thought of before. With her photography expertise, she connected with tourists, both guiding them and capturing their memorable moments – an unexpected but reasonable source of income.
Minh Hang and Bon - a special friend, live in a large camping site, surrounded by strange rocks, lush green forests, and a white waterfall flowing day and night like lulling the whole nature to sleep.
In Vinh Hy, the real nomadic life begins
Mang Den - the days pass quietly like mist
When the beach season ended, the weather turned windy, and tourists dwindled, Minh Hang was forced to leave Vinh Hy. She stayed for a few days to live among the Cham community in Phan Rang, witnessing the Kate festival for the first time – an experience full of cultural colors and humanity.
Experience indigenous culture with the Kate festival of the Cham community in Phan Rang
After that, the journey continued to take her to the Central Highlands, through Pleiku, Kon Tum and then stopped at Mang Den - a small town that is still very wild and peaceful. Hang came here almost by "hidden fate", from the introduction of a tourist who had accompanied her in Vinh Hy.
Visit the famous weaving house of the Bana people in Kontum
“I was in Mang Den during the Central Highlands monsoon season. At night, I lay listening to the wind whistling through the forest. It was cold, but really profound. Here, everything happened slowly like a slow-motion movie. People joked that even flies are slow, let alone people,” she recalled.
In Mang Den, cold days are filled with cooking, reading under the pine trees, chatting with new friends and dogs running around in the yard. The pace of life here is not hurried, not chaotic, but in that slowness there is a feeling of healing.
In Mang Den, everything goes slowly like a beautiful film.
A journey and countless changes
Looking back, Minh Hang realized that the trip was not simply a “personal adventure”, but a journey of maturity, a test of patience, perseverance and the ability to regenerate life energy. From a planned trip across Vietnam, it turned into a year of living “homeless”, but feeling at home wherever nature was still intact, people were still kind and her heart still yearned to explore.
"This life is different from dreams in that it has more real things, but it is also more beautiful than any dream I have ever had," Minh Hang concluded, with the smile that led her through the mountain wind, the blue sea and days of living as if yesterday had never existed.
For Minh Hang, nomadic life is a journey back to herself - a free, strong and inspired version of herself.
Minh Hang did not choose to be a nomad to escape, but to return. To return to herself – a free, strong and inspired version of herself. A year has passed, her footprints are imprinted on the sand banks of the Central region, the red dirt roads of the Central Highlands, and most of all, deeply imprinted in the memories of those who met her on that journey.
