You’re dreaming at…
TOPAS ECO LODGE
Vietnam
A mountaintop sanctuary where ancient ridgelines cradle conscious travellers.
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WILDLY PLACED: Hoàng Liên Son mountains, just outside Sapa, remote, rarefied, and ringed by ethereal mist.
EDITORIAL VIBE: Ethereal highlands meets Nordic minimalism, elemental, elevated, and soulfully stripped back.
CORE PILLARS: Regenerative travel, ethnic minority empowerment, carbon-neutral design.
MUSE MOOD: She rises with the valley fog, wraps herself in raw wool, and journals with ginger tea as the peaks glow gold.
BEST TIME TO GO: March to May or September to November, rice harvests, crisp mornings, and painterly skies.
THE LOOK: Local stone bungalows, grass roofs, minimalist interiors, infinity-edge mountain views.
WHO'S IT FOR: Solo mystics, conscious couples, culture lovers, and those craving altitude and altitude.
INDULGENCE SPECTRUM: From USD$290 per night, rustic-luxury with a carbon-conscious twist.
Perched on a remote mountaintop in Vietnam’s wild north, Topas Eco Lodge feels like the edge of the world. But what you find here isn’t isolation, it’s immersion. In tradition, in ecology, in elemental beauty that resets your internal compass. The air is thinner, the views vaster, and time itself seems to elongate.
Run in partnership with the Red Dao and Tay ethnic communities, the lodge is less a hotel than a highland hymn, a living tribute to place. Every boulder and beam whispers stories, of ancestors, of altitude, of resilience. You arrive via winding roads that snake through Sapa’s iconic rice terraces, where children wave from dirt paths and water buffalo plod across horizons. Your altitude rises with your heartbeat. Then, stillness.
Stone bungalows dot the ridgeline like ancient watchposts, their rough-hewn elegance echoing centuries of mountain craftsmanship. Interiors are spare but warm: raw timber floors, hand-dyed textiles, and rain showers open to the scent of pine and sky. No televisions. No digital noise. Just the slow hush of nature’s own narrative. Somehow, in this aesthetic restraint, you feel more abundant.
Topas is powered by sustainability, not slogans. Their carbon-offsetting programme is transparent and ongoing, backed by data and visible initiatives. The farm-to-table restaurant sources heirloom vegetables from neighbouring villages, supports seasonal rhythms, and builds menus around what the land gives, not what the market demands. And every guest stay feeds back into a circular economy that uplifts rather than extracts, sustaining both spirit and soil.
Wander into the hills with Red Dao guides who know the terrain like memory. Trails are laced with star anise and whispered folktales. Pause by a waterfall for thảo dược tea brewed over a crackling fire. Let the mist rise around you as clouds drift across the valley like silk unravelling.
Here, you don’t escape the world, you return to it, gently, honestly, and on its terms.
This isn’t luxury as performance. It’s presence as privilege. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t just stay with you - it changes how you stay anywhere else.
TOPAS’S BEATING HEART
The lodge is operated by a social enterprise with a direct impact mission. 98% of the staff are ethnic minority locals , from guides to gardeners , with profits reinvested in education, healthcare, and infrastructure for the surrounding villages.
The SLOJOURN spark
FIRST. Infinity-edge mountain pool. Soak in silence, mist rising like breath, with no horizon but the clouds.
SECOND. Guided treks into ethnic minority villages where guests are welcomed like kin, not tourists.
THIRD. The Topas Commitment , a zero plastic policy, full solar integration, and direct community reinvestment model.
Where you dwell
LOVED UP COUPLES or LONE RANGERS
Pool Villas
Your bungalow is built from locally sourced granite and timber , elemental, grounding, and resolutely place-based.
Every space opens to the mountains. Expect heated floors, hand-loomed throws, rainwater-fed showers, and morning fog that pours through your window like ceremony.
There’s no room service here , just room for reverence.
DON’T SLEEP ON THESE ROOMS (BUT DO SLEEP IN THEM)
GROUPS OF FRIENDS
Premium Executive Bungalow
LA FAMILIA
Deluxe Suite Bungalows
The art of living
Start the morning with a yoga flow overlooking the valley. Spend your day hiking to hidden waterfalls, or learning the art of Red Dao herbal medicine. Come sunset, sip mountain honey cocktails in the stilted bar as fog paints the sky.
Every experience is slow, sensory, and deeply embedded in place. Even the silence hums with meaning.
The forever lens
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WATER: All greywater is recycled through natural filtration beds, rainwater is harvested from rooftops and stored in underground tanks, and no bottled water is served, only refillable glass bottles are available across the lodge. Guests are encouraged to carry personal refillables, with filtered water stations accessible throughout the property. This approach significantly reduces plastic consumption and honours traditional highland water-harvesting techniques.
WASTE: Zero single-use plastics policy is enforced throughout the lodge, including back-of-house operations. Organic waste is composted onsite and used to nourish the lodge’s herb gardens and local crops. Any suitable food waste is collected and distributed as livestock feed to nearby farming families. Non-organic waste is responsibly sorted and transported to approved recycling centres, supporting a waste-to-resource system that keeps village ecosystems intact.
ARCHITECTURE: Topas’ design philosophy blends traditional Tay and Red Dao construction methods with Nordic eco-principles. Local granite and reclaimed wood are used for all buildings, ensuring natural insulation and climate synergy. The bungalows are nestled into the natural slope rather than imposed onto it, preserving topography, minimising erosion, and maintaining the visual harmony of the landscape.
ENERGY: Solar panels power essential systems across the property, while passive heating and cross-ventilation design keep rooms cool in summer and warm in winter. Carbon offsetting is integrated into every booking through Topas’ certified reforestation partnerships. Even the hot water systems are solar-assisted, reducing energy draw without compromising comfort.
The together lens
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Topas doesn’t just employ local, it elevates local through meaningful equity and deep-rooted collaboration.
More than 98% of the team are from the ethnic minority groups indigenous to the region, including Red Dao and Tay communities. Staff are offered ongoing vocational training, wellness support, and internal advancement opportunities — from entry-level to senior management. The lodge also runs hospitality apprenticeships and language programmes for young locals seeking long-term career pathways.
Beyond its walls, Topas supports community-led projects: mobile healthcare clinics that reach remote villages, educational scholarships for disadvantaged youth, and female entrepreneurship funds with a focus on herbal wellness and handicrafts. The Topas Foundation works year-round to ensure guest revenue translates into real, trackable impact.
All treks and immersive activities are hosted by locals, not guides flown in from cities, ensuring every experience is authentic, reciprocal, and community-first. Guests are not just passive participants, but respectfully invited into living heritage. It’s tourism that uplifts, not overshadows.
The take it with you
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• Red Dao herbal bath salts
• Woven hemp textiles from the lodge boutique
• Mountain honey and turmeric tea
• A new reverence for elevation, literal and spiritual
WE SLOJOURNED HERE
“Topas doesn’t offer a view. It offers a vantage, into a culture, a rhythm, a way of life that makes you quieter just by being near it.”
The ways you can move.
SLOJOURN is a members-only platform for the new vanguard of conscious travellers. That’s you.
In that vain, we support a multitude of ways to book your travel.
Book directly with SLOJOURN’S travel team (we just don’t book flights, friend).
Book via our preferred travel partners that we can connect you with.
Use this as your guide and DIY your way through the world (love that for you, just take note of the destinations that prohibit this such as Bhutan, Socotra… etc.)