Your month-long Southeast Asia adventure begins in Pu Luong, where limestone peaks and thick, tropical forest rise around the thatched roofs and farmland of Thai and Hmong communities. You’ve got a full day to settle in after your international journey, perhaps with a swim in the pool and a first proper look out over the landscape (and what a view it is). The next day, head out on foot through villages known for brocade weaving, passing rice and cassava fields, waterfalls and jungle along the way.

Today you cross from Vietnam into Laos, with a few roadside stops along the way, before reaching Vieng Xai. The surrounding limestone mountains are threaded with caves, where around 20,000 people sheltered during the bombing of Laos in the 1960s and 70s. Schools, hospitals, markets and even government offices operated underground. Your guide will bring that story to life before you continue to Sam Neua, a small mountain town where tourism still plays a relatively minor role in everyday life.

From mountain town to jungle, today you travel by road to Nam Et-Phou Louey. Visit a Khmu village before taking a longtail boat along the Nam Nern River, keeping an eye out for monitor lizards and blue-throated barbets. Back on land, hike through the forest with your guides, learning about Khmu culture and the wildlife that lives here, from sambar deer to the park’s rarely seen tigers. By night, you’ll head out on safari by boat, looking for otters, lorises, porcupines and owls before bedding down in a simple Lao-style jungle bungalow.

Your Nong Khiaw hiking route has been put together by Fair Trek, a community-based tourism initiative that works with local communities to create travel experiences that leave a positive impact. By creating local jobs and income, it can help people stay in their communities rather than moving away for work. Begin your hike with a longtail boat ride upstream, where you’ll see locals fishing and buffalos bathing. Hop off the boat at Sopkhong Village, the Khmu village gateway to Tadmok waterfall. To reach the falls, you’ll hike through farmland and rice paddies, and once at Huay Hoy village, you’ll grab kayaks for the easy downstream paddle back to Nong Khiaw.

The next part of your month-long journey takes you from Laos into Thailand, and as is the style of this trip, it’s the journey that makes it.

First, drive to the riverside town of Pakbeng, stopping along the way to stretch your legs and pick up snacks from roadside sellers (Southeast Asia specialist Charlotte recommends the banana chips).

After a night in Pakbeng, join a shared longtail boat up the Mekong towards the Thai border. Along the way, you might see fishermen casting circular nets, children playing in the river and elephants coming down to drink.

Once across the border, continue to Chiang Kham. The next day, cycle through plantations and farmland to Buddhist temples with Lanna and Burmese influences, local villages and a market piled with lemongrass, green papaya and bitter melon.

You'll start exploring the Naan province at Wat Phumin, a 400-year-old royal temple best known for its mural, "The Whispering of Love". At Wat Baan Phra Kerd you'll join a Tung workshop to create a traditional Lanna flag to leave as an offering for the monks. Naan is a prosperous region, which becomes more apparent after a visit to a noble house that now operates as a museum, filled with silverware, lace and ornaments. Then it’s on to an organic cocoa farm to taste raw cocoa and make your own chocolate.

Ayutthaya was capital of the kingdom that bore its name from the 14th to the 18th centuries, growing into one of the world’s largest cities and an important center of trade and diplomacy before its destruction in 1767. Today, red-brick temple ruins are scattered across the old city, and your guide will help piece together the story behind them. Further down the Chao Phraya River is Bang Pa-In, a 17th-century royal summer palace with manicured gardens, now only in use for the occasional state visit.

Ko Mak provides that almost clichéd palm tree-laden, blue sky-topped Thai beach beauty, but with a difference. It’s a collectively owned island, which means control still lies with the locals, and development is done in a way that befits their way of life. During your stay here, you can relax on some of the quietest beaches in Thailand, arrange snorkeling or kayaking trips, or head out to explore, with hilltop views seemingly around every corner. That's not forgetting the truly outstanding sunsets, abundance of fresh seafood, and (because why not...) an eccentric erotic art sculpture garden by a local artist.

Leaving the beach, and Thailand behind, cross into Cambodia and into Koh Kong, sandwiched between the Gulf of Thailand and the, jungle-covered Cardamom Mountains. Your base here is often a real favorite: a floating tent on the Tatai River – only accessible by boat. Borrow a kayak and paddle out straight from your lodge, or join the lodge staff and visit Koh Kong Khnong Village and Tatai waterfall – a four-meter cascade that can only be reached by river.

Botom Sakor National Park is one of Cambodia’s richest wildlife habitats and your home for the next two nights. Asian elephants still roam these forests, alongside gibbons, sun bears, slow lorises, fishing cats, hornbills and hog deer. Keep an eye out, and you may just spot them.

You’ll stay at Cardamom Tented Camp, a conservation-led project set deep within the forest and working to protect the surrounding ecosystem. Head out on foot with your wildlife guide to learn more about the pressures facing the park, the work being done to protect it and the species that depend on this stretch of jungle.

For the journey back to camp, you can swap the forest trail for the river and return by kayak.

Before Sihanoukville took over as Cambodia’s main deep-sea port in the 1950s, Kampot was an important trading hub for rubber, rice and corn. You can still see traces of that past in its (now dilapidated) French-colonial villas and wooden-shuttered Chinese shophouses, shophouses, which have managed to survive both the Khmer Rouge and later development – unlike so many Cambodian towns.

Your time in Kampot will be educational, visiting the plantations of pepper that is favored by chefs worldwide. Try white, red, green and black peppercorns and taste the difference between the four. You’ll get back on the water with a boat trip in Preak Tnout, a community-based ecotourism project taking care of the mangrove forests to support the local populations of pink dolphins and dugong. Keep your eyes peeled – and you may just spot one.

Your month-long trip through Southeast Asia finishes back in Vietnam, with a final couple of nights in the Mekong Delta after crossing over from Cambodia. Around Tra Vinh, Khmer culture is woven into everyday life. Cycle between pagodas, make cốm dẹp from sticky rice and coconut milk, and learn about the ceremonial masks used in local performances. You’ll also visit an off-grid community of 15 households living on a roadless island powered by solar energy, where residents will welcome you with tropical fruit and honeyed tea.