# 12 Is Mang Den the New Da Lat?
Travel recommendations for Vietnam’s Central Highlands & the problem with destination dupes.
The Problem with Destination Dupes
When I first read the word “dupe” in a travel story headline, I thought it was a synonym for scam. But it’s apparently short for “duplicate.”
Destination dupes are a travel trend. People seek budget-friendly options similar to the popular over-priced places they cannot afford. Or they long to escape the crowds. Newspapers and travel magazines publish lists of dupes, making concrete suggestions to travel, for example, to Copenhagen instead of Amsterdam. But this practice can be misleading.
I understand the need to cut costs; prices play a part in our decisions on where to go, too. I also appreciate the good intentions behind recommending alternatives to overcrowded destinations. It’s smart to draw travelers away from heavily touristed areas to lighten the load on local communities and the environment. Unfortunately, our Instagram culture, bucket-list mentality, and frenzied admiration for a particular hotspot can cause hordes of tourists to overwhelm a place and turn a treasure into a trap. The amount of worshippers coming to Venice and Kyoto each day makes tourism there non-sustainable.
Sometimes, there are indeed good alternatives to suggest, places that are less crowded, cheaper, or more authentic that the original hotspot. Definitely go to the lesser-known Greek islands instead of to Santorini or Mykonos. I speak from experience. I’ve been to over a dozen Greek islands; all of them were gems, except for Santorini and Mykonos.
Other times, the hotspot doesn’t even deserve its popularity. It may have been hyped as a tourist attraction by influencers or by locals trying to make some money. I encountered this most recently in Bali where guides offered to take us to waterfalls, temples, and scenic spots not on the tourist map. There, we didn’t have to pay a fee to climb ten steps and wait in line for hours to have a few minutes of taking pictures. The dupes suggested by the guides were a great idea.
Then again, dupes may draw travelers to places not setup to handle large amounts of visitors. They’re often much smaller than the original destination they’re supposed to unburden and can get overrun quickly.
The biggest problem with dupes, however, is that they often miss the mark. I’ve read: Palermo instead of Lisbon, Krakow instead of Rome, and Antwerp instead of Paris. Six wonderful European cities, each worth a visit on their own merits, but the supposedly less expensive options aren’t substitutes for the originals. Most places we adore in this world simply have no equal. It’s fooling ourselves or misguiding others when we claim such doubles exist. There’s no dupe for the real thing.
Mang Den versus Da Lat: a comparison
Instead of saying Mang Den is a dupe for Da Lat, I will briefly compare the two and then list the highlights and downsides of Mang Den.
Both towns are located in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, Mang Den at 1,200m elevation and Da Lat at 1,500m. They have a similar climate with cooler temperatures and more rain than on sea level areas. They each offer spectacular mountain views and exciting switchback rides. Although Da Lat is more known for its fresh produce, Mang Den also has an abundance of local farms, and both regions produce coffee and tea.
But that’s where the similarities end. Da Lat is a major town drawing 7 million tourists a year with a population of about 400K (some sources say 250K, others 600K, so don’t take my number as a fact). Mang Den has a population of only 7K and over 1 million visitors per year. In Da Lat, traffic is a constant nightmare and the town is always busy. Mang Den sees crowds only in the weekends, and even then the atmosphere is far from hectic. Da Lat offers pricy boutique hotels with tiny rooms. The tree-lined roads leading away from the small center in Mang Den have European-style chalets where you can rent a spacious room and live with a family for a day, or a month.
Mang Den is not an undiscovered jewel, but it’s surely less overrun than Da Lat, and I prefer its relative calm. Some claim Da Lat has lost its identity to its own popularity. Then again, you will only find the mind-blowing Crazy House and the impressive Linh Phuoc Pagoda in Da Lat. Ethnic minority groups have dwelled in Mang Den for ages, but the town doesn’t have a historic quarter with French villas and royal palaces as does Da Lat. Mang Den also lacks a spectacular cable car taking you down from the town to a huge lake below.
Still, Mang Den has its own highlights and downsides.
I will list a total of 16 of them below.
