For couples who live by the lens, not the clock, travel isn’t about ticking off temples. It’s about finding space—mental and physical—to breathe, to make, to reconnect. And for Clara and Remy, both 30, both creative freelancers based in Melbourne, Nha Trang was the unexpected answer to a question they hadn’t known they were asking.
“We needed to get out,” said Clara, a freelance art director who’d been locked in a string of late-night Zoom sprints. “Not to unplug. Just to reframe.”
Remy, her partner in both life and in the boutique photography agency they co-run, agreed. “We weren’t looking for a honeymoon. We wanted a reset. A place to shoot, swim, sleep, and sketch.”
Where Work Feels Like Play
They chose the Premier Garden Pool Villa at Wyndham Gardens, a two-bedroom hideaway set in whispering palms and jasmine breezes, where the open-plan living room became their mobile studio.
“It had that light,” Remy said, referring to the golden hour that kissed the pool deck every evening. “You could shoot product flat lays in the kitchen, take portrait shots in the outdoor shower, then edit them all in a hammock.”
They brought just enough kit: two DSLRs, a drone, and matching MacBooks. The villa’s fast fibre and zero visual clutter made it perfect for uploading to clients between dips in the saltwater pool.
“The vibe wasn’t hustle,” Clara said. “It was float, flow, create.”
From Motorbikes to Moodboards
They rented a scooter on day two and began mapping a rhythm: sunrise noodle stalls, midday sunburns, golden-hour captures. One day was for drone footage over Hon Chong promontory, the next was handheld b-roll of lanterns bobbing in the backstreets near Dam Market.
At night, they’d review footage on the villa projector, wine in hand, geckos chirping outside. They storyboarded client work on the outdoor terrace, bathed in soft garden lighting and the sound of the distant surf.
Remy described it as “a feedback loop of beauty”: shoot all day, refine all night, and never once feel like you were working.
Creative Concierge
They made full use of the villa concierge, who booked private sessions with local artists and calligraphers, arranged a shoot at an abandoned French colonial villa, and even organised a cooking class where they filmed slow-motion footage of fish sauce splashing into woks.
“We got content for three months of posts, reels, and campaigns in four days,” Clara said. “And none of it felt like a job.”
They also met a local model and fellow creative, Nga, who joined them for two sessions on the beach. The concierge helped arrange usage rights, props, and location access—all without Clara or Remy touching their phones.
“We started calling her our ‘fixer’. She was that good,” Remy laughed.
The Space Between Frames
But it wasn’t all shutter clicks. They also carved silence into their itinerary.
An unplanned visit to Po Nagar Cham Towers turned into a meditation session among incense smoke and crumbling stone. A lazy afternoon at Doc Let Beach became a nap under parasols and a hand-drawn comic in Clara’s sketchbook. A low-key dinner at a seaside shack served grilled oysters and unlocked conversations about future dreams—not deliverables.
“The best part was the in-betweens,” Clara said. “That liminal space where you forget what day it is, where work and love and place blur.”
Making It a Ritual
They’ve already booked their return: same villa, same season, but next time with a few creative friends. A working holiday meets creative retreat—“like Coachella, if everyone was quiet and talented and in bed by 10.”
What began as an escape became an anchor. A place where ideas aren’t just sparked—they’re given permission to land.
“Nha Trang doesn’t scream at you,” Remy said. “It whispers. It lets you breathe. And if you’re lucky, it’ll teach you to see again.”