Four Seasons Resort, The Nam Hai

If Thailand’s feeling a bit crowded, fear not — this is the dawning of the age of the Vietnam beach resort. The Nam Hai, on the famous China Beach, just outside of Danang, will have you wondering why you hadn’t thought of Vietnam before.

The short answer, of course, is that there aren’t many places like the Nam Hai. A hundred modern-minimal villas, designed by the Parisian architect Reda Amalou, stretch along the palm-lined beach, each walled off for privacy, and 40 of them with their own private plunge pools.

Amenities include the full line of luxury-villa must-haves: freestanding tubs, separate rain showers, flat-screen televisions and Bose sound systems. Most are one-bedrooms, but the pool villas come in sizes up to five bedrooms — more than big enough for just about any purpose (family reunion? beach wedding?).

The villas would be enough for most of us, but the Nam Hai comes with an almost comical array of services as well — not just a fitness center and spa (with eight Spa Suites) but three pools, four tennis courts, and facilities for basketball and even badminton as well. Add two restaurants serving Vietnamese and international cuisine and fresh seafood, and you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with Thailand in the first place.