Vietnam Travel Guide

Last updated on October 21, 2026 by Shannon

While lumped together with Southeast Asia for geographic and tourism purposes, Vietnam stands out as a destination unique among its neighbors. Each region balances the other.

The frenetic chaos in Saigon is just a stone’s throw from the sleepy colonial towns in the Mekong Delta. Hoi An’s charming, historic ancient town is a mere 40 minutes from the fast-growing and friendly Danang.

History and tradition infuse every aspect of life in Vietnam—from food to religion—and the culture and people are remarkably welcoming to tourism, having built a thriving industry that makes traveling and backpacking in Vietnam unforgettable.

As such, modern Vietnam is a favorite hotspot for budget-loving backpackers traveling Southeast Asia, and destination travelers from all over the world. Although I had spent years traveling other regions of Asia, Vietnam was my final country to visit on mainland Southeast Asia. What an incredible experience.

I have no idea what took me so long to backpack through Vietnam. I spent three months traveling south to north and I discovered cities across the country highlighting various aspects of Vietnam’s long history. I traveled from the War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City to the Japanese and Chinese influenced Hoi An to the French-influenced coffee and baguette culture throughout.

Vibrant, unique, chaotic, traditional—no single word sums the experience of traveling Vietnam.

If you’re visiting Vietnam, this guide covers the essential travel information you should know, pre-trip reading, how to travel responsibly in Vietnam, and specific travel and accommodation recommendations to jumpstart your research.

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Three Things to Decide Before You Plan Your Route

• If you have less than a week, pick one region rather than trying to cover the whole country. The north-to-south distances are real, and a rushed version of everywhere ends up being a real version of nowhere.
• If big-city energy isn’t what you’re after, build your route around it rather than through it. The Mekong Delta moves at an entirely different pace—canal boats and quiet villages, not motorbike horns—and it’s a real alternative to centering your trip on Hanoi and Saigon.
• Off the main tourist routes, English and Western food options thin out fast. Vietnam rewards travelers willing to eat what’s actually on offer, but you don’t have to be adventurous to enjoy it—sticking to rice, bánh mì, and the dishes that are everywhere works fine on the well-traveled path. It’s mainly once you go rural or off-route that a narrower palate will limit you more.

Is it safe to travel in Vietnam?

Vietnam is safe for travelers on the physical level—you don’t have to worry about bodily harm from the Vietnamese people. That said, theft is an issue and the scams center around money. Travelers should never walk the streets with cameras and bags draped on their shoulder or a motorbike might speed by and grab it from you.

Wear your purses cross-body and cameras secured to your wrist or neck. For the same reason, don’t walk with your cell phone held away from your body (consider investing in a phone leash) they are fantastic and give peace of mind when wandering).

In touristy areas especially, count your change. Confirm your taxi fare before the ride (or just use Grab). Use TravelFish to research possible scams in places like Hanoi, Hoi An and Saigon. Since anything can happen on the road, I am a firm advocate of travel insurance and I always carry IMG Global travel insurance.

In addition to the safety concerns listed above, many travelers rent motorbikes and scooters in Vietnam. This is a dangerous place to learn to ride. In the months I visited, I saw dozens of travelers with serious road-rash scarring their bodies.

If you rent a motorbike, please make sure it’s covered by your travel insurance (usually only if you are licensed to drive in your home country) and that you wear the proper gear to protect you if you fall (pants and good shoes). If you have respiratory issues, pollution is a problem in both Hanoi and Saigon, so bring a surgical mask.

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Fast Facts About Vietnam Travel

Vietnam uses the Vietnamese Dong (VND) (current exchange rate) and electricity is 127V/60Hz. American or European plugs both work here, although only without the third grounding prong. If you’re researching flights, the primary airports include:

• Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat Airport (SGN)
• Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport (HAN)
• Da Nang International (DAD).

Can you drink the water in Vietnam?

No, it’s not safe to drink the local water in Vietnam. Drink bottled, bring a reusable water bottle so you can buy big jugs, or consider the merits of a SteriPen or LifeStraw for your trip.

How’s the internet in Vietnam?

WiFi is rampant and thoroughly spread even into the smallest of Vietnamese towns. Saigon has a bustling café culture and these coffee shops all offer fast free WiFi. It’s also a standard amenity in all hotels and guesthouses.

You’ll need a VPN if you plan to access many U.S. sites and to stream U.S. Netflix. A VPN is also crucial for those working from abroad since many U.S. sites either IP block or serve an international version of their sites. I’ve used NordVPN since 2016 while living abroad and it’s never failed me once.

Local SIM Cards

Data is very cheap in Vietnam, even the tourist bundles (locals have different rates, so ask your first guesthouse owner to buy your SIM card if you’re a data hog and really need a lot).

I paid 70,000 Dong for 16 GB lasting three months, and the tourist rate is about 150,000 Dong for 8 GB lasting two months. Because I had so much data, I tethered my phone and worked from my data when I encountered slow speeds. Read a full Vietnam SIM card guide here.

And it’s handy that NordVPN works on my iPhone, too.

Vietnamese Visas

A quick warning before anything else: sites like “vietnamvisa.govt.vn” look official but aren’t—that one openly discloses it’s a private company charging a markup on top of the government fee. The only official portal is evisa.gov.vn, run by Vietnam’s Immigration Department.

For most US travelers, the e-visa is the simplest route: apply at evisa.gov.vn, it takes 3–5 business days, and costs $25 for a single entry or $50 for multiple entry, good for 90 days. If you’re from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or several other EU countries, you can skip the application entirely—you get a 45-day visa-free entry just by showing up. Rules and durations shift from year to year, so confirm your specific nationality’s current requirements directly on evisa.gov.vn before you book flights.

Festivals of Note

• Tết is the country’s New Year’s celebration and is huge throughout Vietnam (late January or early February).
• Lantern Festival in Hoi An (14th day of every lunar month—not calendar month—so research to find out when it’s happening).

Food Considerations

Vietnam is one of the best food destinations in Southeast Asia. The country has a vibrant street food culture and a range of different dishes from north to south. If you are vegetarian, it’s possible to find food, but not always street food. And you have to be diligent.

On my Vegetarian in Vietnam guide, I outline the considerations and obstacles. If you’re celiac, this is a fantastic and thorough post, complete with a downloadable GF translation card.

This post shares the most common street food dishes you will find, and this book chronicles a beautiful food journey through Hanoi. And if you decide to eat street food (which you will!), follow these food safety principles.

Accommodation

The links in city guides below go to my favorite hotel booking site, Booking.com many options are also found on or VRBO, if you are member.

For backpackers and families, Booking.com is perfect for pre-booking hostels and hotels; in high season the bigger towns book up fast (Hostelworld has a solid selection of hostels, too).

And if you buy a local SIM (which you should), you can easily call ahead and directly reserve spots en route. If none of these will do, check out my detailed guide to finding good places to stay.

What’s the weather like?

Vietnam is long, with a varied topography, meaning at least one region has poor weather at all times of year. This chart is by far the best visual to use in planning your trip weather-wise (although note that Jan/Feb is noted as clear for Sapa, when in reality it’s bitterly cold and often very foggy).

How much should you budget to travel in Vietnam?

Vietnam may well be the most budget-friendly location in Southeast Asia, and that is saying a lot, because nearby Thailand, Laos, Cambodia are quite affordable. Budget backpackers sleeping at hostels and eating street-food will easily stay under $20 a day.

The only activity requiring you to splash out on cash is a Halong Bay Tour—and often you will get better value for a bit more if you choose your tour company wisely.

Mid-range travelers will spend $25 a night on nice accommodation (with A/C and spacious rooms), and another $10-20 on food. High-end travelers get a lot bang for their buck as even nice hotels and food are affordable—scale up from the mid-range budget of $45 a day depending on if you choose to splurge on food, accommodation, or both.

How to Get Around Vietnam

Most backpackers in Vietnam take an overland route starting in one of the two primary cities, either Hanoi in the north or Saigon in the south. Vietnam offers train travel in many areas and buses in others—you can suss out the best routes around Vietnam on Bookaway.

It’s a very long country, so keep that in mind when you consider timing your trip. The distances are longer than you expect and if you’re cramming the entire country into a short week or two-week trip, you will need some long overnight trains and buses to navigate it all.

Air travel is another option. VietJetAir is the country’s privately run low-cost carrier and you can find fares as low as $25 to hop around the country. This is mega convenient and I recommend using SkyScanner to search for fares since it includes all the regional low-cost airlines.

Locally, when you are within a city you will likely use mototaxis and taxis to navigate. Grab operates in this area and you can even catch a mototaxi with it! Instead of haggling with xe om drivers, I used Grab exclusively in the cities.

And because of the taxi scams in Saigon and Hanoi, I stick with Grab getting to and from the airports and such (Uber sold its Southeast Asia business to Grab in 2018, so it’s no longer an option here), but if you need to hail a cab, stick to either Vinasun or Mailinh.

If you have a local SIM, Grab is the app to use here—Uber sold its Southeast Asia operations to Grab back in 2018, so it no longer works in Vietnam. I have a Grab account I’ve used in dozens of cities around the world at this point; I highly recommend that travelers also sign up for Uber and have it in your phone for other regions, because you never know when it will come in handy to summon a ride and get out of a sticky situation (happened to me in South Africa!).

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History to Know Before Traveling to Vietnam

You don’t need the full history to travel Vietnam well, but a few pieces explain what you’ll actually see and feel on the ground. Vietnam was under Chinese rule for roughly a thousand years, then French colonial rule from 1884 until the 1950s—which is why the architecture, the coffee culture, and the baguettes (bánh mì) are everywhere, especially in Hanoi and Saigon’s older quarters.

The country was split into North and South after the French left, and the Vietnam/American War that followed is the single biggest thing shaping how the country presents itself to visitors today. It ended with North Vietnam’s victory and reunification in 1975. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City and the DMZ sites further north are where most travelers encounter this history directly, and Agent Orange’s effects are still visible in parts of the country—this isn’t ancient history here.

One more piece worth knowing: Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 to remove the Khmer Rouge, and the two countries’ histories stay tangled along the border—it’s part of why there’s still a large ethnically Khmer population in the Mekong Delta today. If you want the deeper version of any of this—the war, the colonial era, the refugee diaspora—the books below go into it properly.

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Pre-Trip Reading Inspiration: Books About Vietnam

Fiction & Nonfiction Books About Vietnam

• Catfish and Mandala: Travel memoir is often an intriguing way to learn about the culture. A Vietnamese-American return to the Vietnam he left as a young child when his family moved to California. He bicycles around the country, and the journey is beautiful.
• The War. There are no shortage of books about the Vietnam-American War. If you read just two, go with The Sorrow of War, a harrowing recounting of the war and aftermath written from the perspective of a North Vietnamese soldier, and Embers of War, a Pulitzer Prize winning account of the long path of policies and leaders that eventually led to the devastating war.
• Saigon: An Epic Novel of Vietnam: For historical fiction that perfectly accounts the war, but contextualizes it with romance, politics, story, and intrigue, this novel is a better read for those less inclined to learn about the war through drier non-fiction books.
• The Beauty of Humanity Movement: A Novel: Showcasing modern Vietnam in the context of its war-torn history, this beautiful novel takes place in Hanoi and is an easy read. If you’re looking for a better cultural look at contemporary Vietnam, however, Vietnam: Rising Dragon is my recommended non-fiction read.
• Inside Out and Back Again: A beautiful and lyrical story written from the perspective of a 10-year-old girl. This is a wonderful family-friendly read if you are traveling Vietnam with children.
• Eating Viet Nam: A journalist moves to Hanoi and begins a food journey through the back alleys and tiny street stalls of Vietnam. A great read for food lovers.

Podcasts and Online Reads

• The Sandwich that Ate the World: A close look at the history of bánh mì, a tasty Vietnamese sandwich that is wildly popular in Vietnam, and how that love has spread around the globe.
• The History of Pho: This longread recounts the history of Vietnam’s other famous dish, loved the world over: Pho.
• The Vietnam Solution: An interesting piece about current American and Vietnamese relations and how the two countries overcame the war to work together in modern politics.

Find more regional fiction and nonfiction books and long-reads.

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Socially Responsible Travel in Vietnam

Let’s talk about socially responsible travel in Vietnam, as well as the greater opportunities in Southeast Asia. This topic has many layers. From volunteering to donating to beggars to choosing ethical activities. It’s a complex situation.

Animal tourism has a dark side, and responsible travelers should research alternatives. Child sex trafficking and tourism is particularly an issue in Vietnam. Environmental pollution from tourism has devastated parts of Halong Bay.

There are a lot of considerations. All travelers should also read this post on giving to child beggars; you will face this conundrum, so it’s best to be ready. Read our full Vietnam Responsible Travel & Social Enterprise Guide (and one more general responsible travel in Southeast Asia to lessen your impact on any place you visit, then read below for specifics to Vietnam.

Let’s jump into activities you might want to do, as well as alternatives that are just as fun! And at the end, I share tips for responsible volunteering in Vietnam.

Engaging in Human Tourism

Vietnam is among the most unique places to participate in hill tribe tourism. Unlike the sketchy ethnic group tour options in Thailand, northern Vietnam has a well-developed infrastructure of hill tribe groups offering homestay and trekking. Most notably, Sapa O’Chau has a wonderful business model employing and supporting hill tribe communities.

Also, throughout Vietnam, home stays are a common and excellent way to respectfully visit rural communities, support the local economy, while also learning a lot about the people and culture. Use the regional and city guides below for links to community-based tourism options, and responsible tour companies throughout Vietnam.

Riding an Elephant

If you’ve long dreamed of riding one of these majestic creatures, you should read up on their treatment and what it takes to actually break an elephant’s will enough for it to perform tricks and ferry around tourists. It’s a sad industry and one that has grown exponentially alongside tourism.

Traditionally, the Southeast Asians used elephants for hard labor, to help clear land and forests. They make more money from tourism, however, and this has led to a cycle of overworked and abused animals. On the flip side of the debate, feeding an elephant costs a lot, and tourism (including rides) help mahouts afford to properly care for their elephant. It’s a complex, complicated issue.

There are options though! To the best of my knowledge, there are no responsible elephant experiences in Vietnam. There are, however, several sanctuaries in Thailand and Cambodia that offer responsible traveler-elephant interactions. Travelers love the responsible experience.

These sanctuaries are doing wonderful work to give elephants a home and a peaceful life. Avoid elephant experiences in Vietnam, and check out the Save Elephants Foundation to plan a visit in Thailand or Cambodia.

Side note. Generally, avoid riding any exotic wild animal. Riding ostriches in Dalat is gaining popularity and it’s beyond unfortunate. An ostrich’s body is not designed to hold an adult’s weight and these animals fully panic when ridden.  

Buying Endangered Animal Products

Vietnam has a massive industry built around selling, exporting, and trafficking in exotic wild animals. Likewise, many of these animals are used for tourist souvenirs. Avoid purchasing anything made from wild or endangered animals—turtle shells, skins, ivory, etc. And do not buy exotic animal meat or turtle eggs for consumption. Engaging in these practices is either illegal or contribute to the continuation of these destructive practices.

To ensure you’re buying authentic, ethical souvenirs handmade in Vietnam, shop at any of the fair trade shops that offer unique gifts made my vulnerable groups.

Haggling Too Much

Bargaining is a fun part of the culture in Vietnam, and it’s surely something you should engage in freely when buying fruit, souvenirs, and even tours. But be warned that certain over-touristed locations have started a dangerous precedence for the locals.

In Hoi An, for example, the prevalence of so many tailor shops has driven prices so low that some locations will accept a commission and lose money rather than lose business (the fabric is a sunk cost, so some are willing to lose net money if it means food on the table that night).

Bargain respectfully and remember, your sale is directly helping the local economy, so spend money and feel good about infusing your cash into the local economy.

Volunteering

Many travelers are keen to volunteer or support responsible businesses on the road. If you’re backpacking Southeast Asia, you may want to stop for a few weeks or months and support a cause near and dear to your heart. Since not all NGOs and volunteer companies are doing great work, consider this list of vetted independent volunteer opportunities in Vietnam.

Supporting Responsible Businesses

Vietnam has standout social enterprises operating all over the country. I highlight a few in the city guides below, and I profiled my absolute favorite social enterprises in Hoi An. Consider researching all of the options for supporting social enterprises on your trip.

Supporting social enterprises is one of the easiest ways to create a trip with positive impact. This means picking businesses that are using funds to support local communities and to offer training, support, or to protect natural resources. You can do everything from get a massage or pick a trekking guide—all with companies committed to social impact.

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Best Things to Do in Vietnam

Starting in southern Vietnam, I spent three months backing north through Vietnam. Many travelers pick a direction for their Vietnam travels since the country’s long and skinny shape lends itself to this style of travel—if you’re backpacking across Southeast Asia, your clockwise or counter-clockwise route through the region will determine where you start.

I used a combination of buses, trains, and budget airlines to skip over some long distances, but it’s super common for adventurous travelers to rent a motorbike and ride the length of Vietnam either independently, or on a tour, while exploring the vast number of things to do.

Three months doesn’t make me an expert, but I did find information was surprisingly scarce in some areas (the Mekong Delta), so I offer these city and regional suggestions below as an accounting of how I did the trip, great accommodation I discovered, and my favorite social enterprises and tasty eats.

My Favorite Experiences in Vietnam

• Sipping tea at the Reaching Out Teahouse in charming Hoi An.
• Boating through the Ha Long Bay region from Cat Ba Island.
• Boating through the karst rocks in Tam Coc.
• Spending lazy days in the sun-drenched colonial towns in the Mekong Delta region.

I’ve split the full south-to-north route—Saigon, the Mekong Delta, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, and Phu Quoc at the end—into its own post, along with the real time I spent in each place and whether you should travel north to south or the other way around: Vietnam Itinerary: My Full South-to-North Route.

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Vietnam Travel Guide: Travel Stories from the Blog

Discover all of my travel stories blogged in real-time while I was traveling through this beautiful country.