Vietnam Travel Budget
Ready for an exhilarating journey to the land of mouth-watering cuisine? Buckle up as we take you through our five-and-a-half week in Vietnam on a tight budget! Get ready to dive into the nitty-gritty of our expenses as we meticulously documented every euro spent on transportation, accommodation, food, and activities. In this blog, we unveil the true cost of exploring Vietnam on a budget. All the costs in this blog are shared by two adventurous souls unless described different.
Currency
The Indonesian rupiah is the currency of Indonesia.
You should always carry cash, as it is the most frequent way of payment. There are both billets and coins. If you travel to more touristy places such as Bali you can pay with a credit card in bigger restaurants.
We ourselves didn’t bring any cash from home, so we withdrew everything from ATMs. This is definitely not a cheap option as you need to pay a fee every time you withdraw cash and the withdrawal limit is quite low (2.500.000 IDR, around €170 in September and October 2022). Depending on how long you’re planning to travel through Indonesia, you can also bring euros or dollars to exchange for Indonesian rupias.
We both have a simple converter app on our phone (Currency+), which makes it easy to convert currencies. We travelled through Indonesia in September and October 2022 when currency rates were volatile, which influenced our expenses.
Visa
You need a visa to travel to Vietnam. We opted for the E-visa as it is cheaper than a visa on arrival and this also allowed us to skip the line at the border control. We bought the Vietnam Tourist E-visa on the official website for € 26,48 per person the first time and € 26,06 per person for our second visit. With this visa you can stay for 30 days in Vietnam. They advise you to apply for the visa at least eight days before departure.
We flew into Vietnam twice because we made a city trip to Seoul, South Korea during our Vietnam travels. That’s why we needed the E-visa twice.
In total, we spend €105,08 on our visas for Vietnam.
Transportation
Depending on the season you can find a return flight from Europe to Vietnam between €400 and €900 (one person). As we were on a big Asia trip, we booked a one-way ticket from Bali, Indonesia to Ho Chi Minh City for €201,70 (two persons) including luggage. We booked the flight two months in advance and were flexible about the departure date which made it cheap.
If you have limited time to discover Vietnam, domestic flights are a good option if you want to travel great distances such as from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City or from Hoi An (Da Nang) to the north or south of Vietnam. This is the fastest option to get around and is also quite affordable. An even cheaper option are the (sleeper) buses, although they take more time to get around.
We travelled through Vietnam using busses and trains only.
For the Ha Giang Loop and other places, we rented a motorbike for one or multiple days. The price for a motorbike is between 150.000 and 250.000 Vietnamese dong per day. There are also bigger and stronger bikes available if you prefer, but this comes with a higher cost.
In total, we spend € 499,82 on all the transportation, which equals € 7,64 a day for two people.
Accommodation
In Vietnam, you can find lots of accommodations ranging from cheap backpacker hostels to fancy resorts. So, you can pick what you prefer. As you might have known, we were on a strict budget so we opted for the cheaper options. We always slept in a private room, as we like to have our own place to rest from all the travelling. Overall, we paid between €7 and €14 a night for two people.
In total, we spend € 437,12 for accommodation.
Food
Vietnam is known for its delicious street food, perfect for budget travellers! For about €2 you can join the locals and take a seat on a small plastic stool to enjoy a fresh meal. So, that’s what we did almost all the time in Vietnam. Oh, and did we tell you about all the fresh fruits you can buy on the streets for about €1!
We spend € 576,59 on food during five and a half weeks in Vietnam.
Activities
In Vietnam we did some fun activities like soaring on alpine coasters, exploring the waters during boat tours and some history-loaded museums.
Alpine Coaster in Da Lat for 200.000 dong per person (≈ €8)
Archery for 20.000 dong (less than €1)
Renting a bike at Ninh Binh for 30.000 dong a day per bike (≈ €1,20)
Entrance fee tombs around Hué for 530.000 dong per person (≈ €21)
Boat tour around Trang An for €10 per person
Viewpoint Hang Múa for 100.000 dong per person (≈ €4)
Less famous boat tour in Ninh Binh for 170.00 dong (≈ €6,75 for two persons)
Ha Long Bay boat tour for 500.000 dong per person (≈ €20)
Tour in Sa Pa for 900.000 dong (≈ €35,72 for two persons)
Water puppet show in Hanoi for 150.000 dong per person (≈ €6)
Vietnam Military History Museum for 40.000 dong per person (≈ €1,60)
Cooking class for €60 for the both of us in Hanoi
For all the activities together we spend € 292,84.
Others
Some other expenses we had:
- ATM costs (€ 30,23)
- Sim-card for 180.000 dong (≈ €7,50)
- Medicines
- Hairdresser for 100.000 dong (≈ €4)
- Laundry
- Souvenirs
- Personal expenses
We spend € 265,63 on other purchases.
Total Breakdown
For our Asia travels we have set a budget of €66 a day for two people including everything except insurances. If we manage to travel for this budget, we would be able to travel for six months. We knew this very strict but it is a goal we will try to approach.
Did we manage to reach our budget goal in Vietnam? In total, our Vietnam trip of 39 days costs € 2.176,61 including everything. That gives an average of €55,81 per day for two people, which is under our aimed daily budget.
