Wednesday 30 March 2011

Travel costs for Vietnam

So how much does it cost to travel in Vietnam? Here's a summary of my spending (you can see my travel style in this post on travel costs in Thailand, so you can calculate how your likely spending would match up to mine).

7 February to 7 March = total of £583 for a month
Average costs per day = £20

Accommodation
Average £10.44 a night

Saigon, Dalat, Hoi An, Danang and Hanoi were all about 400,000 dong a night (about $20 or £12).

Can Tho, Hue and Cat Ba were about half that.

Sightseeing and transport
Average £6.19 per day, including a couple of internal flights.

Travelling the length of Vietnam involves covering a lot of distance. The cheapest way to do this is probably overnight buses, but having seen how bad the driving was (vehicles overtaking into oncoming traffic and forcing each other off the road) I wasn't prepared to do this.

Food and drink
Average £3.12 per day, mostly eating at street kitchens and small restaurants.

Vietnamese food is amazing, and you can eat and drink well here for next to nothing.

Most expensive meal – £4.35 for tasting menu in a small restaurant in Hoi An.
Cheapest meal – £0.30 for a sandwich (bahn mi).
Cost of a plate of food at a street kitchen – £0.60 to £1.00
Cost of a 500ml bottle of water – £0.10 to £0.20

Other costs to consider when budgeting
A Vietnam visa isn't cheap – mine costs £62, including recorded delivery mail to and from the embassy.
I also spent about £10 during the month for laundry, a local sim card and air-time, and toiletries.

All in all, although costs have apparently gone up steadily the past few years, Vietnam remains an excellent value destination.

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