Wow…what an unexpected treat the country of Vietnam is. We had no idea what to expect going in, but left fully convinced that we’d have no problem moving to and living happily in Vietnam. The country is stunningly beautiful. The food might actually be the best food we’ve ever experienced while traveling (apologies to Italy…but it’s true). The experiences were life changing. But, the thing that makes Vietnam so special is the people. The people of Vietnam were quite possibly the friendliest people we’ve encountered across this planet. They were engaging and surprisingly, to us at least, hilariously funny. Every day we’d have at least one conversation with a local person that would end with us all holding our sides from laughing so hard. They were witty and goofy and sarcastic and since they start learning English in kindergarten, everyone speaks English so well that they’re able to really play with words and let their humor and sarcasm come through.
Vietnam is a long slender Southeast Asian country, about the size of California situated along the Pacific Ocean. It has two main airports one in the North in Hanoi and one in the South in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It doesn’t matter which one you fly into first, but you will ultimately travel either up or down the coast from that city hitting all the major stops along the way and then fly out of the other major city. So either fly into Hanoi and work your way south, eventually flying out of Saigon or fly into Saigon and work your way North to Hanoi. We flew into Saigon (Which is the old name for the city, since the end of the Vietnam War it has been called Ho Chi Minh City. On all official documents it will be referred to as Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone local will still refer to it as Saigon. 700 years of being called as such is a hard habit to break) and flew out of Hanoi. While it doesn’t matter which direction you go we will talk about all our plans in that order.
One thing to note about traveling to Vietnam…you require a Visa to enter the country. There are two ways you can do this. If you have multiple months before your trip you will mail your passport to the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States along with the required paperwork and they will mail you back your passport with the required Visa stamp. This is the easiest way and if you have enough time it is highly recommended that you do so.
Please visit the US State Departments website for the most up to date information available.
If you don’t, have no fear…there is still a fairly easy way to do this even 24 hours before your flight. Vietnam allows state approved travel agents to pre-process your visa application. You will visit one of these sights online, fill out the required information, upload the required documents and within 24 hours they will send you back a letter detailing that your Visa is being pre-processed. You will need to present this letter in order to board the plane to Vietnam.
There is one other fail safe if you somehow forget to get either a Visa or a pre-approval letter before your flight. If you somehow get on your plane without either of these two things, you will still likely be allowed into the country so long as you agree to stay at a state approved hotel for the first 2-3 days of your stay while they process your Visa. You will pay out of pocket for the hotel as well as a large fee for the official who is now in charge of your Visa. They will keep track of you and check in with you regularly until your Visa is approved and then you can continue on your trip. If you don’t have a Visa or a pre-approval letter and you refuse to pay the large fee and stay at the approved hotel you will be denied entry and sent back to the last country that you left from. So if you had a layover in Tokyo, you will be sent back to Japan and that is it for your trip to Vietnam.
Now that you’re actually in Vietnam what should you do? The main cities and attractions that we will cover run from South to North and are listed below in that order. After that we’ll discuss some other off the beaten track things you can do on your trip if you have even more time. With that being said…let’s start in Ho Chi Minh City (which for brevity’s sake we will refer to as Saigon from here out). Please Click on the photos below for specific advice for each of Vietnam’s major stops from South to North.
Before you click on the cities below, one important piece of advice is how to get from city to city. Our advice is to book one-way flights on Vietnam Airlines. The flights are extremely cheap. For less than $40 you can get a flight from Saigon to Nha Trang or from Danang to Hanoi. For between $15-25 extra you can upgrade that flight to first class. The seats aren’t all that special and the flights are all about 45-90min so it’s not imperative for the flight that you have first class tickets. The reason this is such a good deal is that all first class passengers on Vietnam Airlines (it has to be Vietnam Airlines) get to skip the lines at the airport, both for check in and for security. In the major cities these lines can sometimes be EXTREMELY long. That alone is worth the extra 20 bucks. However, once you get into the airport, Vietnam Airlines has a first class lounge with free unlimited booze, food and even massages, pedicures and manicures at certain times. For $20 you’ll skip all the lines, you’ll get great food for free, all the booze you can drink, a comfortable place to sit with wifi before your flight and top notch service on the flight itself. I couldn’t possibly recommend upgrading to first class on all your Vietnamese flights any more than I already do. It’s the best deal in travel.
