mikedellgolf

I am a 21 years old male and I plan to take a trip to Vietnam in May '23 and stay there for six months before coming back to the US and starting my professional career. I plan on playing a lot of golf and tennis while I am in Vietnam while traveling from Hanoi to Saigon during my six months stay. I was born and raised in the US but my parents are Vietnamese and I've never been to Vietnam. I have relatives in both Ha Noi and Saigon but I don't know them. How can I plan a safe trip to Vietnam and not get scammed when I am there? How much money do I need in order to have a very comfortable trip for six months?

Best,

Mike

live42day

I found the Vietnamese people to be very honest, but it seems that in every country I go to I get scammed by taxi or tuk tuk drivers. Make sure you either establish a price a head of time or use the meter. Make sure you know the conversion rates fromUSD to VND as you will be dealing in millions

Getting from place to place,: airfare is inexpensive. Busses are cheaper but not comfortable sometimes, but you sound young so can handle it. We took the bus to Sapa and then returned to Hanoi by train, both were fine.

For how much money, I don’t know how much golf and tennis costs as I don’t do that so can’t help you there. Food is very cheap even in restaurants . We stayed in mid range accommodation and paid less than $20 a night up to $50 a night. Your USD will go a long way there
go to booking.com. Look at hotels in various cities to give you an idea of prices

mikedellgolf

Thank you. I am setting aside a budget of $250/day for six months stay in Vietnam. Hopefully, it will be enough to travel and enjoy playing golf + tennis while I am there.

live42day

You should be able to live VERY well with that budget

Larsay

Do you have a Vietnamese passport or the Vietnamese nationality ? If not, you are going to have a huge problem of visa, which is valid only for 30 days and, to renew it, you have to go out of the country each time. OR yo get a student visa. As for traveling in Vietnam, I live on retirement in Hanoi since 16 years, travel constantly, and have at your disposal over 100 pages of very detailed travel notes on the whole country (plus note and Cambodia and on Laos). The file is too big to post here, but, if you give me your email address, I send it to you (you can give me the address on a private message if you wish)

Larsay

As for money, life is quiet cheap here. A good 2-star hotel costs you 25-35$, a backpackers hostel 15.You can share an apartment or villa with other people in Hanoi for 200-300$ a month Food is the same, 5$ in a street restaurant. 5-6000$ for 6 moths will be OK. Saigon is a little more expensive.

mikedellgolf

I've been saving 40K in the past two years from my college internship in preparation for this trip. I am going to treat myself like a "king" on this trip. How much would a 4 or 5 star hotel cost in Hai Noi, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Hue, Nha Trang, Da Lat and HCM? I am still trying to figure out how much it would cost me to play a lot of golf and tennis in Vietnam.

Larsay

For a 4-star, count 120-200$, 300 and above for 5

travelwhileyoucan

Agreed! taxis and tuk-tuk drivers will scam you once they know you're a foreigner.

Larsay

taxis and tuk-tuk drivers will scam you once they know you're a foreigner.

It is obvious that you have never put your feet in Vietnam; Taxis work on meter and there are NO tuk-tuk !!!!

travelwhileyoucan

My bad, I forgot to say, same experience but I was when we were in Thailand.

Larsay

Well, let's say that Thailand the worst in scamming foreign tourist, foloed by Cambodia. Nothing of the sort in Laos, Vietnam or the Philippines as far as I have experienced

Larsay

Well, let's say that Thailand the worst in scamming foreign tourist, foloed by Cambodia.
TYPOS. Here is what I wish to say :

Well, let's say that Thailand is the worst in scamming foreign tourists, followed by Cambodia. In both, the police is appalling, harassing foreign tourists - especially after 2 years with no "income" because no tourists thanks to covid, and taxi/tuk-tuk/moto-taxi drivers are the kings to scam them. It has reached a point where, after coming back from Siem Reap and Bangkok, I have decided that I will never put my feet any longer in both countries.

laurieco

We were scammed by a taxi driver today in Saigon. Yes it was metered but I gave the driver a 200,000 dong bill to pay the 110,000 dong fare and he switched it out with a 10,000 dong bill insisting that was what I gave him. I knew how much money I had on me and I knew that I had two 200,000 bills but it was no use arguing with him. When we exited the taxi I had no 200,000 bills (having had to give the thief my second one to pay). So yes, you can get scammed by taxi drivers in Vietnam.

Larsay

It does not happen routinely like iin some other countries and Saigon is a special case, corruption has always reigned there. To make sure, when I give money, for ex 200 000, i say "200 000 !"

laurieco

I did say “here’s 200,000.” Didn’t matter, he was a thief. For the record, I’ve been to Thailand 5 times and have never been scammed by a taxi driver or tuk-tuk driver. Never. We have been scammed in Athens and Istanbul however, once in each city.

Larsay

Obviously, you like huge expensive impersonal hotels where you are strictly a room number ! NO need to fly 30 000 km round trip to sleep in there, they are all over your country. Vietnam has a marvelous network of small 3-star hotels at reasonable prices (45-65$). Among those, the Serenity Villa and La Siesta in Hanoi, the Vung Hau (Emerald) in HOI AN (NOT Danang, a beautiful city, but not the extreme charm and History of Hoi An), the Sporting in Saigon.

travelwhileyoucan

This is terrible! Sorry if you experienced it. I hope you still had fun despite it.