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Travel budget for Vietnam: what a 2-week trip really costs

Published 29 October 2026

Vietnam is one of the few long-haul destinations where your daily spending can be lower than at home, even when you travel comfortably. A bowl of pho costs less than a coffee in Amsterdam, and a good hotel room often costs what a hostel bed does in Paris. The flight from Europe is the big expense, so the longer you stay, the better the value. The ranges below are rough 2026 figures based on recent traveller reports and current fares. They move with the season and the dong, so treat them as a starting point, not a quote.

Before you go: the visa question

Entry rules depend on your passport, so check the current situation for your nationality. A growing list of European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and the UK, currently enjoys visa-free stays of up to 45 days, but the list changes and is not universal. If you need a visa, or want to stay longer, the official e-visa costs USD 25 for a single entry and allows stays of up to 90 days. Apply only via the government portal evisa.gov.vn: plenty of lookalike agency sites charge several times the official fee. Allow about a week for processing.

Flights from Europe

A return economy ticket from a European hub to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City usually costs €600 to €1,000. Vietnam Airlines flies nonstop from a handful of European cities, and one-stop connections via the Gulf, Istanbul or other Asian hubs are often the cheapest. The expensive periods are the Tet holiday (late January or February), Christmas, and the European summer holidays. Booking an open-jaw ticket, into Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh City or the other way around, saves you a day and a domestic flight.

Accommodation: great value at every level

• Hostels: €5 to €10 for a dorm bed, slightly more in Hanoi's Old Quarter. Many include breakfast and organise tours.
• Guesthouses and homestays: €12 to €25 for a private double room with air conditioning.
• Mid-range hotels: €30 to €60 for a comfortable hotel, often with a pool in Hoi An or Da Nang.
• Boutique and resorts: €80 to €200 for beach resorts in Phu Quoc or upmarket hotels in Hoi An.

Around Tet, prices in the big cities can double and many places close for a few days, so plan around it or book well ahead.

Daily food and transport

Vietnamese street food is cheap and among the best in Asia:

• Pho or banh mi at a local stall: €1 to €2. In tourist areas, closer to €2.50 to €4.
• A meal in a simple restaurant: €3 to €6. A nice dinner with drinks: €10 to €20 per person.
• A local beer: €0.80 to €2. A Vietnamese iced coffee: around €1 to €2.
• A short Grab car ride in the city: about €1.50 to €3, even less on the back of a Grab motorbike.

For longer distances, overnight sleeper buses cost about €10 to €16 and save a night's accommodation. The train along the coast is slower and more expensive but very scenic, especially between Hue and Da Nang. Domestic flights with VietJet, Bamboo or Vietnam Airlines run €30 to €80 one way when booked early, which makes a north-to-south trip in two weeks realistic. Budget around €12 a day for food as a backpacker, €25 mid-range and €50 if you eat in restaurants for most meals.

Tip

Turn these ranges into your own plan

Enter your flight price, number of nights and travel style in the travel budget calculator, then check the daily budget calculator to set a daily cap in euros before you start counting in dong.

Activities: what costs real money

Most of Vietnam's charm is free: old towns, markets, rice terraces and beaches. The bigger spends are organised trips. An overnight cruise in Ha Long Bay or Lan Ha Bay runs from about €80 for a basic boat to €250 or more per person on a luxury ship. Cooking classes cost €20 to €35. Tailored clothes in Hoi An are a classic: a made-to-measure suit or dress can run from about €80 to a few hundred euros, depending on fabric. Multi-day motorbike loops in Ha Giang with a local driver typically cost a few hundred euros for three or four days. Entry tickets for sights like the Hue citadel or the Cu Chi tunnels cost a few euros each.

A sample 2-week budget in euros

Here's what two weeks costs per person for a classic north-to-south route: Hanoi, Ha Long or Lan Ha Bay, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Minh City, with one domestic flight and a sleeper bus or train. Mid-range and comfort assume you share a double room.

For a backpacker, flights are almost half the trip. That's why Vietnam rewards longer stays: a third week adds only a few hundred euros on the ground.

Money tips: cash, ATMs and dong

Vietnam still runs largely on cash. Cards work in hotels, malls and upmarket restaurants, but street food, markets and smaller guesthouses want dong. A few tips:

• Watch the zeros. With hundreds of thousands of dong for a simple meal, it is easy to mix up notes. The 20,000 and 500,000 notes look alike, so check before you hand them over.
• ATM fees add up. Many Vietnamese ATMs charge a fee per withdrawal, sometimes with low limits per transaction. Your home bank may add its own fee, so withdraw larger amounts less often.
• Always choose dong. If a card terminal or ATM offers to charge you in euros, decline. Our guide on cash or card abroad explains why this saves money.
• Tipping is not expected in most places, but rounding up or tipping guides and drivers on tours is appreciated.

When everything costs 50,000 or 200,000 of something, it's hard to feel what you've spent. Logging expenses in dong and seeing them converted to euros keeps you honest; read how budgeting in multiple currencies works in PocketTrip.

Best time to go

Vietnam stretches over 1,600 kilometres, so the weather differs completely between north and south. The north is cool and drizzly from December to March and hot and humid in summer, with the best months from October to December and March to May. Central Vietnam (Hue, Hoi An, Da Nang) is best from February to August, while autumn brings heavy rain and the occasional typhoon. The south is warm all year, dry from December to April. For a full north-to-south trip, March to May is the safest bet.

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