Hanoi Very cheap
Hanoi is the birthplace of pho and bun cha. Eat on plastic stools on the street where the locals are — that is where the good food is, not in restaurants. Egg coffee is a Hanoi invention worth trying.
Budget travel in Vietnam
What a visitor's money does in Vietnam: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Good value average across 8 guides · 5 is very cheap
Money
Vietnamese Dong (VND) · 1 EUR = 29,800 VND · 1 USD = 26,000 VND
Gold and jewellery shops in the Old Quarter traditionally offer the best exchange rates — better than banks. Count the zeros carefully: 500,000 and 50,000 notes look similar and mix-ups are the most common tourist mistake.
ATMs
Avoid: Euronet, machines with a 2-3 million VND withdrawal cap
Use: Vietcombank, BIDV, Techcombank, TPBank
Most machines charge 20,000-50,000 VND and cap low. TPBank usually allows the largest single withdrawal.
Getting around
A short ride in Hanoi: 30,000–70,000 ₫ across town — very cheap
From the airport: Tan Son Nhat to District 1 150,000–250,000 ₫
Cheaper and settled in advance. Street taxis in Vietnam are where the meter games happen.
City by city, cheapest first
Ho Chi Minh City Very cheap
Southern food is sweeter than the north. Banh mi from a street cart, com tam (broken rice) for lunch, and iced ca phe sua da everywhere. District 4 is the local street-food district rather than the tourist one.
Hoi An Very cheap
Hoi An has dishes found nowhere else: cao lau noodles, white rose dumplings and banh mi that regularly tops national lists. Eat at the market rather than the riverside terraces.
Da Nang Very cheap
Central Vietnamese food is the country’s spiciest. Mi Quang — turmeric noodles with pork and prawn — is the local dish, and banh xeo here is smaller and crisper than in the south.
Sapa Good value
Mountain food: thang co, grilled pork belly on bamboo skewers, and salmon and sturgeon farmed in the cold streams, which is not what anyone expects in Vietnam. Corn wine at the homestays is strong and offered constantly.
Ha Long Bay Good value
Seafood, obviously — but the specific thing is cha muc, squid cakes pounded by hand in Ha Long city, eaten with bread or rice. On the boats the food is decent and included; ashore in Hai Phong, banh da cua crab noodles are worth the detour.
Phu Quoc Good value
The island is famous for fish sauce and black pepper — both are worth bringing home. Eat seafood at the Duong Dong night market, where you pick it live and pay by weight.
Ninh Bình Expensive
Goat is the local dish — dê núi, grilled or with lemongrass — with cơm cháy, crisped rice. The homestays cook better than the restaurants and will feed you if you ask in the morning.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
The guides in Vietnam
HanoiVietnamOld Quarter chaos, lakeside calm, and extraordinary street food
Ho Chi Minh CityVietnamVietnam at full volume — motorbikes, markets and rooftop bars
Hoi AnVietnamLantern-lit trading port frozen in the eighteenth century
Da NangVietnamA long beach, a mountain pass, and Vietnam’s easiest city to live in
Ha Long BayVietnamTwo thousand limestone towers standing in jade water, best seen from a bunk on a boat
Phu QuocVietnamVietnam’s largest island, with jungle behind the beaches
SapaVietnamRice terraces cut into mountainsides by hand, and hill villages where the market is the week’s event
Ninh BìnhVietnamLimestone towers over flooded rice fields, rowed through by women using their feet