Overview·By YC·2026-10-21· 8 min
The modern Saigon skyline © TravelWise 2016
There’s a simple draw to Southeast Asia: there’s an awful lot to see, the weather is warm, and it’s cheap. And while most travelers first think of Thailand or Bali, with their enticing beaches, Vietnam offers a compelling alternative. While the Northern Vietnam guide focuses on Hanoi and the mountains beyond, this one focuses on the country's great commercial centers of past and present: Saigon and Hoi An.
This part of Asia has been trading and reinventing itself for centuries. Saigon and Hoi An show what happens at opposite ends of that story. Saigon is the modern commercial heart of Vietnam: loud, crowded, ambitious, and packed with excellent restaurants, hotels, bars, and spas at some of the lowest prices found in the world. Hoi An is the older incarnation—a compact trading town of merchant houses, temples, canals, and lantern-lit streets, preserved almost by accident after its harbor silted up and the money moved elsewhere.
For travelers, this means you can get your fill of food, nightlife, and big-city energy in Saigon, then slow things down in Hoi An with riverfront dinners, aimless wandering, and a little spa time. Then if you want to get into full vacation mode, Da Nang is just up the coast, with miles of beach and a long lineup of luxury resorts at rates that can rival what you’d pay for the dingiest beach-town motel back home.
- When to Visit
- December through April, avoiding the intense heat of the summer months, with February and later being the dry season for Hoi An
- Price Level
- Cheap even by Southeast Asia standards, with prices that are ~80% lower than the U.S. One of the cheapest places in the world to enjoy genuinely upscale dining, shopping and the arts.
- Language Barrier
- English is common enough at hotels, restaurants, attractions, and tourism-focused businesses to make it surprisingly easy to get around
At a glance
Why Go
- Exceptional value: One of the cheapest places in the world to enjoy premium dining, resorts, wellness treatments and the arts.
- Good balance: Saigon brings big-city energy, while Hoi An offers a slower, atmospheric historic center.
- Treat yourself: Affordable prices and an endless array of competitive options makes it easy to indulge in food, nightlife, cafés, tailoring. When even that becomes tiring, there's always the luxury beach resorts around Da Nang.
Drawbacks
- Heat, humidity, and traffic: Saigon can feel hot, crowded, and chaotic, especially if you're visiting during the wrong time of the year and not used to navigating streets packed with motorbikes.
- The beaches are good, not spectacular: Da Nang has long, attractive beaches, but don't expect the crystal-clear water, snorkeling, or marine life you'll find in the best parts of Thailand or Indonesia.
- Hoi An can feel touristy: The old town is beautiful and authentically historic, but given its modest size and popularity, it is very much oriented around tourism.
The Summary
Vietnam is a long, narrow country stretched along the coast, with Hanoi in the north and Saigon in the south. Roughly in the middle sits Hoi An, a picturesque riverside town near the beach resorts of Da Nang, with historic merchant houses, narrow streets, and weathered old buildings that echo its long-lost past as a major trading center on the South China Sea.
Hoi An is popular for its unusually well-preserved, lantern-lit old town, a legacy of the days when wealthy merchants built handsome homes, warehouses, and temples along the narrow streets that line the river. Today, much of the neighborhood has been restored, cleaned up, and reoriented around visitors, but it still manages to feel relaxed and quiet, especially in the evenings.
Given Vietnam's mountainous terrain, getting there usually involves a short, easy internal flight: arriving into nearby Da Nang, and grabbing a taxi for the <1 hour ride into town.
Officially, Saigon is Ho Chi Minh City—one of the more visible legacies of the Vietnam War—but in everyday conversation, the shorter, easier old name never really went away. While sprawling, the city’s main attractions are conveniently concentrated around the center, around District 1. The former Presidential Palace gives a glimpse into the fall of Saigon and the broader conflict from the Vietnamese perspective. Nearby, the old Central Post Office, Notre-Dame Cathedral, colonial-era boulevards, and markets like Ben Thanh offer a glimpse of the city that was France's main outpost in the Asia Pacific.
But Saigon is mostly about discovering the modern, cosmopolitan city. Eat your way through street stalls and increasingly upscale restaurants, wander through neighborhoods packed with stylish cafés while navigating a steady flow of motorbikes, pedestrians, and honking traffic. Then find some serenity high above the city with a rooftop drink or a luxurious spa treatment while marveling at the low prices. The city is loud, crowded, and full of ambitious entrepreneurial energy, leading to an incredible abundance of choices, with restaurants, cafés, bars, shops, hotels, and spas always raising the bar to earn your business.
Street food is one of Saigon’s great pleasures, especially outside the busy downtown. Look for crusty bánh mì, fragrant bowls of phở, smoky grilled pork over broken rice, crisp bánh xèo, and ốc—snails and shellfish cooked with garlic, tamarind, chili, or coconut. With so many stalls and specialties competing for attention, a good food tour is one of the easiest ways to cut through the language barrier and endless options to find the standout options.
Best Shots
Getting There
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Getting There
~$1,000 Roundtrip or 90K miles on OneWorld carriers or 120K on Star Alliance.
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American AAdvantage
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United MileagePlus
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