What A Week Costs
A seven-day trip in Vietnam runs between $500 and $1,200 per person. That range is wide because it is real. Comfort level and itinerary do most of the work. Two people can take the same route and spend triple on one end.
Two weeks comes in lower than you would expect. One traveller reported a total of around $775 for a fortnight. Another account put two weeks at $600 to $650 all in. That is a complete trip, not a stripped-back one.
For a longer version of the same arithmetic, three sample 14-day itineraries have been costed out: $750 for a backpacker route, $1,800 mid-range, $4,200 for comfort. Same country, same fortnight, three different trips.
Food Is Not The Problem
Daily meals ranged from 50,000 Vietnamese dong, or about $1.90, up to 200,000 dong. In Hanoi, good food does not require going over the top of that band. Stay inside it and you eat well.
That is the part of the budget that surprises people. Accommodation and transport move the numbers. Lunch rarely does.
The massage comparison is starker still. In Hanoi there are hundreds of places to get one. The same treatment costs $40 to $80 at home. In Hanoi it is about $5. That is not a discount. That is a different category of spending.
Getting Around
Popular routes by land — Hanoi to Hue, Da Nang to Saigon — run $10 to $35. Those are the fares people actually pay for the common legs, not the extremes.
Flights are a separate line. Budget-carrier one-ways booked a few weeks ahead run $40 to $110. Bangkok to Hanoi sits at $45 to $90. Singapore to Bali is $50 to $110. Then add $15 to $30 per flight for baggage and seat add-ons. The add-ons are where the cheap fare stops being cheap. Budget for them before you book, not after.
Where The Money Goes
Daily spending midpoints in Vietnam vary by a factor of 1.5 to 2.5 across cities. That is the single most useful number here. Two cities in the same country can differ by more than double on a typical day. Picking where you spend your nights changes the total more than picking where you eat.
A month across Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is a fair plan for a solo traveller on a budget. The Vietnamese figures above give you a base. What the neighbouring countries add depends on the route and the season.
The Comparison That Matters
India was the cheapest country one traveller had hit on a long trip so far. That was including places like Vietnam. Vietnam is cheap. India is cheaper. If you have already done India, adjust your expectations upward slightly. If you have not, Vietnam will still feel inexpensive.
What The Numbers Say
A five-day trip has its own breakdown, and it does not scale down neatly from a fortnight. Short trips carry fixed costs — the flight in, the first and last night — across fewer days. The per-day figure for five days will look worse than for fourteen.
The honest summary is this. Vietnam can be done for $500 a week or $1,200 a week. Food is cheap anywhere in the country. Massages are $5. Buses and trains between the main routes are $10 to $35. The variable that decides your total is the city you sleep in, not the meal you order. The daily midpoint swings 1.5 to 2.5 times between cities. Plan around that and the rest of the budget takes care of itself.
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