This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Vietnam. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Vietnam we used the Vietnamese Dong. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 20,000 Dong to $1.00.

Total Spent (20 days): $1324.30

Accommodation: $327.40

We stayed in mostly small hotels and guesthouses. We stayed in one dorm room in Phong Nha.

Activities: $306.80

This included all museum entrance fees. Amazingly, it also included four day tours: Cu Chi Tunnels, My Son, kayaking in Cat Ba, and the most expensive: a cave tour in Phong Nha.

Alcohol: $6.80

We only count alcohol costs when it is not purchased with other food. However, beer is amazingly cheap in Vietnam. This price includes 6 separate instances of buying alcohol (for two).

Food: $259.61

Food is delicious and affordable in Vietnam! Many of our accommodations also included free breakfast!

Miscellaneous: $47.98

This was mostly laundry and sending postcards. We also purchased new sunscreen which was a little expensive. We bought a few souvenirs which we were able to send home with Della’s parents.

Transportation: $257.72

We did quite a bit of moving around in Vietnam. This included buses, an overnight train, air flights, cabs, airport pick ups, and some bike rentals!

Visas: $118

Visas are a bit complicated for Vietnam. First you have to gain an approval letter which you must do before you arrive in the country. There are a couple of options for how to get the approval. We used a website called Hotels in Vietnam. It was a pretty, easy but somewhat expensive and time consuming process. We applied for the letter on the 14th of the month and didn’t get it electronically  until the 17th. Once you have the letter, you print it out and take it with you. When you arrive in Vietnam, you must have the letter and passport photos and you must pay another fee. Even though we did everything right, it still took close to half an hour to get the visas processed in the Saigon airport.

This divides out to $66.22/day which is under $100/day budget! Now that’s what we were hoping for in Asia! We even felt like we splurged on activities and accommodations, and we were able to remain this low, so it just goes to show that Vietnam can be an inexpensive place to travel.