Asia Unseen · 21 October 2026
One month in Vietnam: the budget broken down, line by line
A credible budget is not a daily figure — it is a breakdown. Here are thirty days line by line, and the three items that forecasts miss every time.
Most budgets published online stop at a figure per day. It is the least useful number there is: it does not say where the money goes, so it does not say what to change.
What follows is the full breakdown of a month in Vietnam in modest comfort — private rooms at 15 to 25 €, meals mostly from the street and from local restaurants, overland transport plus two internal flights, a handful of paid activities.
A note on currency. These are amounts actually spent, recorded in euros. Convert at the rate of the day rather than trusting a figure that was converted once and then aged.
The total
About 1,640 € on the ground for thirty days, or 54.70 € a day. Excluding the international flight and excluding insurance.
A forecast built on the standard ranges would have said 1,400 €. The 17 % gap is not an arithmetic error: it is the margin every travel budget needs and none includes.
The breakdown
| Item | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Accommodation (30 nights) | 585 € | 36 % |
| Food and drink | 410 € | 25 % |
| Long-distance transport | 245 € | 15 % |
| Local transport | 95 € | 6 % |
| Activities and entry fees | 210 € | 13 % |
| Other (SIM, laundry, pharmacy) | 95 € | 6 % |
The three items forecasts get wrong
Long-distance transport, by a distance. Vietnam is 1,650 km north to south, and that is the number nobody builds in. Two internal flights — Hanoi to Da Nang, Da Nang to Saigon — cost 45 to 55 € each, on top of trains and buses. A typical forecast writes down 150 €; the actual came to 245 €.
Those flights are the right call all the same: each one replaces fifteen hours of train. They simply need budgeting rather than discovering. If you would rather do at least one leg on rails, the Hanoi–Saigon train has the operator’s own fare table.
Drinks. 410 € of food and drink, a meaningful share of it coffee and beer. A banh mi costs under a euro, a pho about two — Vietnamese food is extraordinarily cheap. A coffee in a well-kept café in Hanoi costs three euros, and you drink two a day. That is where the difference lives.
Activities, concentrated in two or three lines. 210 € against the 140 € of an average forecast. The Ha Giang loop alone accounts for 150 € of it. This is the general rule: two or three large activities absorb half the leisure budget and the rest scatters into small sums. Identify those two or three in advance and leave the remainder floating.
What cost less than expected
Accommodation. 585 € for thirty nights, or 19.50 € a night — for private rooms, clean, often with breakfast. Vietnamese accommodation remains, with Laos, the best value in Asia.
What pulls that average down is booking as you go rather than in advance: four nights where you feel good, one where you do not. Which district you pick matters more than the hotel — our Hanoi guide makes the case.
Local transport. 95 € over a month using ride-hailing apps. The taxi negotiation disappears and the price you pay is the one quoted when you order.
The costs that appear in no budget
Bank charges. With a card that does not add a currency conversion fee, six withdrawals over a month cost about a dozen euros. With an ordinary high-street card — 2 to 3 % on the exchange plus 4 to 6 € per withdrawal — the same thing comes to 65 or 80 €. It is the best return available on one hour of preparation before departure.
Airport exchange counters. The rate at the counter in Hanoi’s airport is 5 to 8 % worse than in the city. On 900 € changed, that is 45 to 70 € — two hotel nights, gone in three minutes on the way out of the terminal. Getting into Hanoi from the airport has the bus fares, which you can pay in cash changed later.
The three corrections to make
Fewer stops. Eleven towns in thirty days is two too many. Every change costs half a day between packing, travelling and settling in again — and the places where you stay four nights repay more than the ones you pass through.
Book the north–south internal flight early. Bought five days out it costs 55 €; booked three weeks ahead, around 30 €. Across two flights, the difference pays for two nights.
Take the large items out of the daily budget. Ha Giang, Lan Ha bay, a site pass: three lines that account for 40 % of the activities budget. Budgeting them separately stops you believing 45 € a day will do.
The formula that works
To estimate a Vietnam budget, the rule that held up: daily budget × number of days, plus the large items identified separately, plus 15 %.
Over thirty days at a base of 45 €/day (1,350 €), plus 150 € of large items, plus 15 %, you land on 1,725 €. The actual was 1,640 €. That is an estimate you can use.
One thing that changes the length of the trip
How long you may stay is not the same for everyone: British travellers currently get 45 days visa-free, Canadians need a visa from day one. Over a thirty-day plan, that difference is the whole question. The Vietnam page gives the rule for your passport, with its source and the month it was read.
Common questions
How much does a month in Vietnam cost?
Around 750 to 900 € on the ground travelling on a shoestring, 1,500 to 1,800 € in modest comfort, excluding the international flight. These are amounts actually spent, recorded in euros — convert at the rate of the day rather than trusting a figure that was converted once.
What is the biggest expense in Vietnam?
Accommodation, at roughly 36 % of the on-the-ground budget, as in most countries in the region. The item that surprises people is long-distance transport: on a north-to-south route, the long legs and the internal flights easily come to 15 % of the total.
Can you travel Vietnam on 25 € a day?
Yes, without going without: a dorm or a simple guesthouse, street food, local buses, one paid activity a week. It is a common way to travel Vietnam and it gives access to most of what makes the country interesting. What it costs is not comfort — it is time.
How far apart are the ends of Vietnam?
About 1,650 km north to south, which is the number nobody builds into a budget. It is why two internal flights, at 45 to 55 € each, usually make more sense than the equivalent thirty hours of train — and why they need to be budgeted rather than discovered.
Sources
Rules and prices change without notice. Confirm at the official source before you book — that is the only thing that counts.