The debate resurfaces on r/backpacking and r/solotravel with reliable regularity: has Vietnam lost its budget appeal? Has gentrification, post-pandemic price hikes, and influencer-driven tourism finally closed the gap between Southeast Asia's best-value country and everywhere else?
A rare, itemised cost breakdown from a 30-year-old solo traveler who completed four weeks from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City — arriving in January and finishing in February 2026 — provides some of the clearest current data available. The short answer: Vietnam is still a budget traveler's dream, but knowing how to spend matters.
The actual numbers
Here is what the traveler documented, in approximate euro figures:
- Hostel bed in Hanoi: 6 EUR/night, breakfast included - Banh mi sandwich: 1 EUR - Pho soup: 1-3 EUR - Street coffee: 1-3 EUR - Beers at a convenience store: 0.55 EUR - Beers on Beer Street: 1-2 EUR - Airport taxi (Hanoi): 8-11 EUR for a 40-minute ride - Ha Giang Loop, 4+1 days, all-inclusive easyrider: 230 EUR
For context: at 6 EUR/night for accommodation with breakfast, and street food running 1-3 EUR per meal, a disciplined traveler can move through Vietnam on well under 30 EUR per day — including the occasional splurge on activities like the legendary Ha Giang Loop.
The Ha Giang Loop: the trip within the trip
If there is one experience that defines budget travel in northern Vietnam right now, it is the motorcycle loop through the mountainous border region near . The traveler's all-inclusive easyrider version — guided, with accommodation and most meals covered over 4+1 days — came to 230 EUR total. That works out to roughly 46 EUR per day for an experience that travelers in the comments described as .
