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 Ha Giang motorcycle loop through the mountainous border region near China. 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 among the best things they had ever done.
This is the kind of cost-per-experience ratio that makes Vietnam remarkable. A 230 EUR budget in Norway covers approximately one and a half nights in a mid-range hotel.
Where the costs have actually risen
Hanoi's Old Quarter has gentrified noticeably. Accommodation and food in tourist-facing areas of Hoi An now command prices comparable to Southern Europe. Anything within a 200-meter radius of a major landmark has been priced accordingly.
The savvy traveler's response: stay one neighborhood back from the tourist center, eat where locals eat (identifiable by the plastic stools and absence of English-only menus), and be willing to walk 10 minutes from the main drag.
The hostel economy is real and it matters
The traveler stayed at MadMonkey in Hanoi — a party hostel near Beer Street that offers 6 EUR beds with breakfast and a built-in social ecosystem. The experience documented: arrived jet-lagged, was immediately drawn into a drag show, went on a pub crawl, made friends from Australia, America, India, and Scotland within hours. This is the hostel economy functioning exactly as designed — and it remains one of the most efficient social structures in independent travel.
For solo travelers anxious about the loneliness of traveling alone, Vietnam's hostel infrastructure is still among the best in the world at solving that problem quickly.
Practical notes for 2026
- SIM card: Buy at the airport (confirm your phone is unlocked before departure — the traveler couldn't because theirs was locked) - Grab app: Essential for fair-priced transport; anything over 320,000 VND (11 EUR) from Hanoi airport is above standard - Ha Giang loop: Book through your hostel or directly with licensed easyrider operators; prices through hostel packages are typically fair
Vietnam has not lost its budget magic. It has just redistributed it — away from the Instagram spots and toward the travelers willing to look a little further.
