Looking to go this year sometime in the fall. Should I buy my ticks asap for best price or where/when should I book my plane tick?

planning on doing alot of sightseeing and tourist stuff/attractions starting from Saigon. Is it better to go North to South or South to North. will 2 weeks be enough to see/do most of the things or should we do 3 weeks?

also, how far South or North should we go? thinking about hitting up most of the major citys.

you guys got any websites or books to recommend so we can plan on what/where to do/eat/see/stay?

got 9+ months to plan for this trip gonna be fucken epic hopefully lol

Do your homework before you allow a hotel to keep your passport. Most of them wont, a photo copy is enough. Unless its a 1/2 star then they might but again check where your staying by looking at Tripadvisor and see what people say. Avoid if complaints of issues when checking out and holding passport.

thanks for the tip! will def try and link up with you once Im over there :) where abouts are you currently residing?

In HCMC at the moment. Been in Vietnam for 8 years.

Hey Scottsman, whats your opinion on the exchanging to vnd.

Do you think it's better to get USD then exchange at jellewry/gold stores in Vietnam or just exchange here.

1 CDN to VND is about 13,888 VND here.

I also read about counterfeit VND... hmmm

just exchange cad in vn,
the gold and jewelry stores just use the google exchange rate anyways.
ask what their rate is before you give them money- sometimes they have a sign but usually they just google the rate and punch in the calculator

When I came back to Canada I changed everything directly from VND to CAD because I compare the value of VND against USD. So had I changed to USD then CAD it would not have made a difference.

I would think that the gold/Jewelry shops use the Vietcom Bank figures for exchanging money. Ngân hàng th??ng m?i c? ph?n Ngo?i th??ng Vi?t Nam - Vietcombank
Check the rates on here and see what works for you.

Not sure how they value of CAD against USD is affecting its value in Vietnam but we generally trade USD upwards of 22,000vnd now.

I think I also poster before about a popular place to change money in the heart of HCMC on Dong Khoi street, across from Sheraton. A lot of different people use this place, or can try a gold store and see if you get any better but in the end unless you are changing at least a few grand then the savings will be small.

I wouldnt't change too much CAN to VND b/c if you have leftover you have to exchange back (losing money by exchanging twice). I liked the idea of changing from CAN to USD first so I could just change whatever I needed at certain times to VND and keep the leftover USD for shopping trips to Trader Joes lol. This way you are just losing the currency commission once. And seeing how the CAN dollar is probably going to drop even more, having USD would be win-win.

Buy plane tickets ASAP. Will be cheaper this way. I got mine for $1000 CAN roundtrip to give you an idea.

I went for 3 weeks and I would have liked to stay another week. I went from North to South (Hanoi, Danang, Hoian, Nga Trang, Dalat, Ho Chi Minh, Phu Quoc)

Lonely Planet was the best money spend on our trip.

lonely planet as in the tour guide books or??

I plan to meet some friends in Saigon then gotta figure out if I wanna go North to south or vice versa.

I was wondering the same thing. Lonelyplanet for?

When I backpacked in SE Asia, I used the Lonely Planet shoestring guide.

I found it super helpful with; booking day tours, transportation, accommodation, tourist traps, and local customs.

Southeast Asia on a Shoestring travel guide book - Lonely Planet Shop

As good as this was, there's no replacement for having a local show you around though.

This is the one I brought:

Lonely Planet Vietnam 12th Ed.: 12nd Edition: Lonely Planet, Iain Stewart, Brett Atkinson: 9781742205823: Books - Amazon.ca

should I just buy my ticket now at a travel agency? or online better? if online where should I grab it from?

thanks for the tip!

Im gonna wait till the 13th edition to come out which is Aug 16.2016 since my trip isnt till October :D

Im also gonna wait till a updated version of this comes out to grab it lol

I don't find the travel website very helpful when I was booking flights. I used Skyscanner a bit in terms of getting alerts but would then go directly through the company website and then book through them.

If you go the US route with say United Airlines then there is a lot of stops (YVR - LAX/SFO - HKG - SGN). Cathay and other Asian based airlines usually only have one stop (YVR - HKG - SGN). I chose China Airilnes the last time I flew because of the awesome layover they had in Taiwan and the departure/arrival times. I departed from HCMC at 5pm, landed YVR at 8pm. Departed YVR at 2am, landed HCMC in the morning.

My layover was less than an hour both ways and consisted of me walking to the gate and boarding almost immediately.

Welp, going through what I want to see/accomplish and my limited Vacation time, I regret this flight deal. I got a great deal but the layover, 5hrs in Beijing both ways is killer.

Anything to do at the Beijing airport?

Anyways, I plan one night in Saigon, fly out to Hanoi, take train to Sapa, stay in Sapa for 2 nights/3days, then back to Hanoi for a night or two. I'm not sure if I should keep rushing and check out Hoi An or just stay in Hanoi, then back to Saigon for a night, then flight leaves early morning next day (2am).

A lot of travelling...If I could do it over again. I'd pay extra for no layover/less than 1 hour. And fly into Hanoi instead of SGN.

Any insight/thoughts/criticisms?

Depends on what your interested in seeing. Everyone I know that travels to Vietnam always wishes they had more time regardless of how much or little they have seen.

Been most places in Vietnam but not Sapa yet, with that said seems like you are spending a lot of time in Sapa yet it is a pretty basic place. Unless that is what you are after, would suggest more time in Hoi An or Hanoi.

too bad they wont let you out of the airport. I believe u need atleast a 6hr layover to be granted a 72hr Visa

Funny enough I was reading more into this.

You can actually be exempt from the 72 hr visa if you have an international boarding / layover, just need to do some minor things and be sure you are in the right line, etc.

There's more detailed postings through various sites, but even then 5 hours doesn't give me too much time to see the Great Wall (If I do go that route).

When you factor in the lineups leaving, then traffic, I'd have an hour and a bit, then back, same process/security screening, then board.

Curious, if you had let's say 6 hours or 5, what would you do in PEK?

Plan to go this summer. How is the crime overall?

Heard there's a lot of robbery, snatching and violence.

@subordinate Dont get ur hopes up cause i was there in december and january for 8 and 9 hr layovers and i saw like 20 people with a 5-6hr layover was denied out of the airport.

Nlkko, honestly if ur not out there flaunting your brand new iphone 6 plus in front of everyone being a drunkass. Nothing will really happen to you.

Looks like im going back to Vietnam again for two weeks March 10th
:nyan:

Does anybody remember how much $$ you can have to bring into VN and out of VN to canada? was it 7K or 10K..

10k

You can bring as much as you want into Vietnam but you have to tell Canada customs if you bring more then $10k out of Canada. You can only bring $5k USD out of Vietnam.

damn, that's a lot of money to bring into Vietnam. Especially for 2 weeks.