7 Things I wish I knew before visiting Vietnam 🇻🇳

Vietnam travel tips I wish I knew before travelling there for 1 month. We spent 29 days travelling across Vietnam as a couple — from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to the Ha Giang Loop — and even though we loved this trip, there are a few things we would definitely do differently next time. This video is not a generic list of Vietnam tips like “download Grab” or “try street food.” These are the real lessons we learned from our own trip: when to visit different regions, how much to plan, scooter rentals, accommodation value, activities that add up, food reviews, packing, bargaining, visas, and useful apps. If you are planning your first Vietnam trip, I hope this helps you avoid some of the mistakes we made and plan a trip that feels more realistic, flexible, and enjoyable. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Things I wish I knew before Vietnam 0:28 Plan by season, not just famous places 1:18 Don’t overpack your route 1:52 Learn to ride a scooter before you go 2:46 Vietnam is cheap, but experiences add up 3:49 Cheap accommodation isn’t always good value 4:30 Trust local places over perfect reviews 5:16 Pack less and learn to bargain 5:56 Quick tips: visa, apps & planning 6:34 Final thoughts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏨 WHERE WE STAYED IN VIETNAM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Quick value-for-money notes from our trip. These are not luxury ratings — they are based on what we felt we got for the price. 4/5 = decent value for the money 5/5 = great value / worth paying a little more → Huong Siu Homestay, Mu Cang Chai — 4/5 Simple stay, decent value for the area. https://maps.app.goo.gl/NHeGp85ZUKssy... → Sapa Central House, Sapa — 3/5 Location and room were okay, but there was a sewer smell, so I personally wouldn’t stay here again. https://maps.app.goo.gl/nP41w3gf4uH9c... → Domik Homestay, Cat Ba — 4/5 Good value stay in Cat Ba. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q8fwre4jg3FU9... → Phong Nha Homestay, Phong Nha — 4/5 Good value and a lovely mountain view from the balcony. https://www.agoda.com/phong-nha-homes... → Kha Hostel, Hue — 4/5 Good value, and renting a motorbike from them for the day was very convenient. https://maps.app.goo.gl/amrWiDxtRQYMM... → Hoian Royal Villa, Hoi An — 3/5 Okay for the price, but not one of our favourite stays. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q6zF2V3p2irBz... → The Sandy Toes, Da Nang — 5/5 A bit higher than our usual budget, but great value for a nicer condo-style stay. We were 3 people here. https://maps.app.goo.gl/asjCG4Rowjhwa... → Bich Duyen Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City — 4/5 Good value overall, but keep in mind we had to climb to the 5th floor with no elevator. https://maps.app.goo.gl/aySJJvdifhte9... → Vieille Maison de Ma Lé, Ha Giang Loop — 4/5 Good value stay on the Ha Giang Loop. https://maps.app.goo.gl/LA4dsuiFmt5sn... → Phương Anh Hotel, Meo Vac — 5/5 Very clean, quite new, and one of the best value hotels we stayed in during our Vietnam trip. https://maps.app.goo.gl/HhU4GHRaR35km... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 WATCH NEXT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → How Much Vietnam REALLY Costs in 2026:    • How Much Vietnam REALLY Costs in 2026 🇻🇳 2...   → Ha Giang Loop Without a Motorbike Licence:    • Ha Giang Loop Without a Motorbike Licence ...   → We Rode the Ha Giang Loop on a Small Budget Bike:    • Can a 100cc Bike Survive the Ha Giang Loop?   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🚌 BOOK TRANSPORT IN VIETNAM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → 12Go Asia: https://12go.asia/en/travel/hanoi/ha-... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛡️ TRAVEL INSURANCE I USE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → SafetyWing: https://safetywing.com/?referenceID=2... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☕ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → BuyMeACoffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/aleksandraon... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📍 PLACES MENTIONED / SHOWN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → Ho Chi Minh City → Mekong Delta → Da Nang → Hoi An → Hue → Phong Nha → Ninh Binh → Cat Ba / Lan Ha Bay → Sapa → Mu Cang Chai → Hanoi → Ha Giang Loop ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱 USEFUL APPS FOR VIETNAM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ → Google Translate — download Vietnamese offline → Grab — city transport → 12Go — buses, trains and transfers → Agoda — accommodation → GetYourGuide — tour ideas and price comparison ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Some links in this description are affiliate links — I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you book through them. I only recommend things I have personally used or genuinely believe in. Subscribe for honest travel budgets, realistic travel guides, and slow backpacking moments from around the world. Thank you for being here 🤍 #VietnamTravel #VietnamTips #TravelVlog