Finding Great Budget Tours in Vietnam

Tourists rest at a roadside cafe

For the female solo traveler, Vietnam shouldn’t be an intimidating or scary country to travel.  Though still developing, it’s no longer as ‘off-the-beaten path’ as one might like to romanticize; and while large, Vietnam strives to make transportation easy and cheap for the tourist. For every main attraction, you can bet there’s probably a budget tour for it, as tour operators are everywhere, vying for your business and ready to aid your travel needs.

Tours however, are not for everyone. Some travelers prefer for a more personal and off-off-road experience to Vietnam (if that still exists) and choose to go it alone. For everyone else, including the budget backpacker one day (+) budget tour operations are ultra-seductive, with jaw-dropping low prices, all-inclusive packages and the promise of a local tour guide, that can field questions and lay insight into the Vietnamese culture. Sometimes it even comes out cheaper than if you were to plan it yourself! And believe me, I tried.

(Above) Room accommodations in a new hotel and guide, plus more… for a
two-day/one night tour to the Mekong Delta. Cost? $19 USD.

As I’ve said before, I don’t usually think of myself as a “tour” type of personality. I like to get lost in a place and discover it on my own. But after Vietnam, I’m slowly becoming convinced that some budget tours are time and cost efficient options to travel. It takes the stress and guess-work out of haggling prices, researching transportation and the history behind what you’re seeing, and for me, it’s churned out spacious AC buses and better accommodations than what I found on my own! Tours in Vietnam have the potential to be like that.

8 Tips to Finding a Tour:

• You can book your tour or bus tickets when you get to Vietnam.
It’s very easy, quick and you’ll have a variety to choose from. Go to the Old Quarters in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh– there will be signs, pamphlets, wall-to-wall tour operators at your disposal, all offering tours with scanty prices. The prices run cheaper than what you’ll find online and you can find tours with little to no single supplement mark-up. Tours prices start from $7. I took tours from both,  Sinh Tourist (the real Sinh Cafe) & Delta Adventures, who offered well-serviced tours at great prices (*they happened to be Lonely Planet recommendations as well)

• Shop around
Never take the first offer. Believe me, you’ll feel sick when you see that tour cost cut in half at the agency down the block!

• Your hotel or hostel can also act as your tour agent.
Here’s an added perk for solo travelers staying at hostels (vs. a hotel)- hostels usually understand the budgets of their backpacking clientele and they also know of open group tours (which can take the load off of soloists and a single supplement costs). Both hostels and hotels receive a kickback from your booking and while you’re not obligated to book through them, they have their staid network of tour partners to work with.

My hostel in Ho Chi Minh City booked me a great $19 two-day tour of the Mekong Delta through Delta Adventures (picture above). The tour operator, though mentioned by Lonely Planet, had garnered some negative reviews in the recent past, so I was initially reluctant to try it; my hostel assured me they were very good. They were right. What did I get? An English-speaking guide, a 3 star hotel accommodation, 3 cities, 3 types of boat rides down the Mekong Delta, a floating market, an afternoon bike tour and a visit to a rice paper and coconut candy factory.

Woman making rice paper

• Hold realistic expectations; never assume.
“You get what you pay for“is the saying, but paying more for your tour, doesn’t guarantee you a better experience. Alternately, you’re not necessarily doomed as a sardine squeezed into a mini-van bus or shabby accommodations if you’ve booked a cheap tour, either. Do be aware these are existing possibilities, though.

I took a couple of shared tours, where I was sold a tour package at a cheaper rate than travelers, who booked through their hotel or through another agent. Spacious tourist buses and our tour itinerary and accommodations were… the same!

•  Shop for an agency you can trust.
The term “reputable” can sometimes feel relative. Be smart and sensible about what you’re being sold and definitely ask questions. Any tour agency or hotel/hostel is hit or miss, can offer bad customer service or good, a detailed itinerary or an air-written one. Your instinct should alarm you as to what feels shady or not quite right. Lonely Planet espouses a few good agencies to try but none of them are perfect. If something doesn’t look or feel right, it’s probably not.

•  Be street smart; don’t trust appearances.
Be well-warned, for every reputable agency there’s a swarm of mock companies disguised with the same name and logo hoping to lure unsuspecting customers away. Take for example, Sinh Tourist Cafe (Hanoi branch). Located on the same street, there existed at least 4-6 agencies touting the Sinh Cafe sign. Two of them are actually located next to each other and across of the real Sinh Cafe!

(above) Outside the Sinh Tourist, Hanoi (the real Sinh Cafe);
(below) Inside Sinh Tourist, HCMC

• Open bus tour tickets are your friend.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use this when I was there but for those traveling Vietnam through point-to-point surface travel, this sounds like a reliably cheap and easy method. Pay the fee (something like $30) and you’ve got  hop-on, hop-off travel to all cities on its route!

• Pay attention to your belongings .
Being on a tour doesn’t make a solo traveler theft-proof. In some ways, being on a tour makes you an obvious target as you’re in a herd of sheep who’ve let their guards down, amongst passing wolves. Be advised in Vietnam, theft is a big problem in touristy areas.

During my stay in Vietnam, I crossed five incidents where fellow travelers experienced theft. Marino, a young Japanese expat living in New Zealand, was traveling alone and nursing wounds from having she’d had money stolen from her that very day. She was buying a drink at a tourist site and was tended to by three saleswomen. She put her video camera in her bag to pay for her drink. Next thing she knew, her camera was gone along with the three saleswomen!

Marino explains to the tour guide what happens,
as a few fellow travelers help halt the tour to help her resolve the theft.

In such cases, as a solo traveler, it is important to report the crime to your tour guide and garner the support of your tour group. Most solo travelers (especially female) tend to worry about holding the tour group back and will dismiss the crime, feeling shame and embarrassment in its place. This isn’t necessary. Most travelers in tour groups, I find, tend to act like surrogate travel families, banding together if one of their pack is harmed. Marino had five of us to defend her case to an indifferent tour guide; and it raised noise and enough of a hold up, that a call to the management office of that tourist site, immediately produced a video camera that was put in “Lost and Found“.